Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

All right, we'll get uh this working session uh started here at 5:31 and turn to a clerk for a roll call. Commissioner Beman, present. Commissioner Hajj here. Commissioner Labar here. Commissioner Light. Commissioner Machi here. Commissioner Robbie, Commissioner Sanders, Commissioner Scott, Commissioner Somerville here.

Thank you. Move now to public participation. At the working session, you have uh one minute for public participation to provide comment. You have three minutes at the meeting uh directly after this, which is the uh the full board meeting. Is anyone here who wishes to give public comment in person?

No. Okay, cool. All right. My name is Cameron Donald um CEO of Breco. Uh I just here today just to say thank you guys in support of sponsoring the documentary um the road home. And uh so thank you to county and Greg Dylan commissioners. I don't know how it all worked back there. So I'm just thanking you all. Um but this journey is this documentary is definitely important for the work that we're trying to do. It's more than just entertainment. Um, we want to be able to bring the whole county together to address these issues. And that was the whole goal, not just the county as a government, but the different partners within it from foundations and companies because now is the time to do something different. um to really I I hope that I know that you guys been working behind the scenes, but I hope that you know with this documentary and from what you guys been doing of recent, we look back at this time a year later or two later like this when a turning point happened in our county and in people lives. Um you guys, you know, we were talking about the system, you know, we talking about our pain points, but you guys were appointed and voted on because the special skills that you have beyond the system that can think through problems and to help address u these issues and come up up with better solutions. So, thank you once again. I hope for us to partner later on down the road because it's going to be more community engagement stuff afterwards. So, just thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Kim. and thank you for accommodating the expedited comment time there. Uh, anyone else who wishes to give public comment at this time. Okay, Tabitha, I'll go to you to see if there's anybody uh online via the internet. Yes, chair. We have Andrew Helenoff. All right, Diego. Andrew, you should be ready to talk.

Good evening, board. Uh, my name is Andrew Helena. I am the city manager of the city of Ipsellani. Um, first I'd like to thank uh Administrator Dill and Mr. Doo coming to the city and discussing the animal control plans with me. Um, I would just implore the the commission to think about what this could do to smaller communities, smaller communities with a concentration of poverty. Uh, the city of Ipsellani not a large city and about a third of it is taxexempt. Uh so I just would encourage the board when discussing this to think about the equity of the city and the communities that you know don't don't have a lot to work with. So every every little bit counts um you know it's around $80,000 that's almost an FTE. So I would just encourage the board to think about that during its discussion in ultimate vote. Thank you, Tabitha. Anyone else online?

No one else, chair. Great. Um, we will uh remove will uh move to the uh report for the county administrator. No report. And any report from the director of board operations? No report. Chair.

Great. Uh colleagues, if you'll indulge me, we have a wonderful uh employee who is uh wrapping up her time here with the county and we wanted to take a minute uh to thank her and to highlight her um and not to have her family wait uh likely hours uh to to to wait to our full board meeting. Tabitha or Andrew or Brady, I want to turn it over to you to um lead us through however we want to appreciate Tina and her leadership here. And I'll I'll turn it over to you, Andrew.

Yeah, thank you very much, chair. Uh good evening, board. Uh good evening, public. It's an honor uh to be able to to open this up and and chair. Thank you for uh making the time. Certainly Tina has has put in her hours at board meetings in the past and so certainly appreciate this courtesy. Um Tina is exemplary u of the county's workforce uh both as a person and also the the quality of the workforce that you all oversee. Um she's been CFO now and has been a faithful steward for your priorities for the interests of the public and for making sure that your rules and the rules of the state are followed with regards to how the resources of the organization are used. Um she's been a tremendous mentor uh and and resource for me in my role and I if Greg were here this evening I know would say the same um as as well would many of Tina's peers and colleagues and and predecessors throughout the organization. Um so it's with a heavy heart that we bid Tina farewell but we're certainly very happy for her in this next phase of her life and are grateful for the her career that she's spent with county. Um so I think with that I I believe we have a resolution prepared. Uh, thank you. And we're looking to lovely. My apologies, chair. No, no problem. Okay, I have Thank you, Tabitha. Yeah. Well, me too. Me, too. Um, and we'll do a photo with everybody at the end of this. So, Tina, I' I'd like to read this off and I'll I'll do my best just to read through it. Um, but it's a resolution honoring Tina Gavalier upon her retirement and celebrating her distinguished service to

county, May 6, 2026. Whereas on April 1992, Tina Gavier began her career in public service with county and the district court probation division, dedicating five years to supporting the administration of justice. And whereas Tina went on to serve the residents of county for an additional 29 years within the county's finance department, building an exceptional career defined by fiscal stewardship, professionalism, and a deep commitment to public service. And whereas during her tenure, Tina also contributed her expertise to the county's human resources function, supporting classification and compensation efforts and demonstrating a broad understanding of organizational operations. And whereas Tina's professional achievements included earning certification as a certified plan sponsored professional through the plan sponsor Council of America, attaining level three, the highest accreditation through the Michigan Association of Public Employee Retirement Systems, and serving for more than 15 years as a trustee on both the county employees retirement system and Viva Boards. And whereas as chief financial officer, Tina provided exceptional leadership in strengthening the county's financial health and long-term stability, most notably through her leadership in implementing the county's four-year budget process, a transformative advancement that enhanced strategic planning and fiscal sustainability. And whereas Tina's leadership and sound financial management were instrumental in achieving and maintaining county's AAA bond rating, reflecting the highest level of fiscal responsibility, trust, and confidence. And whereas throughout her career, Tina has been guided by an unwavering commitment to integrity, honesty, and transparency, consistently upholding the highest standards of the professional code of ethics and earning the respect and trust of colleagues, elected officials, and community stakeholders. And whereas beyond her professional accomplishments, Tina is a devoted wife, a loving mother of two, a proud dog owner who looks forward to traveling the world in retirement with her husband, family, and trusted

companion Cheyenne. And whereas Tina Gavier's legacy will endure through the strong financial foundation she helped build, the system she improved, and the culture of ethical leadership she modeled for generations of public servants to follow. Now therefore, be it resolved that the county board of commissioners hereby honors Tina Gavier for outstanding service, leadership, and dedication to the residents of county and extends its deepest gratitude and best wishes for fulfilling and well-deserved retirement. 344 years is a long time. 89% of my adult life. If I didn't get numbers in there, you guys would all be disappointed.

But my husband argues about the calculation. Just watch. He says 95% of my life. It has been a privilege to serve and I am honored and proud to have helped continue and uphold the county's legacy of financial ex excellence. None of this would have been possible without the dedication, talent, and strong compliance focus of our finance team. Thank you to my family, friends. I have a circle of friends that all have worked here or have retired from the county that I cherish um with unwavering support. Thank you as well to administrator Dill, Deputy County Administrator Doo, Commissioners, Executive Leadership Team, and the finance team and colleagues across the county. I leave here having had a truly rewarding career in the best county with exceptional leader leadership and a policy board that sets the standard nationwide. I appreciate um my long career here. Thank you very much.

Yes.

Yes. Uh thank you colleagues and and everyone for uh accommodating Tina. Um we we will have uh other opportunities for comments and so forth which I know folks will have. Uh but we'll get going with the work in session here now. Um Andrew, I'm going to turn it over to you. We are fortunate tonight to have uh Jonathan Trevan, the CFO from the Humane Society of Heron Valley, along with Scott Tetro, the treasurer, and Eric Wright, the uh cruelty and rescue manager. And appreciate their being here tonight for this discussion on animal control and appreciate the work you've done. I'll turn it over to you and we'll go from there. Thank you, chair. Good evening again, uh, commissioners. Um, excited to be here tonight to talk to you about animal control. Uh, I'll I'll say I think a big interest of ours from administration is being able to do some proactive planning. I'll be able to talk about a lot about how animal control works inside of the county, not just uh, or exclusively the humane society portion, but the other other parts of that as well. Uh, in anticipation of a decision in the coming year. uh the con the current contract that we have with the Humane Society right now expires at the end of 2027 and a lot of our interest in in being here tonight is to do some proactive work and try and avoid um I think a lot of the more challenging uh budget discussions where this has has come up in the past and so feel like we've got a good thing going on here uh but it's not without its complications and that there's a role for the board uh really in terms of helping us understand the cost versus the service levels for the public. So I I hope that's uh what you help to understand through the presentation tonight. I've got a lot to cover uh and so we'll be moving quick uh chair in anticipation of your common question. Um my my ask would be that if there's questions about something you're seeing on the slide to interrupt me so I can explain it. But if it's maybe bigger picture questions in terms of how how the system works, perhaps hold those until the end and I'm hopeful that I have been able to anticipate a lot of those just based on what we've heard so far.

Does that work? That that's excellent. We'll try not to screw you up, Andrew.

No, you won't. Uh wish me luck on that same point. Um I will just say uh and and thank you to my colleagues. Uh you'll note uh in the presentation tonight a lot of photos of animals and I would ask you to pay attention to those. Uh those those come from uh many of the people in the room tonight. Um and I will just say that depending on where we get to with time uh there's a bit of a pop quiz at the end. So I I wouldn't want to ask you to go over uh but if we have some time and after discussion's been done uh we might reference some of that work. Um uh so we uh in addition to the the individuals from the Humane Society, we're also joined by Treasurer Sharp this evening. I want to thank Treasurer Sharp uh as well as colleagues at the sheriff's office and the prosecutor's office. Again, this this really touches a lot of the organization. Uh and so talking with Treasurer Sharp about the role of her office and some of her interests in this program, talking with the sheriff about how animal control uh influences the work of deputies out in the world is is been part of uh what has been done before tonight and I think is something that will need consideration in terms of where the discussion goes. We moving. Oh, there we go. All right. Uh so just a little bit uh orientation in terms of what I'm going to be covering. Um again going to move quickly. Uh but for the agenda want to do just a bit of a summary and tell you what I'm going to tell you uh in the hopes that it sticks. Want to talk a lot about services. Uh want to talk about our mandate. Uh we spent a lot of time kind of reviewing that last year and feel like that's a foundational level but certainly not the extent of the county's interest in animal control. Want to talk about different roles and responsibilities inside of that system. We've got a lot of data. Uh it's it will probably be pretty dense. Um, and I what I would say on the data is if there's stuff you want to know about performance that you don't see tonight, let us know and and there's a good chance that we'll be able to put it together. Uh, I want to spend a lot of time on money uh both talking about the HSHV contract uh but other parts of where the county invests money into this system. Um, and then to the public comment that was raised. Do

want to speak to some of the efforts that we've done since the since we have entered this contract to increase revenues to help support this. uh and and we'll speak uh specifically to to the comments that were made. Um have some benchmarking we want to do both in terms of how other counties do this work surrounding counties to give you a sense of some other options that are out there as well as some other options that we have investigated internally in response to the financial concerns and then just want to leave you with with some brief options uh for for discussion. And what I'm really hoping to hear from all of you is how you see this problem and and how you see the county balancing the needs of the public and the service uh versus the the money that we're spending uh spending to provide these services. Uh so uh just briefly purpose of the presentation a lot of education uh there's a lot out there uh you know what I'm going to cover so I'm going to spend a lot of time on that. Um, but again, really want to focus on helping the county and helping the others involved in the system understand where we're going in anticipation of some sort of contract renewal at the end of next year. Um, and thinking that whatever the decision or direction is, there's a lot of other implications that it will have for people who are not in this room tonight that we really want to take into account. And so that that's the interest in terms of talking about that right now. Um, so my summary for you, uh, and and I hope that you take this away as I work through this. Uh we've got a complex but effective system of animal control inside of the county. Uh in my experience and and what I've checked with others, like we we don't have concerns in terms of how animal control is happening. Um really we've got a money problem. Um and so it's that money problem that that has really been the focus of this I think every time. And we know Katherine is going to talk about the budget projections and where we are and we know that's going to be an issue in there and we continue to try uh to have that be less of a a thing when it comes up. But we know it's it's a still a problem that we have not yet solved. But we are interested in solving. Um the the third box on here I do really want to highlight and and I'll share some information on this later. But I think in the short run the county would be unable to recreate what we are getting

through HSHV uh if those funds were spent inhouse. Uh and and we do have some scenarios there in terms of how we would be able to spend that money if we were to do some of this in a different mechanism. Um but but think that you know that's that's a thing that we really want to reiterate. Um, and then there are options though, and I I don't want to leave you all feeling like that there's nothing that can be done on this, but those are hard options and and they're really worth thinking through before the decision is needed. Um, so to the mandates then. Um, uh, just a few few level setting things there. There's a few different reasons that we do this. Mandates are a part of that. The mandates are important. uh you all went through this whole uh resource management exercise last year and really asked and and challenged us to to talk about why we do different programs, right? And if it's a mandate or if it's a best practice or if it's some coming from some other place. Uh and we know the mandates around uh animal control. They're complex. They don't all exist in one nice handy place, but but we feel like we've got a pretty good handle on it. We spent a lot of time with our friends in corporation council uh both reviewing this as well as kind of reviewing the whole concept generally because it's a thing that we don't want to miss on. Um, so just a summary of those, there's a dog law of 1919. Act 287 of 1969 as well talks about how animal shelters need to operate. Uh, and then act 224 of 1969 talks about what needs to happen uh, for time limits and recordkeeping of animals held in shelters. Those are not exhaustive. Uh, if you want to get into the MCLs or more specifics, uh, we can do that later. I'm not going to spend too much time on it tonight, but do want to set that baseline. And I've got some uh some r not rationalization but putting that into plain language and what it means for county services on another side slide. Uh but the the second part of this I think and really where the county's service level comes in is the public expectations around this stuff. And I think that's where you see that the mandates uh are probably not in alignment with whatnot countyy's public and what Michigan's public expects generally. Uh three big bullet points there. I won't say that these are extensive or or exhaustive. Uh but there is a public safety aspect here. We want

to avoid harm to people or other animals or property. We want to be able to reunite lost animals with their owners or or get them home. Um and then again there's that public expectation in terms of how how animals are treated and cared for inside of the county. Uh so to the mandate uh particularly um and you will I what I want to say on this slide is that you will see this format used in subsequent versions of uh subsequent slides in the document. Um but so what animals uh per mandate we only need to be worried about dogs. Uh that is a narrower interpretation than what we currently do. Uh the only mandate we have to hold animals is for seized animals which would be a result of cruelty cases. Uh that's a pretty small portion of the animals that are involved in the animal control system. That does not include strays. Uh and we've got some more data on that later. But but that's uh our our mandate is only that small number of animals. Uh for jurisdictions that'd be any of those cruelty case involved animals from inside of county. Um for the source then those are going to be animals involved in cases that are being charged by the prosecutor's office. Uh and then for the service uh the the minimum mandate in law is that those animals are held for seven days or I'm sorry for four days or seven days if there is a license or some other proof of ownership uh that that accompanies those animals. Uh just to revisit the resource management, there are three places in that about 1300page document you got last year where animal control comes up. Uh the first is central charges in the animal control agency. Uh think of that as the contract with HSHV. That's the big part of that. Uh this also comes up though within one of the programs at the sheriff's office. We've got two animal control officers uh where this is explicitly listed. Uh but it's uh animal control doesn't only live with those two animal control officers at the sheriff's office. It it's distributed more broadly amongst the other deputies on the road.

And then in the health department, it also comes up particularly around rabies. Um if if you uh have a chance to understand why we do dog licensing, there's a requirement for rabies vaccination before the treasurer will issue the license. Uh that's to make sure that we have rabies vaccination amongst the dogs in our county. Um but so the health department uh due to the communicable disease uh tracking that they do there has an interest in uh in animal control as well. Thankfully we haven't had to worry about uh about that particular one recently but it is something that they keep track of. Uh so to the roles then uh and just a very quick overview here. Um so just uh I know this stuff so well I've been speaking extemporaneously. Um, this is a really simplified look at animal control. Uh, and and I think what I would want you to take away from this is that if you are a user of the system here, either a member of the public or or law enforcement officer, we have a system that is really convenient and designed for you. Um, we've got a single shelter in the middle, right? And right now, uh, every animal that is picked up inside of the county more or less is going to be going to HSHV. Uh, those animals are coming from the public. uh they are coming from HSHV's own animal control team as well as uh law enforcement officers across the county, primarily the sheriff's office, but not only the sheriff's office. And then at the other end of the shelter, uh we've got a really not aggressive in a good sense, I would say, in terms of trying to get animals out of the shelter as quickly as possible and either getting them back to the home that they got separated from or back to the new home. Um this is different than a lot of other counties and can speak a little bit to this, but you might have multiple shelters. If you are a an individual who has lost your dog, you might have to call, you know, uh this county shelter over here, this private shelter over here, we don't have that. We have kind of this single point of contact that makes it uh relatively simple to understand, you know, where animals are coming to and where they are going from. Um so in in terms of uh like kind of working through this from start to

finish then uh this is uh this is data based on our intakes and I'll talk a little bit more about the data that we've been collecting from HSHV since mid 2017. Um but this is about 28,000 animals uh over from mid 2017 to 2025. Uh so you'll see there that more than half of the animals that are being brought in uh to HSHV are coming from the public. uh about 33% are coming from uh HSHV staff themselves, 10% from the sheriff's office and then 3% from those other law enforcement uh agencies and those those range those include the police departments in the county, those include the public safety functions of the universities. Uh there are a couple of other animal rescues who also take animals uh to HSHV. Um but you know mostly mostly public mostly HSHV and to a much lesser degree uh the law enforcement entities who are out there. Um this is just a very broad overview of the kind of the the four services that we contract with HSHV to do. Again they are they are the shelter with whom the county contracts to do this work. Um the the template for our contract has been pretty much the same going back a couple of decades. But each time the contract does come up for renewal, we've made some pretty meaningful changes uh either at HSHV's request or the county's request to update the document and to account for changes in operations. And I'll I'll walk through some of those changes later, but these are things that I would say have been consistent through all of those iterations of the contract. Uh there's animal intake, and that's the ability uh if you are a member of the public or if you are the law enforcement uh agency to drop off the animal at HSHV. They have both daytime and then after hours uh intake processes that they're able to use. And so if you are a police officer or a sheriff's deputy overnight and pick up an animal, uh there there's a process by which you're able to leave that animal with HSHV um and not have to worry about, you know, staying on until the next shift or until they open up their hours to do that. There's animal sheltering and that's the

caring of animals uh when they are in HSHV's possession. Um there's medical care that is needed for those animals that are there. Sometimes it's routine stuff, sometimes it's more significant stuff. Um, you know, 28,000 animals over the past, you know, eight years are going to have quite a wide variety of of different sorts of animal health needs that come in and they are responsible for providing care for those animals while they're there. There's lost and found and it's reuniting lost animals with their owners. Um, it's a little bit different from the adoption and disposition services, but you know, it's trying to get animals back to where they came from, not necessarily into a new home. Uh, reporting and compliance has been a big part of it. And on this, I I just want to thank HSHV. Um, every time we've gone to them asking for more information or or more detail or having questions about what they've reported to us, they've been really open opening their books and trying to help us understand what they know and even adopting uh their reporting structure so that we're able to answer the questions that you all have or answer the questions that the public or the cities and villages and townships with whom we're trying to to work on this might have about how the services are delivered. Um, there's a lot of customer service and public accessibility in making sure that the public is able to get easy access to their dogs. And then the the really big one here for us and I think for you and and why we're here uh in entering into this contract is to assist the county in compliance with its mandates that's written into the contract um just as a a core thing that this contract needs to do for for Washington County. Uh there are a few notable pres provisions. Um and these these were in the last version uh of the contract that this board approved in 20 late 2023. Um but but these I think have kind of a a big outsiz impact on our our current situation. Uh right now county is the lead entity. Uh and that came out of some discussions in 2017. Um and prior to that the county only contracted with HSHV for our own services and there were several other municipalities inside of the county that had separate contracts with HSHV. Uh the county was requested to become the lead entity. Uh and in

that um took on the the responsibility of collecting revenues from those uh cities and vill the the four cities and townships at that time uh and then having the single source with HSHV. I'll talk a little bit more about this. Um, we also right now have a relatively new uh financial model uh that is based on full cost recovery for the Humane Society for the services provided and uh rendering the services associated with the county's contract. Um, I'll talk a little bit more about how that model comes up and and all the math that goes into it. Um, but that that's a new item as well. If you go back maybe 10 years or so, it is just kind of a fixed price negotiated uh and then that was what the county paid rather than this cost recovery model. Um we do have a lot of uh data that goes into that though. Uh and I think that's also another important new new thing to to note. Um we we do a lot of differentiation between uh the type of the animal uh how why it is being brought in and then the days of the care. Those are the the primary metrics that we use on the cost calculation. Um but there's again a lot of other data as well. Um, and then just the last one, this is not a new provision, um, but is there is language in there talking about if HSHV is full and is unable to take additional animals, uh, that they have the ability to say, "Hey, we're not going to take this." That's a thing that happens rarely. It did happen a couple years ago, uh, we've taken efforts to mitigate that when it occurs. I think it it's not a situation that anybody wants, but when it does occur, it's really a big deal because it jams up everybody in terms of services. It jams up people out on the street. Um, and so it's really a thing that we want to avoid. uh other county involvement uh and here this is not going to do all this stuff justice uh but in terms of trying to keep it to a reasonable discussion tonight um spoke about the role of the prosecuting attorney and case animals uh the requirement there uh and and this is another thing that we focus on with HSHV but is that if there's animals who are involved either because the animals were hurt or because um yeah primarily

because the animals were hurt or there was a suspicion of the animals being hurt uh the county has got an obligation to hold that until either the the owner no longer claims ownership or until the case is resolved. So, those tend to be like a relatively small number, but a long long time to to get resolved and can lead to really long sheltering periods. Uh the treasure, as I spoke to earlier, thank you again for coming, uh is working on dog licensing. We've had some really exciting uh discussions there. I think in terms of her interest of increasing the lensure rate, I think there's a lot of opportunity. Um, my sense is that a lot of people have dogs and love dogs, uh, and that we could do more licensing, uh, if more people knew about it and if we made it easier for people to do that. So, I think the treasur is working on that and we want to be a good partner and and figure out how we can also get HSHV and the other parts of the system working uh, working in alignment on that. Uh, I did speak to the treasurer. Oh, I'm I'm sorry. The other thing uh, for the treasur is she is responsible for operating the civil infraction ordinance bureau. Uh, it might be a couple years. I think maybe commissioners Labar and Robbie, you were on the board when the civil infraction ordinance was adopted. Uh, but the county has the ability to fine people for not having dog licenses. It is rarely used and I think is probably worth a thing that's worth revisiting in light of some of the the discussion about how fines are applied by the county. Uh, but it that's intended in my read to help encourage people uh to get their dogs licensed proactively rather than really being looked at as a revenue source. uh the health department and rabbi testing we talked about the board you all know this but you're the funer uh and you also have the the authority over the civil infraction ordinance there's some other things that the board's able to do under law um that uh that we'll talk about a little bit later and then administration has a role in this too uh we are the administrator of the contract with HSHV but really try and promote coordination across the organization on this line of services all right so uh back to the mandate versus services then and and this I I want to spend a little bit of time here and there might be questions but again this should look familiar. We we looked at this format earlier. Uh so just

working from left to right here the criteria are the same as you saw on the mandate slide. Uh and that county mandate uh column is also the same but then we've got two new columns. One is the county's contracted service. And that's really my attempt to try and summarize for you what we're doing right now under contract with HSV HV that's beyond the mandate. And then that far right column is HSHV service. And I'm not the the right person to speak to that, but HSHV does a lot of stuff that is more than our contract requires. And I think what I've heard uh as kind of a a fundamental question is, you know, where does the county's contracted services stop and where does HSHV's mission start? Uh so I've tried to summarize that in hopefully easily digestible formula. But I think it is a point of a point of continued discussion. Uh and that's really where I think you know going back to us having a system that is simple and easy for the public or users of the system to use. We we make a lot of work for us on the back end uh that that supports that simplicity on the front end. Um so to the county mandate again just dogs um but under our contracted services uh we are paying for sheltering for dogs and cats and other domestic animals. Um but HSHV also provides services to other animals above and beyond that and we don't pay for that. We've got mechanisms to track that and monitor that. But but again, there's that differentiation there both between our mandate, our contracted services, and HSHV services. Again, our mandate is only seized animals coming from cruelty cases. Currently, we are contracting for days of care, also for stray animals. And in addition to seizing cruelty, and stray animals are by far the the largest number of intake reasons that we've got coming in there. Um, and HSHB above above and beyond that also does uh surrendered uh animals and that's people who feel like they're no longer able to care for their animals on a permanent basis and and want to give them up so that someone else can adopt them or harbored animals. And harbored animals is the same concept but on a temporary basis. So thinking, you know, I can't take care of my cat um but I think in a

month I'll be able to take care of my cat. You know, can you take care of my cat for for a minute so that I'll be able when I get back on my feet I'll be able to get reunited with my cat again. Uh for jurisdictions, uh no difference there between our contracted services and the county mandate. Um but HSHV serves a bigger area than just county. They take animals from Wayne County, they take animals from Livingston County, from other areas. We get reporting uh on all the animals from county, but they we know that they do more than just serve county as part of their mission. Um for the sources, again, our mandate is only uh those cases that are being charged by the prosecutor's office. Uh but right now our contract provides for all public and all a agencies inside of county quite a bit broader uh than than the bare minimum that the mandate would require. Um and I would say on on HSHV I would certainly defer to you know to their program staff but I haven't you know I guess I haven't found a spot where their mission would prohibit them from from taking care of an animal more so just by what they're able to do. Um for services we've got the minimum hold period. Uh that's our our basis. Um, but under our contract, we have no limit on days of care. Uh, and so if there's an animal that goes there for one day under our contract, we will pay for that. But if there's an animal that goes there, uh, and is not able to be rehomed for a year, will pay for the the full cost of of the year's worth of sheltering. Um, and then, uh, that's that's another place where HSHV does services above and beyond just the sheltering that we're contracting with them for. And then just a few other notes. Um so the the county we've got uh currently revenue contracts and I'll talk more about this but those four jurisdictions uh city of Ann Arbor, Ipsley Township, Superior Township and Pittsfield Township. Uh and then HSHV also does some other services. Just want to note uh Love Train is something that we know that they do that we've spent a lot of time on in terms of how do we feel confident that we're not paying for love train services. Trap new to return is another line of programming that they do that is the part of their mission but is not part of the county's contracted services.

Um, and don't want to overlook this, but feel like this is really part of the simple I mean, we want to get animals out of the shelter as quickly as possible. You know, I think that's that's really the goal there is minimizing the amount of time in the shelter. Uh, there is the the lost animals with identification, the different hold periods there. I think there's a lot of effort and intention to reunite lost animals with wherever they came from. And I think uh this is a spot where HSHV is really able to take advantage of a lot of social media, their volunteer network, their their other events to utilize those to help with the placement of animals very quickly. Um and just a thing on this, you know, one of the modifications we made to our reporting this past winter was having more information for the county in terms of the outcomes of the animals specific to our contract. So we started collecting that information in January. bit too soon to have any meaningful reports on that. But if we were to revisit this next next year or so, I think we'd be able to share a little bit more information about what happened specifically to the animals under the county contract. All right. Uh, everybody good to reports? Note, another couple couple of cute animals there. Um, so I've got four reports here. Um, this is all stuff that we have built inhouse based on data that has been provided through us by HSHV. Um you all saw this in the last contract, but here's what we get from them. Uh so every month when we get the invoice, we also get a report. Um and starting in Jan July of 2017, uh we got both an intake summary by category and that's telling us like what law enforcement agencies what are kind of the big groups of stuff. And then we also got a detailed report and that was saying, hey, you got this animal. It came from this jurisdiction. It was brought in for this reason on this date. U and so we've got that going back quite a ways starting in 2023. um that the suggestion of HSHV, we started doing some additional work into those cruelty cases. Uh we have a practice right now where we get an additional report um in terms of which animals are held for cruelty cases that uh is submitted with the invoice, but then that's provided to the prosecutor's office and then they

make the determination if there's other other sorts of legal actions that they can take regarding those animals. But for our part, we want to make them aware of the animals that are are currently being held at HSHV on that topic. And then as I mentioned uh in 2026 uh we added the uh just adding detail about the outcomes of animals that are being held on on county contract days of care is kind of the big one there but also if they're getting placed or adopted or or getting rehomed that that's stuff that we want to know about this fall. All right. Uh so this first one uh and this is first of four kind of service level reports here. Uh this looks at animal intakes by year and type. Uh so going from left to right, you'll see the totals per year. Uh we don't have 2017 in here because that was just a partial year and kind of throws off the height of the columns. Um but the dark the dark blue down on the bottom are cats. The light blue in the middle are dogs. And then on top of that is other because this is all animals and not just contract animals. Other includes other domestic animals. There are fish, there are snakes, reptiles, rabbits, frets, uh but also includes wild animals or or livestock at times as well. Um, I think what I would want you to take from this is is it's pretty constant, right, over that time. We're kind of right around that 5,000 animal mark on an annual basis. Uh, we've got some slides in here a little bit later that talk about that in comparison to some other jurisdictions, but have have seen this to be pretty stable. I think the the one notable thing on here, you can see the dip in COVID and if you think back a couple years, just like all of the ability to adopt animals and emptying the shelters because people were spending so much time at home. Uh, all right. Uh this one's a little bit more complicated. Uh so my apologies on that, but I'm trying to sus out a few different things in this graph. So this is looking at the same total number of animals. Uh so 2018 on here, the total number matches the total number on 2018 on the last slide. Um but this talks about the five different uh intake types that HSHV takes in. If you're looking at a specific year, say 2018, you've got two columns there. There's a false

column and a true column. I'm sorry I couldn't get better labels on that. I'm a little bit out of my Excel practice. Uh but false means that we're not paying for it under the contract and true means that we are. Uh so what you'll see here is that all the TRS are bigger uh and it's about a 2/3 to one/ird. So most of the animals inside of are subject and and are part of the county's contract. Um on the true column, there are two reasons for this. This is uh either strays brought in by the public or stray seized and cruelty cases brought in by a law enforcement agency. So again, it's primarily strays who are being brought in. um a lot of them are the public. If you think back, 54% of the total intakes came in from the public over that time. That's that you're seeing that uh show on this slide. So, what you have in the tinier columns then are those services that HSHP provides that they report to us, but but we're not paying for under the contract. There's three types of services there. Again, there's the owner surrendered. Uh and I'm sorry the contrast is not quite as sharp as I was hoping to, but it it most of those are are owner surrendered. It's the biggest part of the bar on the bottom. Above that are sick and injured wildlife brought in by the public. Again, not a contracted service, but that's the next biggest portion. And then the tiny little sliver on top, the dark green, uh is animal harbored. And so you just look at the at the trends here. Again, you saw the the total uh this total numbers per year, but you see that same dip uh with COVID, but you also see an increase uh in terms of owners surrendered uh in the early stages of CO as well. But I think that the takeaway from here again, we've got great data. we're we're getting the stuff we need to know in terms of the size and capacity of the system and have a relatively stable system over time. Uh thanks to Chelsea Rosk for this and then the next slide as well. I wanted to do a show in terms of where animals are coming from inside of the county. Um the the quick thing I'd point out here is, you know, the bigger the circle, the more animals that are coming from there. And bigger circles tend to overlap with areas of population density inside of the county. And so there's I I don't have a number for you. I'm out of depth

of my statistics, but I think you know at least a visual correlation in terms of where people live and where where we're having animal services provided. Um so some other things here, uh if if you look at the breakdown of that pie chart, uh this is for all animals inside of the county. So cats are the yellow portion, uh dogs are the blue portion, and then other here is the red portion. So it does vary quite a bit. Uh most places cats are the predominant animal. Um but Ann Arbor Township if you look look up there you see a lot of red uh which is going to be other domestics and and wilds on this chart. Um and again you know the the number uh the number of animals moles is more or less uh correlated with the size of the population there. Um this is the same look at that but only the contract animals. So the circles are a little bit smaller. Uh again about twothirds of the animals inside of the county are contract animals. not not a notable difference here too, but that's been a really important thing that we've been asked as we've been talking with cities and villages and townships about uh animal control efforts. They really want to know, you know, what animals are coming from their jurisdictions. How do we know they're coming from their jurisdictions? And what's the difference between what the county is paying for under contract versus what HSHV does? So, we've tried to provide this, we've tried to provide all the other data uh or anything else that has been requested to those individuals. Okay. Oh, very good. Thank you. All right. Uh two financials. Another dog picture. Um nice. Another dog picture. Yeah. Uh uh so just a summary of some of the the major changes uh in in recent HSV contracts. Um in 2017 is when when the lead entity provision was adopted and again that was having a single contract administered by the county for all animal control. Before that, the county did the county's part. City of Ann Arbor did their part uh with a separate contract. Pittsfield Township same. Uh Ipsilani Township and Superior Township same. Uh that's when we first

introduced reporting as well. And so when most of this data started becoming available, uh this one was settled. Uh yeah, we had a gap there where we were without a new contract for about nine months of the year. And that's a spot we really want to avoid in anticipation of this next contract renewal. Um and then uh the new payment term introduced in that contract was $800,000 and it escalated by $15,000 annually. Um the next contract got renewed uh in uh in 2021 and 2022. Those were one-year extensions because we were in the middle of COVID. And so instead of going through through the whole renegotiation process, uh we were able to reach agreement keeping that at $845,000 annually. In 2023, um, we did a one-year contract, and this was the first big jump in terms of costs. Uh, but we went from that $845,000 amount up to 1.3 million. Uh, and this is when we first introduced the cost recovery framework. Uh, the framework was included in the contract, but the $1.3 million amount uh was uh was separate from that that cost framework with the intention that we would move towards the cost recovery model. And then with the 2023 contract, uh that's our current contract. It's a four-year agreement. Uh this was authorized by the board in late uh 2023, December 2023. The first year cost was 1.8 million and uses that full cost recovery model. Um that the final year 2027 that goes up to just a little bit over two million. Uh and then there's an annual process to review and reconcile uh that that cost as well. And there's a lot of other changes, but uh you know there it's a lot of lot of contract work. So, if you got more questions about what's in there, happy to dig that up and get back to you. Uh, this is a complicated chart. Um, but I I do want to spend some time on this because I think this is probably most helpful for my perspective in terms of defining the problem that we've got right now. Um, and I thank Katherine for her help and uh working working through this with me and making sense. Uh, so just to orient you to this uh on the far left hand

side, you've got the total contract cost in dollars that that's aligned with those green bars. And so what those green bars are is the total contract cost on an annual basis. Uh the purple bars in there show the different contract terms. And so we've got 29 in 2010. There was a new contract for 2010 in 2012. We had a four-year contract. We had the 17 to 20 contract with the one-year extensions. And where we are right now is the 24 to 27 contract. And I think what I would point out there is that recently every time we have entered into a new contract, we have seen cost growth. Um I am not projecting that right now. and and we haven't started to talk with HSHV about the new contract and I think you know the basis that we have right now in terms of full cost recovery would not expect that sort of jump again but you know in the retrospective look you know that that's really quite obvious in terms of seeing the cost increases when contract renewal came up and so that's that's a lot of our interest in having this discussion right now. Uh so the blue line uh that starts in 2009 that goes up through 2025 those are the counties net costs of this. Um so you will see from 20 2009 to 2016 the net cost is equal to the HSHV contract starting in 2017 uh and up through 2025 generally the line is below the contract cost and what that represents are the local revenues that are coming in to help support them. Um so uh if just looking at the last four-year contract term then and to really I think summarize where where we see uh kind of the problem of this um we have the funding source lines that are in there. Uh and so the lower line that's the county's general fund contribution to support the cost of these services. That's about 1.3 no I'm sorry 1.16 million annually. Um the the dark green line on top of that then is about $210,000 in local revenues. So uh that is not enough though to get us to the total contract cost. And it is those green bars that are above that dark green line that

Katherine continues to report to you on a regular basis when we're doing budget updates. That is the gap that we have been trying to shrink uh through outside revenues to support this agreement, but which to date we've been pretty unsuccessful at. Uh, and I think, you know, at this point, you'll continue to get updates on there being uh, deficits on this item until we're able to close that gap and to shrink the amount of that bar on top of that dark green line. Okay, I think I got it all. Didn't misspeak anything. So, I know a lot there. Um, but again, I think for me, this really kind of summarizes the problem that we're trying to solve. Not not necessarily a service problem, but a money problem. Thanks. Uh, Commissioner Robbie,

did I understand correctly that you're done or uh, this is not the last slide. If you got questions on No, it's okay. I can

All right. Uh, that is the um, oh, so support for uh, HSHV facility. I've heard that question here a couple times in terms of what did the county do uh, when HSHV was building their building? And so wanted to just uh, remind some folks. Two board actions happened in 2007. That's at the time where HSHU is looking to construct their new building. Um I don't recall all the details. I believe it's on land owned by U of M. Um and but they own the building at this point. The county took did two things. The county made a $1 million contribution to their construction fund. Uh and so that was used by HSHB to construct the building, but then the county also offered its bonding capacity and its full faith and credit to loan or I'm sorry to to receive the funds that were used to construct the rest of the building. But the remainder of the funds were repaid by HSHV. The, you know, the county did not pay 6.5 million plus one million. The county paid 1 million and then used its full faith and credit to help HSHV build the rest of the building. So again, I know there's questions on that that have been asked in the past. Uh, but just wanted to refresh folks on that.

All right. Um, this is uh the Hey, Andrew, Commissioner Robbie's got a question on that. Yes. Just a quick clarifying uh because you mentioned U of M. Uh at one point when the when the building was originally built, the county leased the property from the university on a 99-year lease. I thought is that still the case or I I do not know that. Um I think that was the only way that we could do the full faith and credit. Yeah. At least the land. Forgive me if if you'd be willing to come up to the M. Sorry about that. Thank you, John. Uh, commissioners, this is John Trevan, CFO.

This this will be quick, but I I can tell you that we have a 90-year lease at the University of Michigan that covers uh about the half of our property that the university owns, and we do own about half of it as well. Yeah. But, Commissioner Robbie, to your question, I can look that up and see if there was some additional action. Uh, I I didn't find that in my preparation for tonight, but if there's something else out there, I'll get back to you on it.

Thank you. Yep. All right. Uh I won't spend too much time here either. Uh but what I want you to get a sense of for this this is the workbook that we go through with them on an annual basis. And so this starts with yeah if you want to happy to do it. Um but this starts with HSHV's audited financials. Uh and then we have a whole allocation method that we have built over the past several contract cycles that are used to develop that full cost recovery number. Um HSHV doesn't do separate accounts or separate charges for what they're doing for the county versus what they're doing for their mission versus what they're doing for other places. Uh it it all gets recorded in the same place. And so this method um is is what we've been able to use to get as as close as possible in terms of being able to say this percentage of HSHV's costs are associated with uh county services. The big metrics that we use here again are HSHV financials and then uh days of care and intake numbers that feed into that. Uh a few other financials here um because there are again HSHV is the the largest part of the county budget. Uh but at the sheriff's office is two dedicated animal control officers. The annual budget there is about $274,000. It's personnel, but also fleet and supplies and other overhead that we've got going on over there. At the treasur's office, they're collecting about 28,000 in annual revenues right now. I think that's where again where we see opportunity for some improvement. uh probably not enough in the short term to shrink those green bars that I was talking about earlier, but in the long term, we're hopeful that that'll help be part of the county's uh funding model for animal control services. Um and then other places where we've got no dedicated budget, but it just happens as a part of the day-to-day work, county administration and the prosecutor's office as well. Uh these are the animal controls that we currently have in place and that we've been trying we've been trying to get more of them and trying to get these numbers higher. Uh but these have been

in place and unchanged since 2017 uh when we first adopted them. Uh city of Ann Arbor's 135,000, Pittsfield Charter Township 18,000, Superior Township 10, and then Ipsellani Charter Township is 45,000. Uh we're currently on an annual renewal basis there and have approached each of these as well as other jurisdictions about trying to use a new model um that we think is more based in data. Uh and this is that model and this is what uh city manager Helena spoke to earlier. This is not finalized. This has been something that we have tried to receive feedback on on a staff level. Um so looking at this, this is all based on where animals come from inside of the county. Um and so you'll see that on the left hand side by jurisdiction, you know, the number of animals. We then convert that into a percentage of the total animals inside of the county. And then from there, uh based on the contract costs we have, we you know, the proposal was what if the county picks up 50% off the top of it, right? And then we approach each of the other jurisdictions for their proportionate amount of the remainder. So in the city of uh in the case of Ann Arbor, which is the top line there, they've got 16.9% of the animals. We would be looking for the city of Ann Arbor to cover 16.9% of 50% of the contract. Uh which gets us to 152,000. Um and then we do that over time. And I think that that was the number that was that city manager Helen Go was speaking to earlier. Uh we have received feedback on this and I think some of the criticisms that we've heard is why why would we pay when not everybody else is paying? Um why would we pay when this is a county service? Why would we pay uh when you know we're really unclear or we don't have certainty about the animals coming from our jurisdiction? We've also heard more procedural concerns in terms of it's not the right time for us. We're inside of our budget process and we need time for planning and we need time for you know just more consideration. So, I mean, I think the upfronts have been productive and no one's kicked us out yet, but uh you know, it's been challenging.

Andrew, I hate to interrupt you. No, no, it's it's good. Would would you be willing or able to scroll down? Uh this is a static screenshot, but I can send you all this when we get off. Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

And I would say all of these I think are variables that can slide, right? And I think we've been trying to get feedback like is 50% the right amount? Is this percentage the right amount? Um for us, it's been a starting point for the discussions. I'm going to try and speed up now because we're also at 6:30. Um, just a few things that I want to touch on real quickly in terms of how neighboring counties do this work. So, we've got four of them on here. Uh, there's 83 counties and probably everybody's got a slightly different model. Wayne County, no animal control services whatsoever. It's all done at the local level. Uh, Oakland County, they do have a county operated shelter. Uh, they serve about 4,200 animals a year. There's a whole network of other shelters that also operate in Oakland County. Uh but they also spend a whole lot more than county does for about the same number of contract animals on an annual basis and have a a very large FTE staff. Uh Livingston County much smaller number of animals but they also operate in a a system where there's a network of other shelters. Uh their expenditures are similar to the projections you'll see on the next slide. Uh but have a staff of about 10. Uh and then Jackson County I think is an interesting model. Um really high numbers for a county that's got about half the population of county. their expend their operational expenditures are I think roughly in alignment with what we would expect. Um but they they also have a millillage that they've used to support that work and recently made huge investments into a county uh county animal shelter like a total remodel of a county animal shelter. So there are some other models that are out there uh that we can look to and and we've spoken to as we were developing this presentation. Uh so I mentioned this briefly earlier. We've tried to do some work in terms of what it would take to uh to cost out a county operated shelter. And the picture I would want to paint for you with this is is not kind of like the HSHV model, but rather like what would we be able to do if we were really budget conscious. And so I think uh you know kind of a cinder block facility with bare staffing levels um and kind of the the necessary equipment to keep animals safe from humans and from other animals, but you know a very different sort of environment than you would get at HSHV.

And that amount for us is is greater than the contract costs that we have right now. Um after after subtracting some of the fees and services that we would expect there a large large portion of that would be uh like bonding for a new building. We don't have a building right now and again HSHV owns their building. So this is something that the county were serious about doing. We would need to consider how to find a facility because a facility is an integral part of these services. All right. And another dog, great dog. Uh and last slide for me and thank you for your patience. um is just a few options here. And I again what I want to stress with this is that uh I see this as a money problem, but I don't want to presume that you or the public see this as a money problem. We don't hear service complaints, but we do hear, you know, just concerns about the the money and how it's getting funded. Um so there there are things that we can do with this. All of them will have consequences. Some of them will have only financial consequences, but some of them will also have service consequences and and change what it means for the public or law enforcement officers and how they how they go about doing their work. Um, and I think that this is really what we would want to explore with you depending on how you see the problem and how you would want us to solve it in advance of of the contract expiring at the end of next year. And I'm happy to speak more to any of these. Um, but also happy to look into others if if it's at the interest of the board.

Thank you. Great, Andrea. Just real quick, uh, thanks. That's a lot of dense information. Well covered. Thank you for the, uh, uh, the work to get here tonight. Um, I had Commissioners Sanders, then Robbie, then Hajj in the queue. So, Commissioner Sanders, I had Commissioner Breamman.

Thank you, Andrew, for the presentation. Um, and for taking the time. We talked earlier about this. I appreciate it. Um, I just had a couple questions. Um, I see it here on I think it's slide 15, but let me be let me just say it out loud. So, we have five cities, but only one pays into providing additional support to the county for the costs. And out of 20 townships, we've got three that are currently paying in. So, we essentially are getting support only from the city of Ann Arbor, Ipsellani Township, Superior Township, and Pittsville Township.

Correct. All the other townships are skating. Yeah. And and I would say it's complicated and they have perspectives about their their own mandates and their own responsibilities with regards to this and and that's where it's taken time for us to have those discussions. I think with those four they're pretty clear in terms of their their service obligations and their public expectations. But but it's a discussion with all of those other units that we currently don't have revenue contracts. And but we've been having this discussion because I know I I've been asking for this since we renewed the contract the last time and we've not been successful in moving the needle. That's correct. To get them to pay for their animals.

That's correct.

Okay. So, I've got another question and let me just put this out there so that I don't have animal activist activists sitting on my lawn. Um, I own ants and have my entire life. And so this is not about them or loving them, but it is about, you know, being responsible for, you know, pets are an option, not something you have to have, but to take advantage of an option and then expect somebody else to pay your way doesn't seem very equitable to me. Um, so my other question was, if I read that right, I had to take my glasses off and lean really close. But does it say this a deficit of 764,000 almost 765,000? Did I read that right?

It's not that high. I mean, it's several hundred,000. That's from 2022. Are we running in the hole with this contract? We are. Yeah. And and that's why you continue to have it reported to you by Katherine every time you get a budget update. It's about 500,000 annually. Right now,

okay. So, not that anybody asked me, but um the options that you had up there, I like your revenue suggestions for how we might be able to approach um getting people to pay. I don't I can't say their full share because we do have I think if municipalities can make the case that they actually cannot afford it, that's a different argument than just saying trust us, we don't have the money.

Um, so I think I think I'm done because I I think I grilled you sufficiently before. Uh, I did want to ask you, so you had a an asterisk comment that MDAR no longer enforcing the hold law. So it says that we we hold for 4 days or seven if proof of the license or ownership is present.

But if MDART is not enforcing that anymore, what does that mean? Does that mean that that uh Hiron Valley Humane Society is holding them possibly longer and therefore it's costing us more because we don't have that enforcement or is it the opposite or

something? Yeah. Um they are holding them longer and the county is paying for uh like a county animal under contract for the duration uh if it's there. So if it's a year, if it's two years, if it's one day, uh the county is paying for that whole full hold period. Why we wanted to note this is this was our prior understanding about the bare minimum. Uh we talked about this extensively in the last round of contract negotiations as a thing where it was really in our interest uh but not not something that was in HSHV's interest to limit our financial obligation to that old period. Um you know I think that's something we want to explore. Again HSHV has their own interests and again we're we're interested in talking with you before those meetings so that we can go in prepared in terms of what you all expect. But but you're correct that we're paying for more than that and that that is the minimum in state law. I think we still have it on there because it hasn't been taken off the books. Uh and in theory I think MDAR could choose to enforce it again in the future but are not doing so currently.

Okay. So I guess that's it because you've you've answered that we do have enforcement abilities. We could do an an ordinance. Okay. We we can talk further about that. you covered it with your presentation and our earlier discussion. Some of the stuff I just wanted to lift up for the public to know um and not have to wait through all of this. So, thank you for the presentation. Great. Go to Commissioner Robbie.

Thank you, Chair. Um appreciate the presentation. Uh, this is such a new concept to me that I'm, you know, just now getting acclimated to. Yeah. Yeah. Take your time. It's okay. You know, you know that I'm joking. Um, so a few questions. Let's start with uh the cost side. What is right now the cost of providing a day of sheltering to a dog?

We would we can back into that number. Um we have uh and I I don't have it right now but I can send it to you. Uh I I think where we are right now the costs are based on HSHV's fixed costs and so think things like personnel, think things like building utilities, think things like maintenance. Um we have approached that in the past as a basis that we wanted to structure the county's contract cost around but but that was a non-starter for I mean so I have been asking for the same number for 15 years and still have not received it

and this is fundamentally why I can never support this contract is because the taxpayers of this county deserve to know what it costs to provide these services and if the Humane Society is refusing to provide that number, that is a problem. I want to vote for a contract that is transparent and there is a lack of transparency if you cannot tell me the cost of sheltering a dog for a day. If I may respond, Commissioner, I I think um again, HSHV has been very forthcoming with any data that we have requested from them. Um but the the framing is quite different than you're suggesting here, right? And and I think we look at and use their audited financials, but those are on an organizational basis and on an annual period, not on a cost of sheltering one animal for one day. Uh we have approached that and I think for our perspective would like to have a contract that is based on the county will pay X amount per day per animal. Um but have not been able to achieve that through the contract. Yeah, I I would I think maybe just the point I would like to make is, you know, their their financials are audited, they're published, we have confidence in what they are telling us as being the same as what they're telling other people, but it's a very different framing than what you're requesting.

If you want me to vote for this contract, I want to see the cost of sheltering a dog or a cat. Actually, I want to see the cost of sheltering each of the types of animals in question per day. what it costs, what what that that is what I want to see. That is what I've been asking for for 15 years and that is what I want to see. Uh and in the absence of that, I cannot support this contract because it is not transparent to the public if we are not telling people what it actually costs to provide the services. I don't want to know the total budget of the Humane Society and what they are estimating. I I want to know exactly what it is that we're paying for. and what the cost is on a daily basis to house each of the animals that we're housing, each of the types of animals that we're housing. So, that was my cost question. I appreciate the work that's been done to move us closer to that, but we have in 15 years still not achieved that simple ask. It it should be simple for the Humane Society to provide that number. And it is apparently one of the most immensely complex things that has ever come about, which is mind-boggling to me because it should be. We do it for so many other things. We have a cost allocation plan at the county where we consider the cost of everything from the administrator all the way down to the building, heating, cooling, all that different stuff. We factor it into the cost in each for each department to operate within the county. And I don't understand why it's so difficult to have that simple number factored in on a daily basis for each animal that we're housing. The only thing that I can think of is that this is seen not as a cost of doing service with the county, but as a revenue contract for the Humane Society.

And that is fundamentally problematic to me because what I do not want to do is what what I want to do is fund actual services for animals. And if we're not seeing the cost breakdown for that, then I don't have confidence that that's actually what's happening. Um, let's talk about revenue. Uh, first let's talk about dog licenses. Who in the county collects dog licenses? Uh there are three sources and if the treasur wants to join me but the treasur's office collects them for everything but the city of Ann Arbor and Ipsani township which have their own dog license collections. That is correct.

And what is the revenue that the city of Ann Arbor and Ipsani township collect for their dog licenses? I don't have that information. They do not share that information. The fee amount the city of Ann Arbor charges has the same fee structure as the treasur's office and that's uh there's a difference for uh neutered and unneutered animals but it's $15 for a three-year license treasures office and city of Ann Arbor and these are only dogs and then I think the Ipsane Township is $3 per year and they don't make that distinction between neutered and non-neutered animals. Um I guess what I'm more wondering is what is the total revenue for each jurisdiction? We can get that for you. I don't I don't have that at hand. I will.

Okay. If you could get that, that would be great. The other sort of subset of that question is what is it that empowers those communities to have a dog license fee that is separate from the county? Is it a population size? Is it an ordinance? I I can't answer that, but certainly I think can can look into that and get back to you with that as well.

Okay. I asked because it and both of those jurisdictions are contributing money which is great but I'd like to know how much revenue they're receiving from the dog license which ostensibly is supposed to be used for covering the services that the countyy's covering versus the amount that they're contributing towards the contract. I'm assuming that the city of Ann Arbor is contributing more than they're receiving in revenue. I I don't just based on my understanding of what we collect in revenue which the treasurer can perhaps correct me but last time I checked it was like in the 40s50s maybe4 $50,000 about 28,000. Yeah.

Okay. Well, I was off. Uh so I'm assuming that the city of Ann Arbor collects somewhere around that and is contributing 130 some thousand. We we can certainly find that information. I just have it on. Okay. That would be helpful to know. And and then also to know again what is it that empowers the jurisdictions to charge their own license and can the county um basically can they give that over to the county so that the county can just do it ourselves countywide since we're the ones we're the single source contract with the humane society.

So wouldn't it make more sense that we collected all the revenue from those licenses directly? Um so that is a thought that I have um on on the um uh piece about the negotiations with the different jurisdictions. Um which jurisdictions currently have animal control ordinances that are separate that go above and beyond the county's mandate?

Uh that's complicated. It's been a couple years since I' I've looked into that. Um there's most of them will have something about like stray animals. Um you know and and it shows up in a lot of different places. I' I'd say four years ago we did like a comprehensive review of ordinance levels. Haven't revisited it since and tried to kind of group them along you know who's got stricter stricter rules kind of medium rules and less strict rules. Um what I recall and uh I'd like to maybe follow up on that just so I don't misspe as well but there's quite the range there. Um, and I I'd say in terms of our discussions with those groups, it has been more trying to come at it from we have the same public. Uh, it's our it's our assumption that the public cares about what happens to stray animals. Um, and feeling that that there's not even if the ordinance might be different, just like the county's level of service is above our mandate. Um, that there's some common expectation in terms of how animals are treated inside of the county. So, we we haven't approached those discussions kind of from hey, your ordinance is X, we're doing Y. So therefore, you know, we believe you should owe us Z.

I think the reason that I'm so fixated on the notion that we should have an exact accounting of the cost of actually housing the animals is because I would like the county to basically decide what it is that we want to cover. And I'm not necessarily advocating that we just cover the mandated services. I'm okay if we make a conscious decision to cover mandated services, you know, plus we want to add however many days of stay time or maybe it's unlimited stay time. I want to be like crystal clear about what we are actually buying basically through our contract with the humane society. And then I want to understand what is it that other communities are requiring in terms of their own individual ordinances that go above and beyond what the county is deciding that it wants to cover. And in my opinion with these conversations that you're having, the conversation should be we are going to cover X as the county. Everything above and beyond that we are not covering unless there is a cost recovery model. And if the communities will not contribute towards that cost recovery model, then we will not enforce whatever ordinance they have and the Humane Society will not accept whatever animals fall into that category. that is above and beyond what the county is paying for. And I think that to me like there has to be some teeth to these conversations that like you know you're you if they don't want to contribute to the cost recovery model then the county will not be enforcing animal control laws within their jurisdiction beyond the point where the county's already committed to providing those services.

Yeah. Uh I I agree with the intent. I'd maybe uh put the focus on a different area and the I I'd say I talk about the lead the lead entity provision inside of the contract where right now the scope is any animal from inside of Washington County including those other jurisdictions. Um you know I think that is something where that was requested of the county to do that work uh and is something the county entered into voluntarily. I I think again to to disturb but we can leave it voluntarily too. I mean there's nothing that requires us to be the lead agency. Correct. Yeah. I mean it's it's not anything that's required in our mandate. Again, we're interested in having this discussion now though because of the service impacts for the public.

I mean the if I may, I'm sorry, commissioner, but but if I can remind you of the intake, you know, most of the animals are coming from the public. Uh and the the number coming from law enforcement entities is less than 15%. And I think the the challenge with the ordinance is if we we're assuming that it's law enforcement entities who are enforcing those ordinances and who are then picking up the animals. And so that that's been a challenging part of this in the past too is yeah, you've got the kind of the law enforcement side, but what about the person who finds a stray on the side of the road or what about the person, you know, who who finds like the cat walking around their backyard, which is I think just a different sort of service consideration. Yeah. I I think what I'm talking about is local ordinances where this the standards go above and beyond what the county is willing to provide

and that I would rather not that the county pay for that and that the local jurisdiction contribute to paying for those services

and I think that the county should no longer be the single source frankly and that we should allow the local jurisdictions to contract directly with the Humane Society to provide the services that they think they need to provide. I don't think there's any reason. I don't know why we ended up why we did that. I mean, I obviously voted against the contract, but I don't know why we did that. That seems like pretty shortsighted to take on a mass responsibility that we're not getting compensated for. I think Well, I I will retract that statement slightly and say I think there was more hope and optimism at the time that the contract was uh approved. Hope and optimism that I didn't share, which is why I voted no. But now we're three years into it and understand that there is uh wellfounded pessimism in the ability of the local communities to actually pay for these contracts. So I think now as we're re-evaluating it, we need to understand that it is not sustainable to continue being the lead agency if local jurisdictions are not going to be contributing. So I don't think there's any reason for us to continue in that role and we should allow the local jurisdictions to just do their own thing. Um I want to just ask one more question about shelter um revenue to the humane society. So first question is about the love train which has always kind of bothered me because I know I know from the humane society's perspective this is a revenue source. they're bringing in puppies from somewhere else and um basically selling those puppies because puppies are more sellable. Um and so it creates revenue for the humane society. It's a revenue source. Uh but what it also does is it brings new animals into our community that we are then responsible for. Um, and so what type of cost recoveries are happening at the time that the puppies are being adopted out that ensure that there is that there are fees being collected in addition to the profits that are or not profits but the revenue

that's coming into the Humane Society that the county is capturing some sort of like responsibility fee that comes on top of that in the event that that dog later becomes a responsibility of the taxpayers.

Yeah. uh we don't have anything like a responsibility fee and I I would welcome if there's someone from HSHV who wants to talk about the love train particularly I think from the county side what I can speak to on that uh the cost uh model sheet that I showed um there's a set of columns on there that are lower down the the fees that HSHV collects that are related to adoptions or holding or restitution those come off the top right and so that that $1.9 million figure that's after accounting for several hundred,000 in revenue venue that HSHV collects uh again for fees, adoption fees, restitution related to those specific animals. Um

so for the for the animals that we're paying to house when they adopt them out, the revenue that's collected gets credited back to the county. Correct. Okay. That answers my second question that I was going to ask you. So you anticipate that? Um but in in terms of the love train I would say the way we control for that is by you know the really you know sharpening the pencils on the annual cost allocation and saying hey do the animals and the days of care and the intake numbers that they're saying is the cost basis for our contract does that align with all the reporting that we have right and it does and I mean there's a lot in there and I think we've we've certainly made unintentional minor mistakes so have they but I mean it's a whole process of kind of working through this reconciliation on an annual basis where we do really try and understand where the animals coming from. And I would say following that review that happens on an annual basis, I'm I'm convinced that we're not paying for love train animals. It's been a big point of contact or or discussion every every single round of contract negotiation.

Well, we're not paying them for them at the time of adoption, but we may be paying for them later once they're adopted and then become a stray or other purposes are needed. So the question that I have is how can we create some kind of a revenue share in the revenue opportunity that is being created by the humane society because those there is a likelihood that once those dogs are adopted within county they will then at some point become the responsibility of the taxpayers of county.

Certain and I I I guess I understand the interest. I I don't know how to solve it. Um, I think what I would say is that there are many many people from county who get animals elsewhere and take them into into the county, even outside of HSHV. HSHV adopts animals to many people who don't live inside of county. So, it's somewhat fluid. Um, we do have reporting on all of this, but we have not talked about um, you know, specific financial components of the contract on that specific issue, but you know, to date, I would like to explore this further. Understood. Yeah. to uh Commissioner Hajj.

Thank you, Chair. Uh Andrew, I've got a series of questions that will probably take as long as Commissioner Robbie did. No, I'm just kidding. I just wanted to say I really appreciated the presentation. I thought it was fantastic. And also, I really like working session used in this way. I think since this is a big topic, um that it's great that we used working session. I'm thrilled to hear that. So, uh just thank you very much. This was excellent. And I wanted to do the pop quiz. I don't know if we're going to Yeah, good. I'm I'm thrilled to hear that. You know, will of the board that stuff. Okay. And I will say I am available and happy to talk about this or engage in it at board meetings elsewhere in whatever format you find useful. Yeah. Well, excellent job.

Thank you. To uh Commissioner Beman. Thank you, Chair. I'll try to keep um mine mine brief in in terms of time. Um my first question was uh to the community it looks like one purse but there are different spaces for funding in Washington County. When things are required by the courts or the prosecutor's office is it coming from their budget or our budget? Uh uh so if there is an animal held related to a cruelty case it is coming out of central charges that pays for this. So, it's not part of the prosecutor's budget, but it's part of the general fund budget.

Okay. I would like to know why, as my fellow commissioner says, but that's that's probably for another time. Um, another question that I had was um going back to there was the chart uh with the little pie charts that got larger.

Um, and then the next or slider or so, apologies, I don't have it in front of me. Um, it talked about doing a percentage of costs per animals brought back from that designated area. And I don't want it to disproportionately impact my community, but what I will say is transporting large rural animals costs a lot more than transporting a cat. Exactly. And in some of my more rural areas, when we see these red eyes, I'm pretty sure there's a horse or two that's in there. Um, but not some iguanas. I could be wrong. They could all be iguanas. But um I'm thinking so just like when we're looking at how this percentage works and I know that that can be tricky but if there's a way to kind of put in that multiplier of if it's a non-domemest domestic

animal or a agricultural animal again just because it's a little more difficult to transport. Now I'm not talking chickens. Don't come at me chicken people. Yeah. I love my chickens. Yeah. Um c can I respond to that, commissioner? Um so there is a distinction between what's paid for on the contract versus what they report to us. Uh agricultural animals, livestock is not part of the contract service. So um uh other domestic is part of the contract language, but wildlife uh and non-domemestic animals. So we haven't spent a lot of timeing domestic versus agricultural. So horses egg. Yes. Yes. Yeah. But not well then those are lots of iguanas.

We I I've got a list and can you know if you want to know how many ferrets, how many rabbits, you know who can get All right. Yep. No, I was just trying to distribute the the cost appropriately. So I appreciate that. So thank you. Those are those are my questions. Thank you. Great. Move to uh Commissioner Somerville.

Yeah. Um, I just want to thank you for all the work that you put into this. Um, and I obviously, uh, two out of the three communities that are in my district are currently putting something towards the contract. Um, I think you heard from one of like the majority of my district is Ipsy City and I think most people understand the financial challenges that Ipsy city has due to their um, untaxed property. Um, and so I think, you know, when some of this started, obviously these conversations have been going on, I think it's been hard for me as somebody when I'm having conversations with the people who I represent and the elected officials, we we haven't taken formal board action. And so I think like level setting with where where we think we can be and how we can be flexible. Um, part of the thing, and I think this is probably true for some of the smaller communities and and rural parts of the county, um, these local governments don't have the staff or capacity to even ramp up um, registration. And so I think that's a big burden. Um, but maybe there's a way for the county to be helpful in that um, way. And then maybe there's a way to automatically remind people like you need to renew your registration. And so maybe that's something that could be a collaboration with the county and here on um Valley um Humane Society. Um but I think specifically in Ipsellani, if you've ever s sat through um a budget season with them, it's really challenging. Um and so I'm just trying to figure out how to best, you know, represent my district. And I think one of the challenges, we do have some communities in Washington County that have major financial constraints and I don't want us to overburden them. Um, and I still want us to figure out a way to be a good partner understanding that not every community in Washington County um can put up the same amount um or put the same sort of or even have staff that can even part, you know, in part do some proactive stuff because,

you know, it's really challenging for small townships. Um similarly in Ipsy city. So I think for like one of the I I think the city manager mentioned this the cost that was presented to the city in the fall was like a you know a full-time employee um for them. Um so I just think that perspective is important. Um not everybody's in the same position.

Yeah. And and just to respond to that I think that's why I describe it as a money problem. Like we like the services we just want to figure out how to pay for it and how to pay for it and distribute the responsibility correctly. And I think that's where we really need your help to say where where do what do we need to do to tweak this to make it fairer. I think there's been some comments here that have been talked about tonight. And I think certainly what we've been trying to do is approach and saying, "Hey, here's this problem. We want to be able to sustain the service, but we also know that the county is not not fully funding this at this point. It's a money problem for us. So let's work together to maintain the services while we figure out, you know, how to how to fund it."

Yeah. No, I agree. I think just to kind of like button up my concern generally, I think until we take formal action to give better direction to staff, it's going to be really difficult um to move forward in a productive and positive way. Um, and so hopefully after having this conversation, we'll have some options presented where we can actually take formal action because right now everybody's just throwing at you their opinions and we like it's really hard for you guys to be able to make a decision when we haven't given you clear direction as a body. So I but I appreciate all the work that you're Well, that's why we're here. Want to be helpful with that, too.

Go to uh Commissioner Light. Thank you for uh presenting this challenging uh escapade that we always have. Um I really appreciate it. I just want to jump into the nitty-gritty. So how many townships are there that make up this one, two, we're on page 22. Uh I believe 21 22. There are there are 20 townships in the county.

Okay. So, um, away and I'm this is not a question. Um, this is a continuence of my my grief and complaints that I've had um since I've been on this board and that I must say I spent my first after we got sworn in after that short board meeting I was here 10 o'clock about this. So, um, I deserve to say what I need to say. Uh, Ann Arbor Township, Superior Township. Um, they pay their money. Not not Ann Arbor Township. Um, city of Ann Arbor. So, the red portion of Ann Arbor Township.

So, Ann Arbor Township does not. No. Uh, the the four jurisdictions that we've got revenue contracts with, city of Ann Arbor. Okay. Pittsfield Township, Ipsani Township, Superior Township.

Okay. Okay. Well, Superior Township does and Pittsville and and everybody we have too many and and and we can make up um that percentage that what is it 54% of let's just say everybody needs to pay a equal equal fair. We all live in Washington County. Um because the county cannot continue um to spearhead um this contract. We are unfortunately in a housing crisis um and those animals won't have anywhere to live if we do not um manage uh our budget. And what what is the cost of our contract? uh about $1.9 million this year.

That's a lot.

And so um we need to figure out a way um I don't think we should be paying 1 point anything um for the services that we don't have a specific amount on how we service and what we service. Um this is just it is not it's not okay. Um and so we need to figure out what we're going to do. Um, but paying 1.9 million will not be the continuence of what we do. As I've said before, we will have animals running all around this county, but we won't be paying 1.9 million. So, um, I don't know if digging into the reserve or the fund balance or whatever the case may be that they need to do, they should do it because 1.9 million is not it for the rest of 26. We have to, but 27 is not option. So, um, we need to go back to the table and figure it out. But, as I said, 1.9 anything is not okay.

Yeah. Um, if I just may respond to that, I you know, we have a we do negotiate with HSHD on this stuff. And I think the the situation that we were in a couple years ago, um, was was that they were pretty clear in terms of saying that doing the county's mandate is not their mission. Uh, roughly, I mean, I think that's a fair approximation. Um but you know so they're looking to have their costs covered for doing what we're doing here. I think certainly I hear that message. Um that's been a thing that has been challenging for us to negotiate and the reason we're interested in this discussion right now to talk about the consequences to the service model. Um I don't want to presume how HSH is going to respond to to what we present to them here. So it's certainly helpful to have the guidance. Oh, well, also since this is not their mission, um it's not our mission to cover the cost of all of their extras and um the care programs, that's not our mission either. Our mission is to maintain and sustain our county. Um and if we have to take care of our dogs, but as I said, they'll be running around Washington County because it's not our goal to pay 1.9 million because that's not their mission. I that's not my problem. but they decided to sign up for it and we're not going to pay for their extras. So, my mission is to make sure that yes, we are safe. Um, but I'm okay with dogs

Yeah. running around. I I understand. I think the maybe what I didn't say clearly. I think the concern that we've had in the past is that if if HSHV has been unwilling to contract with the county, then what you like what what do we do in place of HSHV? We find something else. I mean, we're not going to get We're getting bullied

and pressured because they're saying we don't have other options. Um, there's always an option when you're put in a cramped up, jammed up position, you figure it out. And we've been put in positions that we didn't want to be in before and we figured it out. So, don't dangle us and try to make us um just because it appears as if we don't have other options. Where there's a will, there's a way. I'm always determined to figure out an option and but don't don't threaten me. Don't try to hold me hostage just because you believe you're the only service provider. So I I don't appreciate it. I don't um we're getting bullied into or as I said before dog walked because you know it it's not okay and and it's increasing every year. It's it's a well this is not our mission or this is not what we do but we want to help the county. You're not helping us. You're taking away from housing from feeding our residents. So I I don't that's not a concern of mine about the main don't do it then we'll figure it out. Uh, go to Commissioner Scott.

Thanks, Chair. Um, I just wanted to say thank you very much for the presentation. I loved all the pictures in the presentation, too. Really gave it that humanizing seems like the wrong word uh touch. And I just want to reiterate uh again what Commissioner Somerville said that um we haven't made a board action on this. So, I've heard a lot of like people talking about what they would like to see happen, but I do think we have to figure that out as a board to figure out the next steps. And so, I appreciate this as information for us to keep going. Thank you. Thank you.

Uh I have brief comments, but I wanted to offer Commissioner Mashi a chance if he had anything to say. Great. Um and then I'll I'll get to Commissioner Robbie right after this. Uh Andrew one, thanks so much for the presentation for all that you've uh put in terms of your time into this. Um I my take in terms of uh the purpose of tonight, I think we have uh a a a nationally renowned service provider and that is not without cost but what we get for it is a set of experience providing these services. community buyin in that those services align with our values and um we have a content expert that can advise on the specifics of animal control and care. And so I'm I am personally grateful at this table that we don't have some of the policy considerations for animal control in terms of how you do it and let's be candid which animals you you know rehabilitate and keep and which you euthanize and so forth. All those considerations that um we're able to to trust an external entity on. I do think you're right though when you talk about the problem being uh money related that we have to figure out a way to get other jurisdictions uh to contribute something. I think your formula model is is where I would go. We have a tradition in this county of using those sorts of things uh be it you know service contracts or or millillage distribution that sort of thing. I think something that everybody can, you know, see, can understand, can point to the arithmetic on, I I think that is more likely to get communal buyin. Um, one

thing that I hope you would tell the nine of us is how do we give you the tools to have some teeth when you deal with the the the municipalities? Because right now, essentially, our argument is this is the right thing to do. this is the rational collective sort of organized thing to do. Uh please please do it. And they say, you know, Andrew, you're very kind. Thank you for coming out here. No. Um so, you know, giving you tools to be able to to to leverage, I think, is uh is incumbent on us. So, um, thank you also for, uh, the inclusion of, uh, of the the the dogs in the, uh, the presentation and so forth. Um, humor aside, it is a good reminder that this is a, uh, a service that is near and dear to people's hearts. Um, and so it it's not something we should take lightly, and it is good to have uh, sort of that tangible connection in the presentation. Um, I'm going to go to Commissioner Robbie if anybody else has any other comments. Raise your hand.

Uh, thank you, Chair. I I just wanted to say a couple more things. Uh, I forgot to mention, but Commissioner Sanders talked about the ordinance idea. I think that's something we should really be looking at right now. I think that would be a good tool to, you know, support what Commissioner Labar just said about uh, having some enforcement mechanism, but also having um, some standards around how we do this. So, I fully support the idea of doing a countywide ordinance. The other idea that I had too was around uh maybe uh tweaking kind of how you're approaching communities, taking into account the uh issues that the city of Ipsani brought in and maybe creating some kind of a formula that includes the taxable base of the community and the amount of animals that are

um sort of taking all of that into account rather than just doing sort of a simple thing. You could complicate it. Um, the other thing I want to say is just building off of what Commissioner Light uh said. I I fully agree with kind of her uh commentary. Uh I do not feel that it is appropriate in any way, shape, or form to continue on in a manner where we feel like we don't have options. We have to understand that we have options. We have a massive bonding capacity. We could build a state-of-the-art facility. Um we could create revenue options within that. Uh we could do uh our own love train uh you know revenue scenarios just like the humane society does. Um there are other communities that do uh in-house animal control um similar to what Oakland Livingston and Jackson County do. Ingam County has their own I believe which could be another comparable model to look at as well. Um and each of those do have revenue opportunities. Um I think when we're negotiating it should be understood that the Humane Society is a service provider. um and that we are not this is not something that we are that we have to give them um and in fact it's something that we can easily uh you know walk in another direction for and at this particular juncture we do have time to do that um and I think that we should make it clear to them that um that that is that there are options on the table and that they should be coming to us in good faith and presenting to us again the numbers what does it cost to actually house these animals in our facilities and until they can provide that clarity and transparency to the taxpayers of county, that is a fundamental problem with the negotiating process that needs to be resolved. Um, the final thing that I'll say, and this is probably the thing that has me the most aggravated in this moment, is that your slideshow contains a vast majority dogs and far far deficient in cat

images. There's only one cat image in this entire presentation. And uh I counted there are a total of 19 animal images and only one is a cat. And I feel like uh based on the statistics that you showed us that is not a good representation. You're correct. Community stands. Very very much correct. Um there there were two kittens that were added to the group who got surveyed yesterday. Uh but they did not make it in time for the presentation. So but no, you're right. Uh sounds like a little bias in the I hope it didn't come across of the presentation. It's known though and we're working.

Yeah. And Andrew, it's not bias when it's just a fact that dogs are better than cats. So I I get it. I get it. Um no, uh our our feline K9 divide aside. Any other uh comments on this uh on this uh item. Great. Chair, I know we're slightly over um but there was a request for a pop quiz and I can make it very gentle and very quick. Um but I I just do want to thank the colleagues who contributed for it. Great. If you could pull up the very last slide and it's not scored and everybody can get a dumb dum out of the back if you participation.

Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean take it up with Tabitha. So, uh just across the, you know, you can see all the animals um and the names down at the bottom there. I'll I'll try and work through this very quickly. Um maybe any guesses in terms of Tabitha's animal. Is it just one? Just one. There's no repeats on here. You You should just tell us. Yeah. Let's Let's narrow them down. Okay. Yeah, please. Correct. Okay. Katie's got

I know that E is Michelle Billard. Correct. And this is this be a group effort here. We're narrowing them down. Yeah. Does anybody else know D is beautiful? I feel like H I feel like H you were saying is Tina. You kind of made Oh yeah, H is Tina. H is Tina. Yeah. Uh it might be a neighbor of yours. Uh Beth Gibbons. Yeah. Yeah. She's also got the kittens. Uh who is D? Michael, that's a beautiful dog.

Catherine, that's my dog, Rainbow. Oh, they're so cute. Oh, anytime she's available. And uh so just to roll through these real quick. Wait, is Jay Brady? Yes. Okay, great. Brady, are those staffies? Uh, pit staffies. Sure. Okay. They're so cute. Uh, the big dog. Of course, the big dog.

Just go through. Yeah. All right. Yeah. So, A is Derek's dog, Baxter. Uh, we haven't talked about C. C is Jason F's dog in the back over there. Um, talked H. Oh, I Shannon Eler's dogs. And then L L are my dogs. Ah, who's human? Yeah. Yes, he is. Farm dogs. Um, thank you for humoring us, commissioners. I sure make a little bit lighter. It could be a heavy topic. So, appreciate the discussion and look forward to working with you more on this topic. Thank you. We started with Tina and ended with this. So, that that was a good good book end.

Uh, chair, how much time do you want to take? When do you want to reconvene? I'd like to take 10 minutes. Great. Thank you. Uh any items for current or future discussion? Okay. I would entertain a motion to a support. All those in favor say I. We are in fact ajourned.

proposition. Yes. Resolution to set a public hearing on the 2026 mill rate is a roll call. Okay.

Appointments are roll call. Consent is voice. Okay. Just in the Wow, this agenda printed out is really special. I don't even want to guess. My head is so bad. I don't want to be here. Um,

thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah. I appreciate it. Good on that. I'm good. I put my Thank you. Um I want to tell people what do we say it was? Business and brevity tonight. Business and brevity. These meetings it's too long. Oh, I'm

Good evening everyone. Good evening everyone. That's a gavl. I'm calling the meeting to order. This meeting of Wednesday, May 6, Washington County Board of Commissioners. This time we'll stand for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Brenda, could you call the role for us, please? Commissioner Bean, present. Commissioner Hajj

here. Commissioner Labar here. Commissioner Light. Commissioner Machi here. Commissioner Robbie I am here. Commissioner Sanders present. Commissioner Scott here. Commissioner Somerville here.

Fantastic. Um, before we go forward to public participation, I believe we have an honorary resolution that I think Commissioner Labar, is that a surprise to you? I hope not. Okay, great. Uh, is going to present for us. Thanks, Commissioner Labar. Welcome uh commissioners. We have on our uh agenda later tonight the resolution honoring National Small Business Week uh as May 3rd through 9th here in 2026 in county. Um, as you can see in the wording of the resolution, uh, there's a number of important notations in terms of the data that small businesses contribute to our local economy, but also the many things they do, uh, as supplemental investments to our economy. And it's important we just take a a minute here in our meeting to uh acknowledge all that they do to honor this special week and really to afford our guests a chance to say anything if they want uh on their behalf. Uh or if they just want to take a a wonderful resolution, take a picture and and get on with their uh Wednesday night, we can also facilitate that. So

wonderful. Okay. Um, but thank you for the work you do and for being here and uh we appreciate the opportunity to honor the week and all the all the work you do. Thank you. I appreciate the business and brevity of the small business

people who are here. I hope that that is a key to all of us as we go forward in the meeting. At this time, we're going to have public participation. If you're here to address the board, you're welcome to come to the podium and address this. You have three minutes. The lights will indicate your time. Green means go. Yellow means start wrapping it up. Red means I'm going to tell you your time is up. I do this in an attempt to be fair to everybody, not because I'm rude and like to interrupt people. So, at this time, welcome to our meeting. Don't forget to tell us your name and the city or townships from which you come.

Good evening, commissioners. My name's Mary Campbell. I work for County um and I'm the president of ASME's local 2733. I'm actually here tonight to speak to you in support of the work from home policy. There are some nuances that we would still like to sit down with administration to negotiate, but definitely in support of it. Um, and that's what I'm here to tell you tonight. Thank you. And and we do have a a meeting that is going to be scheduled uh for corporation council to sit down and negotiate those things. Thank you.

Business and brevity. Thank you. Hi, Nancy, president of Loco 3052, also city of Ipsellani resident. I echo everything that Mary said. We've had meetings with administration, a couple of special conferences, have talked with administration and uh Commissioner Scott, I believe, was in at least one of those. the concept. We do support I do I can't speak for Mary's union but um I support the concept um there's a lot of nuances like Mary said and some parody issues um and other things that we're going to need need to discuss. I did put through or put forth a demand a bargain request and just this evening before um we came in here Michelle did send us a communication indicating that she was going to schedule a meeting. So we would like to move this along. Um do appreciate the fact that the commissioners are willing to entertain this resolution and we did tell Mr. uh Greg Dill that we would um make sure that we made our um response to well known to you guys. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Courtney Aldridge, address 705 North Zeb Road. I'm here representing Michigan State University Extension where I'm a program instructor teaching parenting classes and doing professional development for early childhood providers. Before I continue with my comments, I just want to mention that I'm going to make a brief mention of suicide and child molestation. And so I want anyone in the room who needs to take care of themselves to do so. So I want to share with you about a program I did last Wednesday evening at BD Early Learning Center in Ipsellani. I was teaching a class on potty training and it was really well attended. So clearly this is a hot topic and one of the things that I discussed in this class was bedwedding and I was talking about how bedwedding is developmental not behavioral. In other words, children cannot help it when they wet the bed. It is just a developmental thing between their brain and their bladder. And sometimes children wet the bed into adolescence. And I really emphasized that we must not shame or humiliate children for bedwedding. After the class, a mom came up to me and she said she was getting emotional and she said that was a really important conversation for me. She said, "My brother died by suicide at 16 years old and part of it was the shame that he had because he wet the bed." And she said, 'I remember the comments that my mom would make to him, shaming, embarrassing comments in front of others. And she said, 'I realize from what you taught me tonight that I'm using that same language with my own son, and I'm going to shift and change the way I'm talking to my son so I can have different outcomes for him. I also spoke about the importance of teaching children the accurate names for their body parts. One, because we shouldn't have any shame about our body parts, but two, because it helps prevent molestation of children because they can accurately describe what's happened to them. I had a father come up to me after

the class and say that as a result of the conversation, he wondered if I could connect him with resources in the community because he feels as if his three-year-old was exposed to some inappropriate behaviors. And I have community partners and I was able to connect him with those resources. So, I just wanted to share that we changed the lives for at least two children in Washna County last Wednesday night because of a class on potty training. So, I just want to thank all of you for your continued support of MSU Extension and I will leave some cards here um with QR codes to access our programs. Thank you. Thank you,

Eric. Thank you, Ann Arbor. Thanks, commissioner, for letting me speak. I'm here to tonight to ask you to move budget into pole worker training.

A little unusual. Uh the county clerk is responsible for training elect election inspectors. I'm sure you know that there's new and different election disruptions happening. You need new training. Training needs budget. That's why I'm here. And based on some conversations I had earlier today, I'm going to run through some of the election disruptions that we've seen, real world things that have happened. I'm a pull worker. What do I do if a federal agent says, "Give me your ballots." Because that happened. It happened in Fulton County, Georgia. They stole ballots and it's going on right now in Wayne. There's an open effort by the DOJ to get Wayne County ballots. What do I do if the governor's office calls me and says, "Cancel the election. We're done for today. We'll come back later." Because that happened. That happened about a week ago in Louisiana. The governor called off the election. What do I do if federal agents say, "Give me the tabulator, the voting machines." And I sent you guys, some of you, a document showing this because it's not very well known, but Tulsi Gabbard went to Puerto Rico and took their voting machines. What is the poll worker supposed to do? We need a procedure. We need a training. The clock is running. Uh, we appoint election inspectors by July 14th. So, that'll cost money. That's why I'm here. But, if somebody on staff says, "Yeah, there's a plan." Got a couple leading questions that I'm hoping you'll ask. What does that plan cost? Do they come to you for budget? Because training costs money. I get paid to do training. In fact, I did the training for election security before I came here. It was 40 seconds long. There were two instructions. Get a question you can't answer, call the clerk. If you think you need law enforcement, call 911. That deputy. If it's the federal agent law enforcement that's causing the problem, who's in charge? Whole workers need to know that we need training. Training costs money. Please help. If you can't get straight answers for like who's doing what and when, if the answer comes out of somebody's mouth instead of off a printer, if it's not a document that you

can see, please remember that a hyperengaged constituent came in here and said, "I don't think there's a plan." A little bit of budget and some push from you. I think we can change that. Thanks very much. Thank you.

Hi, good evening. I'm Wendy Alers and I'm from Augusta Township uh here in Michigan. Um I just came to make a comment and ask that the commission maybe look into uh processes around the county offices that issue permits. And I just just to pause a minute, you're probably going to hear from somebody in my township that has had issues with permits. Um my township is a small rural township. We do not have a building department. So, anytime um a business comes in or something, they need a permit for something, they come to the county. And we've had two significant issues over the course of the last few years. One was a a outdoor shooting range that was built in Milin. Um there was no communication between milein. Um permits were given at the county level and building started and the board um my board in Augusta did not know anything that was going on and now it's set up and we've got residents dealing with shooting like sometimes eight hours a day. The second one which I believe you're going to hear from a resident in the township is about a storage facility that has been operating for decades. really illegally. They didn't they didn't have ordinances. I mean, this goes back a long way. So, we're trying to undo things that were done illegally in the past. We had a board that was trying to address those things and when the elections came, we got a new board and they dropped everything. So, I don't know. Uh, I know nothing about the county processes and such, but if there could be some communication between the county and those departments that issue permits with the actual townships to see if the board is like, "Hey, yeah, we know about what's going on." Um, or are there any issues with this request? It would be really helpful. So, I just wanted to make that. And I I'm always amazed when I come here because you guys start at like five o'clock in the afternoon and you sometimes these meetings go really late. So, I appreciate that you're here and the work that you do and thank you for the time

and listening. Thank you.

Good evening. Thank you, commissioners, very much for your hard work. My name's Dave Dvardi. I'm a resident of Ann Arbor, a member of the Ann Arbor Zoning Board of Appeals, and a a representative, a trustee on the Washington Community College. um which dealing with tax capture that's uh making it harder for us to keep our tuition rate low for every county resident. Uh brings me tonight to speak in opposition to the $329 million public tax dollar subsidy for a private for-profit development. That's the Arbor South uh brownfield. That's more than 50% of the possible project cost of $588 million that I've seen listed. It's a proposal for one project at $329 million. Uh compare that to 36 previous brownfield tiffs uh in the county that have totaled among all of those at 112 million. I would argue that this is totally out of line historically and uh procedurally. It is not true that if this is not passed, no development will happen on the site. That's absolutely not true. Unless the developer chooses the unlikely course force of action of letting this land lieow across right across the street, State Street, uh there's a development currently happening at Brierwood underway with an with all sorts of units. That economic activity totally unsubsidized with public dollars will certainly spur increased demand for more development in this area. This is happening with zero subsidy. The project is being sold as an affordability project. I would argue that's a misnomer for this project. Firstly, we're talking about 210 units of housing. Affordable

at 60% of area median income. That's affordability targeted at people making $75,000 a year, not people in the service sector economy making 15 or $20 an hour. And spending a $329 million subsidy for 210 units is like paying a$ 1.5 million dollar for of public subsidy per unit. I would argue we could spend that money more efficiently to get more affordable housing targeted at people making lower incomes than $75,000 a year. Thank you. I have much more to say and I'd love to meet with each one of you independently. And uh remember this compromises our ability, every taxi entity in the uh county to provide the services that we do.

Thank you. Hi, my name's Rodney Taylor. I live in Augusta Township. Uh over the last four years, I've uh I've been talking to Justin and he's a really good guy and he's tried to help me all along. And it's gotten to where I've exhausted all the stuff me and him talked about to try to get help in my township. I I would I bought my house in 2009. I noticed a a big expansion of a uh like a junkyard almost there. Used cars parked everywhere, all kind of storage buildings put up. Uh they were all built on residential agricultural property with no permits. The county got involved and they sued the guy because things have to be up the code and stuff. There were a consent judgment made and the consent, you'd think after you guys uh went through four years of negotiating, the consent wouldn't be changed. Uh the new supervisor of my township now is admitted at one of the board meetings, he's a 40-year long friend of the guy that owns the storage, Mitchell Storage. Now, this guy, not only is he a 40-year friend of them, he's changing the consent agreement that has helped Mitchell Storage and hurt me every every inch of the way. And now I find out the guy's had a huge contract for the last two years almost doing repairs, hundreds of thousands of dollars at Mitchell Storage. I've never heard such a big conflict of interest in my life. He's the supervisor. He is a employee of Mitchell Storage. He is changing consent agreements that the town I mean the county went through all that money and time. He's changing them to help him. I now had the the county when they did the consent agreement, there were going to be a 600 ft uh drainage ditch along my property, but it was supposed to be 30 foot away from my property and there was supposed to be two sets of trees to

block everything. Now all sudden in 2025, um Mr. Waller, my supervisor, gets the the township in the county to change to where I got a now I got a 600 some foot long ditch that looks like crap. And now that's not right. The count the county should have not let it happen. The count the county attorney knew that there were conflict of interest. My supervisor was working for Mitchell Storage. He's been a 40-year friend for him. And I think I'm hoping for you guys. You know, I've exhausted, you know, Justin, do you guys have any thoughts of trying to help me with this? It's just getting worse and worse. I went to a meeting. It's my my constitutional right to come to a meeting and be able to talk. The guy, the guy says, "You just just go away. You get this guy a box of crayons and some papers so he can go over in the corner." Then the last meeting he says, "You cannot come in here and saying this stuff about me." And I brought proof. I did have the state police on the phone since they wouldn't come out because it's not a rape or a shooting or anything. They called Mr. Waller, the supervisor, and said, "Mr. Taylor has all these complaints about you." And he says, "I'll hand them how I want." And then I went to a meeting and held up the same this is a police report from the state of Michigan saying Mr. Waller said Mr. Taylor is a constant bitcher and nothing is going to ever do to help him.

I'm sorry that's time. I'm so intrigued but that I'm sorry that's time. Okay. Thank you. Any help? I would really appreciate it.

Thank you. Wow. Anyone else for public comment? Holy moly. Hi, my name is Dan Rubenstein. Um, I want to echo and reinforce the comments that Dave Dvardi made. I agree with all well-grounded in data. Um, I have never served in public office. I have served on a few boards. I've been the president of the board of the Family Learning Institute. I was on the board of the International House Ann Arbor. I'm currently on the board of the Old Westside Association in Ann Arbor. I don't view when I sit on a board or if I were elected to county commission and I were sitting in your shoes. I don't view my role as a rubber stamp. You are elected, you're sitting on this board to exercise your judgment. I also have a background in business. I was 10 years at Ford Motor Company. I was in purchasing. I had to get um sourcing recommendations approved by vice presidents. You had to have your eyes dotted and your tees crossed. you had to know what you were doing. In addition, in addition to what Dave said, which I agree with all of it and I can reinforce some of it, I just want to point out a couple of things which if I were sitting in your shoes, if I were a county commissioner trying to execute my responsibilities, I would never um I would never approve uh the uh uh Southtown Southtown uh excuse me, Arbor South uh project today. um adopt I guess is the word. I would not adopt it. What I would do is I would postpone it because there are issues that are not resolved where you don't have sufficient data. The biggest one is whether it's even a facility. It has to be a facility in order to qualify for brownfields. You don't know that it does. The last testing that was done of that

soil was 15 years ago before tanks were removed and replaced by newer tanks. You don't know if there's still pollution there that qualifies it as a brown field. And I know because I am acquainted with Tom Weider, an attorney who may also speak tonight. I know through his research that there's going to be another assessment done very soon because Egler required it. They've written to the owner and they've said you need to do an assessment and you need to get the tanks that are currently there removed. So, you know this new assessment is coming. You know, you'll have up-to-date data by which to determine is this really a polluted site or not. you need, if I were in your shoes, I would simply postpone and wait until you have actual data. There's also questions about obsolescence. And uh beyond that, again, I can just reiterate everything Dave said. I can see the light is yellow. I'm not going to say anymore, but the fact of the matter is this has not been done professionally. It's not been done well. You don't have the data you need. Wait until you can make an informed decision. You're not a rubber stamp. You are county commissioners. you're elected to exercise your judgment. This would be exercising very poor judgment. And if there's a lawsuit that reverses it, that will be on you.

Name's Tom Weiner. I think you probably know that. Um, and I'm going to talk about Arbor South as well. Now, I had things prepared, but something on the agenda struck me regarding the the just what it how it describes this. And it says tax capture of 22 million from city operating. This is a $374 million capture from all sorts of services and agencies around the county. You are not just responsible for how much comes out of your pockets. And that is even understated. The tax capture table says that it will be $38 million coming from county villages, but for some reason this only talks about 22 million out of the operating funds. What happened to the other 16 million doing the same tax table even on the agenda? We're sort of misrepresenting this and distorting what's happening. This is a $374 million capture. But let me go uh a couple of things on the um eligibility. Again, eligibility it's determined by what's in the ground. Now you have a situation where the fire services bureau which is under Lara and does all the tank inspections. They are going to they're requiring the owner to have a new assessment done there. Wouldn't you like to know what that says before you approve that? before you uh base this on uh this supposed pollution which may or may not be there. Uh similarly on the functional obsolescence what's been presented is a hired opinion from an assessor from Mcome County. You want to does anybody around this table think there's been a 50% reduction in property values anywhere in the city of Ann Arbor in living memory because that's what this assessor hired by the developer says a block away from here is city hall the city assessor Jerry Marky would be happy to to provide an answer

to that he's already given the numbers I put in one of the things I sent to you there's no there hasn't been any reduction that property for the last nine years has averaged about $4 million or half a million dollars an acre. There is no decline in property values that justifies doing this. But why don't you talk to the assessor instead of the hired gun that the developer has? Um again on the affordable housing uh what are you getting from it? Three months ago, the city did this uh development agreement and it says that the developer is supposed to engage in a good faith effort to come up with a agreement with Anna Housing Authority Commission. Where is it 3 months? Wouldn't you like to see what you're getting in terms of affordable housing before you vote for this? Because you don't know right now because that hasn't been produced. And there's just so many things like this. What's it hurt to wait a little bit? This thing has been in production for seven years and maybe take a few weeks, even a few months longer to answer these questions before you take this much money out of so many government services in this county. Jeremy Haley, Ipsy Township. I would just like to say I would like to plant trees that I'll be never to sit under and build the shade of those trees. Plant fruit trees that will be able to bear fruit that I'll never be able to eat. I want to leave that behind for my child, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, and also all of yours. And

one, the Arbor South project is rotten fruit from a tree that you're going to leave for future generations to have. you're taking away from them for to have people now maybe in the future I can show you a case where just by putting people in an area doesn't necessarily help the area I got so where I I got I can bring that one time for you but this project's not perfect and it's like you're settling for something you're settling for the first thing that comes along I'd say wait and wait for something else because the tax capture is not correct right now. At this slanty city council meeting last night during a $3.4 $4 million what they call gap. Councilman Mlean is already hoping that they would see some kind of income to help the city of Ipsellani from the Water Street project. That is a true brownfield. Okay? And that is going to get tax captured like you wouldn't believe. And when that happens, what's going to happen to the city of Lenny? They're going to be still left in the hole with more people and possibly more services to provide for those people that they're going to not have money for. Nor is the county. All this is additive. It adds up to one big number if you add it up that you're taking from future generations that you're stealing from them. I ask that you not accept this project, put it on hold, and think about it until a future date until you actually get more information

because this project is not perfect. And you're putting affordable housing in a concrete jungle jungle, which some people would deem a 15minute city, which they're trying to do, where you live here and you can eat there and you don't really have to go far because you can work in your apartment from home. And that's what they're trying to create and taking away from downtown area by creating all these little niches. Thank you. Anyone else for public comment? Tabitha, do we have anybody online?

Yes, chair. We have a phone number online. Just just one maybe the last four. Yes. Yeah. 4464. Apologies. All right. 4464. Please go ahead. Hi, can you hear me? We can. Oh,

thank you so much. My name is Linda Brower. I live in the fifth ward. I am asking you to vote no on the Arbor South Brownfield plan tonight. Katie Scott is my representative on the board of commissioners. I hope she and Commissioner Labar will join Commissioner Robbie in turning down this plan which is neither good for Ann Arbor nor for the county. I'm asking the other commissioners who represent non-AN Arbor portions of Washington County to please please save Ann Arbor for from itself. Ann Arbor has become its own worst enemy. The proposed brownfield plan for Arbor South is historically huge and a very very risky tax giveaway to a private developer. I'm not going to list all the reasons that this is a very bad idea. Others have done this very well. Attorney Tom Weer has laid out a detailed analysis of the flaws in this plan and the disingenuous machinations used by the developers to appear eligible for brownfield money. Many other citizens, including the wonderful Dave Devardy and others, have written and spoken explaining why this is not a good idea. At your last meeting discussing this proposal, commissioners Robbie and Saunders pointed out the many downsides it will have on county revenue with negative effects on county residents. There is no reason for public support to a developer which needs the support to include a number of huge parking structures and a newly designated TC1 zoned transit corridor, the purpose of which was to build residential units that can rely on public transportation rather than cars and thus contribute to sustainability. Please look carefully at the risks and negative consequences of approving this plan. I urge you to vote no tonight or minimally postpone it until you do your

due diligence, examining the details and budget of this Brownfield proposal. It's not clear to me that you have done that due diligence yet. Thank you. Not everything bright and shiny is good. This one is particularly bad. Thanks again. Thank you, Tabitha. Anyone else online? No one else. Chair. Okay. Um, at this time I'll take followup uh to public participation. Commissioner Hodgej.

Thank you, Chair. I'll be brief. Just want to thank my friends from Augusta Township for coming out and sharing your concerns. I Rodney, I know this has been I can't believe it's been four years that we've been working on this. I think like we started that um took me a couple years to meet you in person because my ankle was broken. Uh then we finally came out. And uh thank you to water resources commissioner uh for coming out too to your home to try to learn more about the issues going on there. I'll continue to work to try to figure out what more I can learn about it and figure out some hopefully some way to be helpful. And then to the permitting piece, uh I think that's an interesting conversation for us to have because the I remember when you first started winding I'm gesturing at you now. uh when he first started coming here to make us aware about the issue with the um the gunfire and there's a lot of challenges going on there and I want to figure out how I can be helpful. Um and I think the permitting issue may be something we could talk about. So I'm in touch with the two of you regularly. Uh Rodney, I know I got to return a phone call from you, but I'm glad I got to see you today. Uh and then we'll, you know, we'll take it from there. And hey there, thanks for covering. All right, that's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other commissioner followup? Commissioner Labar. Thanks, Sure. Um, I just wanted to thank the person who spoke on behalf of MSU Extension. Um, I think that was a great example of weaving in some tangible examples of government work uh that can improve lives in small quiet moments and really appreciate you putting a little uh example to it here tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Any other commissioner followup to public participation? Commissioner Robbie.

Uh, I just want to briefly thank everybody that came out to to give testimony today. Um, and thank you to all the folks that came to speak about Arbor South. I thought you were very well worded, uh, very well researched and I think, uh, you brought up some really good points that I hope my colleagues will consider. So, thank you all for coming today. Thank you. Any other commissioner followup? You guys are doing great with business and brevity. I love it. Um, all right. Thanks everyone for coming to talk to us um at the meeting tonight. I always appreciate public comment and I'm thrilled to have you here, Commissioner Hodgej.

Thank you, Chair. I want to move that we go into close session to discuss pending litigation. United States of America versus County. I can't. support. Okay. Uh, could we have a roll call vote on that, please? Things I never thought I'd hear. Shouldn't be. Commissioner Bean, yes. Commissioner Hodgej, yes. Commissioner Labar, yes. Commissioner Light, sure. Commissioner Macheski, yes. Commissioner Robbie. Commissioner Sanders, if I must. Commissioner Scott, let's go. Commissioner Somerville. Yeah. Motion carries. Thank you.

Let's have the meeting come back to order. At this time, we have liaison reports. Do I have any liaison reports? Commissioner Hodgej. Thank you, Chair. Uh, Commissioner Somerville and I did a little excursion with the ride recently and we wanted to share a little bit about we got like some nice nice swag here. Uh Tabitha, now would be the appropriate time to show the video, please. There's a video. Roll that beautiful bean footage. It's a squishy bus. Oi. Oi. Oi.

That's a little egg. My name is Annie Somerville and I represent district 6 on the county board of commissioners covering the city of Ipsellani and parts of Ipsellani and Superior townships. And I'm Justin Hodgej and I represent district 5 on the county board of commissioners which covers most of Ipsellani township and all of Augusta Township. Well, today Justin, we're headed to the downtown county administration building. All right. And what do we do there? Well, when we're at the advent building, it's always usually when we have board meetings. Pride is safe, clean, accessible, and just a good time.

Oh, I really love connecting with residents and helping them with their day-to-day um issues that involve county government. My favorite part is being able to work to provide excellent human services for the people of county. Well, we made it to the county administration building and we're ready to go do some good government thanks to the ride on the bus. They round and round all through the county. Very cute. You can watch it without the lag on their social media. Uh it's it was a good time. There's a lot of unused footage. No, maybe maybe we'll release that. Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you. Any other liaison reports? Okay, let's not throw that again. Okay. All right. Um report from the county administrator. We have um with us tonight, Deputy County Administrator Andrew Doo. And

uh thank you, Chair. Um two two brief well one brief report and then one a little bit more involved I think of importance to the board. Uh first uh Greg and I and several of our colleagues from CH. I believe many of you know director Trish Cortez and Administrator Lisa Gens we had we had the chance to accompany Commissioner Macheski to a meeting of the Western Washington regional advisory group in late March. We've been invited there several times and had a chance to talk with them about county buildings general county budgeting practices and then a lot of time is spent talking about the mental health and public safety millage and how CH is investing in that community. Uh it's always a pleasure to be invited and to speak and I think for our part it was really good and we've got it's a group that we're looking to work with more in the future. Uh so that's on the Western Regional Advisory Group and so to the second part though um you heard a pretty extensive report from parks director Megan Bunilio last week about where we are in the planning process. Uh but there's also some discussion about how to how to fund that. Uh we are working on a board action item that we expect to bring back to this group soon. Uh but tonight have a presentation uh from our CFO Tina Gavalier uh that will speak a little bit more to how we are uh proposing to you all to to recommend uh having complete funding for that building so we can stay in alignment with the the very aggressive building schedule that we've committed to the public to come.

Great. Thank you.

Good evening. Don't make me cry. Um, so, uh, let's see. Oh, it's catching up. So, um, you've seen this slide before, but we what we did is, um, we added in the county capital improvement borrowing. So, we have settled on 18 million, uh, the maximum amount as of right now. Um, Administrator Dill wanted me just kind of walk through this to go over the amounts that we have to spend first, the grants, the Superior Township ARPA funds and the bond borrowing should be spent first and then the other sources of um what has been committed or allocated towards construction. Also to note about 500 just under 505,000 has been allocated structurally for operational costs. Um and parks is working on determining the operational cost model and we'll share more information when available. We're going to get into a little bit of the um bonding timeline. You've seen this also before. The check marks have um been the uh bullets that have been completed. Um so everything on this slide except the continued updates under the county administrator um have been uh done. There is a p uh pending public notice in intent to res intent to borrow resolution that was published um in the legal newspaper on April 23rd that expired on June 7th. We have requested ratings on the bonds per the financial consultant. Um he had recommended that we do the rating calls prior to my departure just because I've been through a rating a rating call. Well, Greg and I both have been through a rating call and just to kind of make sure that um you know, we want to reiterate and obtain that AAA bond rating. So, less transition and less stress would be stressful for me and Greg, but not uh any new appointed uh CFO.

The timeline is still to come and hold on a sec. There we go. Um the rating uh meetings are scheduled for May 14th and May 15th. We should receive the reading uh ratings uh by May 29th. We are preparing a single um reading item for June 3rd. We have a draft resolution from the bond council that will also be accompanying the rating agency meetings that we have next week. Um again, the referendum period for the public notice of intent expires June 7th. Um if the board wants to do a second reading, that's July 1st. Um and then the sale of the bonds preliminary official statement will be released July 9th. The competitive sale is estimated to be done July 16th and then the final close out will occur between uh mid July and uh delivery of the bonds by August 6th. So for full transparency we wanted to share and I know this is small but hopefully you have it in electronically and um you can zoom in but we had asked um the financial consultant to give us a couple or well quite a few I mean there's three pages and I think there's three scenarios on each page. So the first page is this was $1 million annual payments for different levels of borrowing. So, at 10 million, uh, 15 million, and$18 million, um, uh, $18 million comes in with a 1.1 million bond payment over 30 years. Also, on this slide, let me see if I can get the little clicker to work. The, um, interest payment is the middle column in each of these scenarios. That is the cost of the interest to borrow the varying different amounts. So when you look at the $10 million borrowing for 13 years, the total cost of that would be

just um over 2.4 million. 15 million for a 24 amortization would be $9 million cost. $18 million for a 30-year amortization is a $14.9 million cost. Note that the longer you bond for the time period, the higher the interest rate. And I think Commissioner Robbie pointed that out last time. I want to make sure that so the second um amortization schedules um are for all for 20 years different v borrowing amounts again 10 15 and 18 but same type of concept um $10 million for 20 years would be $4.5 million costs Um uh 15 years for uh 20 year I mean 15 thou 15 million for 20 years would be just uh about $6.8 million of cost and then $18 million for 20 years is 8.1 million. The final schedule is um again varying um amounts with a uh anticipated annual payment of a million dollars. Um, one is a 20-year amortization, 25-year amortization, and a 30 amortization to keep around that 100 I mean that one yet that $1 million bond payment. Again, borrowing costs for 20 years at 13.8 million is 6.2 million. 15.3 million for 25 years is 9.7 million. And then um uh 16.9 million the cost is uh for 30 years is um 13.4 million.

And then finally um this slide is what we are recommending the structural allocation to fund the 20year $18 million borrowing. Um, so what we did is we took the uh 2026 property tax growth, multiplied that by the 1.5% increase in property tax assumption for 2027. That gives you just over 3.4 million available to allocate. Remember, we have a half a percent wage increase triggered by our property tax growth. It costs just under a million dollars. The annual bond payment for the 18 million for 20 years is just over 1.3 million. And then we still have just under 1.2 million potentially to um um uh uh allocate and we want to potentially recommend some type of contingency for construction just because of the conversations that are continuing about um the footprint, the makeup of the building, that sort of thing. As well as um consideration for that 1.2 2 million of other county operational cost allocations that will come back to you um sometime after the in alignment with the first quarter budget update and or the budget reaffirmation. Also should note that 2026 property tax growth um of three just under 3.4 4 million um minus the half percent wage increase effective July 1st. So it's half the cost of a fully year cost um gives you 2.9 million of non-structural funds still to allocate um to priorities. And with that I will take questions.

Um thank you Tina. Um, also thank you for your service. Um, I guess so great, I understand all of that. Can you talk about risks associated with this? Like I just want to know what risk there are in case things go like there's like a downturn, an economic downturn. So there is always risk, right? Um, we may have an economic downturn. I think signs in the economy are indicating potentially an economic downturn. Um but we have not had a loss in property tax revenue since um probably 2012 2013 at this point. We are very conservative in our property tax growth assumptions um to help weather that. So you know if you look back in time um we probably hover around average over the last 10 years of 3% property tax increase when you take it all inclusively per year. So there is always a risk, but yes.

But you think we're in a solid position? Yes. To start Yes. to start with. Yes. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Sanders.

So my question is I I looked at the numbers that you gave us. Um do we know why we're not asking uh parks to pay more? $3.5 million. I mean, what's the what's what are parks sitting on in terms of their I mean, this is their responsibility as well as county, but 3.5 that's all we're getting other than the operational. Um, so I'm asking that out loud. I don't know if that's what you were as I'll do my best. I think certainly we're very cognizant of that. This is a massive undertaking for the organization is what I would say and it's it's really taking all efforts and all resources to deliver I think what we we believe the community expects of the county. Um what this represents is a is a big general fund investment in the bonding but the operations uh I think are are something that we are also very concerned about being able to structurally fund and be able to deliver the programmings through the facility that that the public expects. So those are still in development. Again, as Tina mentioned, we're not able to report on those tonight, but do expect those to be significant uh and and certainly be in the same uh ballpark, I think, at this point in terms of where the bond payment would come from. Uh and that's I'm sorry, Commissioner.

Go ahead. Nope. I'm I think we we've anticipated this and have have worked closely with uh Megan and her team to to really investigate all funding sources with this. So, um I think we're aware of it and have been doing our due diligence on it.

Okay. I I I'm I'm just putting it out there. I Megan knows I will call her anytime I have a question. Uh but also I'm I'm kind of reverting back to the discussions uh I don't want to say the pressure uh but the suggestions that were made to us as a board regarding uh when we were going to put parks and recrecks on uh app or prove them being put on the ballot for their um millage renewal. And the east side rec center was used often as that carrot and stick to say, "Oh, we're really going to need to know in advance, so we need to be put on here early." I I just want to make sure that respectfully um they they are providing um what we know they are capable of providing towards the offset of these costs. Um and I guess I want to say publicly that there has been push back for some time. It's gotten a whole lot better over the last eight months or a year, but prior to that, there was kind of just almost outright opposition to it. Um, and I've called a spade a spade before and I'm going to say it again. The people on the east side of the county pay relatively the same tax burden that everybody else pays towards the operations of parks and reccks. We have just refurbished the Mary Lou. We've just poured a ton of money into that. And so I I just want to make sure that I'm

continuing to blow my horn about equity. Um, and um, I don't want to I'm not going to just pick on parks and recrecks. I'm going to say that sometimes it looks like this across the board where it's a kind of situation where respectfully um, everybody wants to spend our money first and not want to spend the money that they have that they are given for these exact same purposes. We're not asking parks and reccks to do something outside of what they are missioned or chartered to do. Um, and so I just want I'm going to keep putting it out there. Um, because I know that there are people that don't want this to happen. Um, and that's not acceptable. So, I'm saying that out loud. Need to give the residents what they deserve and what they pay for and not try and double dip them. Thank you. I have um Haj, Robbie, and then Light.

Thank you. Thank you. Uh thanks for the presentation and again, thank you for your service. Uh is there anything with this strategy that you have concerns about related to our ability to continue to provide uh compensation increases for staff tied to property tax increments? Yes, it's going to get more and more challenging to do that, but I think the board has realized that with the current contract, union contract agreements that we have coming out of. Okay. Can you talk a little bit more about that just so we can start so the board can start?

You have less and less to allocate structurally to other things, other priorities if you try to or if you continue to um tie wage increases to property tax growth. But it has become a practice for I don't know 10 years now. Okay. Do you have any other suggestions for us or other things to consider related to that? I think we've invested a lot in compensation over the last five years. Tremendous a lot amount and I think that it that we can't continue at the current pace. So it's realistic um and the cost of living associated with um uh inflationary factors will be the limited wage increases. Does that make sense?

Thank you. I'm trying to be very careful. I know touchy subject, but I Commissioner Robbie.

Thank you, Chair. Um I I just had a few questions for you about the different bond scenarios. Before I ask you about that though, I do want to um add and support what Commissioner Sanders was saying. I do, you know, I serve on the parks commission. Uh, and maybe this is a conversation for later, too. I I do firmly believe that it is well within the board's um responsibility uh to issue these bonds to help um you know, complete this project. It's something that I've advocated for for years and I think it's the right thing for us to do. I'm really glad that we're exploring it now um and uh very much supportive of it. And I do think that um parks has some funds that they've been squirreing away, which I appreciate the conservative nature of doing that. And it's been something that the parks have been doing for uh over a decade now, putting money to the side to help support um you know, operational uh future operational needs that the parks commission has. Um I do I will advocate with parks and my fellow parks commissioners that I do think it is uh important that parks does step up. I think they will be stepping up to op for the operational cost of this program which will be significant um and there will be a subsidy that the parks will have to on an annual basis provide to uh operationalize the east side rec center. So, that will be built in on an ongoing basis. I do think I do agree with Commissioner Sanders that uh I would like to see a little bit more front-end investment um to help offset the ultimate costs that the county is going to have to bear with uh the B, you know, to bond for this. Um, so that's just something I wanted to state out loud because I have uh feelings about the

amount of money that parks are putting into that reserve fund um that are not getting spent on current needs, though I understand the long-term um fiscal strategy of trying to put money to the side that can ultimately be used um to fund future programming. So, I just want to make sure to say that uh and agree with Commissioner Sanders point that, you know, these dollars do belong to everybody and when we see big investments in my community, but not as big investments on the east side, that becomes an equity issue. And so, we want to see both the county board making those investments and parks making those uh those investments as well. um the questions on the bonding front. So the different scenarios that you proposed um a few a few questions that I have. Uh first is um and I'm trying to bring back the files in the depths of my brain from previous bonding discussions over a decade ago. Um the I don't remember the exact term, but I think it's like uh the like calling the bonds basically like are these bonds that we're going to be uh uh issued toward to the county going to be callable or non-allable bonds? Um like can I guess what I mean is can we pay them off early? Is there going to be the opportunity to pay them off early and avoid you know the full amount of the interest payments?

So we won't know that until the sale. Um right now the financial consultant says that probably 99% chance that we would be able to refinance at the 10-year mark. Okay. At this point with the way with the the the sales are occurring and what is coming in when you put a bid out or a sale out. Um that's what he was talking from. So if we do and your recommendation is to do a 20-year um administration finance and the financial consultant. Yeah. Yeah. 20 year 18 million. So halfway through we could

pretty good chance that we'll be able to refinance or pay down the a significant portion of the bonds to avoid if the interest rates are better at that time. Okay. To avoid the u volume of interest payments that we would currently have. I mean the interest rates now would you characterize them as like moderate? They're not that high, right? But no, but timing is everything, right? when we did what did the refinancing in 2022 for the 2014 2015 um capital improvement bonds by the time when we started that process to the end the the the interest rate was not in any of the scenario oh jeez so you know

so depending on how long this process takes I don't see interest rates changing the feds aren't doing anything right now so if we can get this deal done which the board seems to have an appetite to accelerate this then I'm hopeful Right. Until it's sold though, you're you don't know what you're locked in on.

Okay. So, bottom line is uh interest rates are moderate right now. These bonds are likely going to be callable at the 10-year mark and potentially we could alleviate some of our financial burden for the interest if that works out in that way. Okay. Um second question on that was there was a little asterisk on your chart about the bonding costs. Is there like a typical percentage of what that is of the total bonding amount? I assume this is like the

bond. I had to sign engagement letters with MFCI. I won't speak to bond counsel. I don't know what m Michelle can speak to bond counsel how those are coming in. Um but MFCI right now it's under $5,000. Um unless they have to incur costs. We will do a rating call virtually. So we won't have travel costs. Usually that's wrapped into it. And then there will be a cost for pulling the ratings with Moody's and S&P global uh rating services. Uh right now the engagement letter with S&P I think was 26250. 26,250 came in what that cost would be. So there are um some nominal costs and I say that lightly, right? I would think that they're going to be about $50,000 or less um in totality

and bond counts. Yeah. Sorry. No, I interrupted you. But um I don't I didn't see the price for Moody's. I did look the last time we pulled a Moody's um rating for delinquent tax and it was under 20,000 $20,000. But it um it part of the borrowing amount drives that cost. Okay. And bond council is that typically a percentage of the total or

um I don't recall but I can get back to you on that. Okay, sweet. Thank you. Um, and then for the payment mechanism that you put up the slide for, uh, so that was for 2027. I is it correct to assume that the over the next 20 years were anticipating that any increase in taxes, a portion of it would go to this? Is that kind of how we're finding?

No, this is the 2026 growth um that is compounded in 2027 as a recommended allocation as a structural allocation. Um so when 2020 hopefully with fingers crossed 2027 property tax come in and it's a positive and it's an increase this is already counted for for 20 years. I got you. Be able to be allocated for 27 and beyond. I got you. So, we are um not going to be using any Well, let me ask it this way. The I brought it up last time. I know. I know.

The bond the the bond payment savings that will that we will incur once we have paid down the jail bond. Do we have is that already spoken for somewhere else in the budget? Not yet. Okay. So,

that's 800,000. Last payment is 2027. And I just will remind commissioners, there's not been a determination of uh reallocating those dollars, but that that $800,000 was a result of police sa uh police services savings that the sheriff at the time put towards the bond payment for the jail expansion. Um, I'm not saying it should go back to the sheriff's office, but until we have a um good picture or estimate of how they are um in their current year budget, because we know that we had projections indicating one thing at the end of last year, but anyways, until we know for sure that any um budget issue is um resolved, I wouldn't I wouldn't recommend not allocating that at this time. Okay, that that's helpful. But so in theory, it is uh extra cushion in the county budget moving forward that allows some flexibility, but you have not used that in your payment, right,

plan for this bond because you're using the structural increase in taxes from 2027, which will carry forward and basically until we see a reduction in taxes in the future potentially. Right. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Light.

Uh, I think Commissioner Sanders and Robbie um made it. I I just I also in agreement just wanting to make sure that um Parks and Wreck can do their due diligence to make sure that um they can support with the bond. Um and I believe that um there is more than enough of what we have in the past talked about a fund balance, not fund. Um I think that there is enough in that um in that fund balance or in that um reserve to to assist and back up that bond. So it

Thank you, Commissioner Somerville. Thank you. Um, I didn't realize that this may put you on the spot, so I'm sorry for that. Okay. Um, can you help me understand how this path makes more sense than just using some of our fund balance to fill in the gap for this project? Well, it's a 20-year I call it a 20-year structural allocation, right?

Um, fund balance should be used for non-structural allocations. Um and for you know uh an economic perfect example economic downturn. We know if there's an economic downturn that fund balance could be used to fill gaps right hopefully it would be a shortterm year or two or god forbid a threey year. I mean last time it was two years economic downturn but um that would be the appropriate use of fund balance for those type of things because we know we have contractual commitments and there's no guarantee that with cont contractual commitments that say the unions if we decided that we needed to reduce costs would come to the table to do that.

Okay. I guess I'm just thinking like the overall interest long term. Um, and I'm also just thinking about things that we're currently funding with ARPA that are going to expire and they're all going to kind of like hit the fan for the board at once. Like I'm thinking about funding positions in REO. I'm thinking about the community health workers. So, I'm just trying to understand um if this amount is the part that makes the most sense for us given some of these things are going to be coming in 2028 for us um and where that money is going to come from to help fill positions that we currently are paying for through ARPA that are going to be all up all at once. So just trying to think about that too.

Yeah. I I can I just say one thing? I just I think that there has been some momentum to get this project done and I think to fill the gap of what is needed to build it is this is the quickest route to get there bonding rather than using rather than using fund balance. Uh I mean we haven't we haven't talked in the administration administration on that front but that is a we could talk about that. Um I I don't know Andrew if you want to say anything about the community partner partner conversation.

I'll I'll look to the chair as I speak to it. Um maybe the general comment would be we are still seeking other funds to help support construction of the building as well as operations. Um, our our focus though has been making sure that we have enough money that is known and secured to be able to proceed with a construction schedule. Um, right and being able to to break ground, have a foundation in place for winter, which is when things get really hard, just to be able to to meet the the public expectations around it. So, I think our our hope would be that you take this as our our best effort to say here is how we can have full funding to build the the building that you all saw the presentation of last week, but are also trying to build in contingencies so that if additional funding is secured that we've got ways to use it that can reduce uh the the amount of funding that's coming from the county either to support the capital costs that we're talking about or to support operations in the future. So, we're we're working on that. Uh, I don't have a more of a presentation tonight or an update, but that's been a big focus of Greg's efforts over the past several months.

Thank you. And thanks. I'm not asking these questions because I don't support bonding for the project. I'm asking because I want to understand what all of our options are before we make a final decision. Um, and I guess earlier it was stated that we needed to use other sources before we could actually bond. Can someone Can you explain that a little bit more? um on that first yeah that slide the and so I think $49.4 $4 million just under that slide. Um just because the grants have de deadlines. Yeah. Um to be spent. So that was what the intent was. Um it would be the But we are Sorry. No, go ahead.

So but we are like we're not slowing down our actual action to bond until those are used because No, no, no, no.

I just wanted to make sure that was like kind of scary. I was like what does that mean? Um, no, but a an important thing to know is if you bond for a construction project, you can't earn interest or you can't um well, you can earn interest um but you can't make more money, right? So, there has to be a certain order of way to spend down the identified funding that has been committed. Obviously grants and borrowing first before we do the general fund swap 7 million or maybe the parks and recck commission 3.5 million that's been allocated for construction but the rest of and then then endowment fund could probably be later. I don't want to speak for parks so I'm not I don't want to

Okay. No, that's fine. I I just was trying to get like a bigger picture and then I know that the comments have been made that like shovels won't go into the ground until it's very like clear. And so is clear not clear until we actually vote on approving the bond. I think we want to identify the co we want to have the identified funding in place for the cost of the construction. We remember we we have to do our due diligence for the borrowing for sure. That's important to demonstrate that.

Yes, I agree with that. But so like on the actual on the other side of this on the construction side the construction firm won't begin until this board formally votes on the bond. Oh Megan is right here. So

hello everybody. Um construction timeline that we shared last meeting. It honestly kind of aligns well especially um for the aggressive single read timeline. Um if we approved at the J the June 3 meeting um we're looking to try to do an initial bid package for foundation and work that would start uh this summer um towards the end of the summer but we're still proceeding uh with the course of action that the bond would go forward and we're preparing to start construction at the end of the summer. Okay. Thank you. Um Commissioner Rabbi.

Uh thank you Chair. I just wanted to build off of what Commissioner Somerville was saying. I I do think that there is still room for a conversation about utilizing some fund balance. I don't think that we can or should necessarily use 18 I don't even know if we have $18 million of fund balance to use per policy, but I think every every million dollars that we put up front and don't bond for it means less interest payments um and lower annual payments. So I I think it's an option to do like a hybrid model where we like take some money out of fund balance and then bond for the rest. So maybe it's not 18 million, maybe it's, you know, we put three million in and bond for 15 or something. So that would potentially reduce our annual costs. But that's just a question of like what, you know, what what the opportunity cost is for us, whether it's worth, you know, the losing that fund balance on an annual basis. I do, by the way, think the part of your proposal, I think, was to have some of the 2027 increase go into like a contingency. Um, I I think it'd be worth considering squirreing some of that money away as well for um that 10 year per that 10 year mark when we can potentially refinance um and having some money in reserves to like potentially pay some of that down early um so that we're not refinancing for as much. So I think that so three things we could use fund balance now bond and then um squirrel money away for in 10 years when the county could potentially pay down its obligation early or at least shorten the period from an additional 10 years to maybe five or something like that to avoid some of the interest.

Commissioner Sanders. So, the bond um payment would be made by whom? The county or parks and wrecks? The county. Right now, it's county general fund dollars has been identified as the funding source for the 20-year bond payment. And on your way out the door, since you were here back then, how did we pay for Mary Lou? Did we bond? Where did we get the money to build that facility? You know, we we'll have to investigate that. I don't have an answer for you. Okay.

Um so I'd like to u if it's possible, I'd love to have some sort of um comparison. How did we pay for Mary Lou? What did we have to do to get that money? Where did it come from compared to what we're looking at for the east side when you not tonight? Okay. Can you talk about our fund balance a little bit though? Okay.

Um, so I we do have a healthy fund balance. Parks department does keep a substantial fund balance, but out of that just over $13 million, $10 million is already encumbered by the parks commission itself. So 3.5 of that goes towards the East Washington Community Recreation Center. 6.4% goes or sorry, sorry, 6.4 million goes to the borderto-border trail initiative. It's substantial cost investment for the county. Um it's something that's been voted on highly by every member of the public across the board uh in terms of not every member but highest um rating uh for our community needs assessments as is paved and unpaved trails throughout the county. So the parks commission has responded in kind and has encumbered some of our fund balance for matching and constructing the trail. Um so the remaining portion which is just under $3.3 million goes to our capital improvement fund. Um I was asked to provide a capital improvement overview and I provided about five to six years of capital improvement projects which total more than $30 million dollars. Our parks department is 50 years old and our infrastructure also is old. So we have a number of projects which could be moved around over the course of many years but there is a lot of cost to running a park system. So, we are looking to fund um the operation of the East Washington Community Recreation Center. Additionally, we are staffing and administering the design of this project as well. Um and looking, we've hired a construction project manager. We've already got that person on board. We're looking to hire a um superintendent before the building's even open. So, the parks department is adding all those costs already and I'm happy to outline that in more detail and give some good cost assessments for it, but I would say that we're partnering collaboratively with county administration. Additionally, to the question about Mary

Louu, I believe, and I wasn't there at the time, it was built in ' 91. Um, it was a county parks initiative specifically cost for construction at the time was significantly less. This is a project that is a joint project between both county administration and county parks. We don't have all of the money to build a building like this. And so we wouldn't have chose to build the building right now if we didn't have the resources available to do it. So it is collaborative and I think hence that's why you see all the different funding components that have gone into it.

So I I can respect uh your response to that. I think I just um so the largest community that I represent is all about their parks and their recreation and the border to border and the biking and walking and I absolutely um understand that. I support that. But I do want to remind our general public that we are um talking about an area in our county that um does not have the luxury necessarily of being able to leisurely walk and bike somewhere because they likely have two or three jobs. they likely do not have the support for their children or a safe place for them to go and be on the scale that possibly the community that I represent does. And so I guess I just wanna I want to kind of you know brand that big ugly E equity and I want to keep that at the

because we are talking about and I don't like a deficit model discussion but until we are able to change the soil that's not my word that's that's Parson's word Um, we need to look differently because right now it's it sounds like we are looking at parks and wrecks in terms of how they service a certain population in our community and not all in our community. I mean, I I don't want to talk about the fact that it looks like we're not going to have supported summer programming on the east side. Maybe somebody help me figure that out. But and it's not my area specifically. It's not my sworn area. Uh but they're still my people. And so I want to make sure that we are not scapegoating our way out of doing what we would do for any other area because that's what it kind of sounds like. And it keeps coming back around to sound that way. And I'm I'm I'm just going to be honest. I'm resentful of it. I don't like it. If we've got money for everything else, we need to be able to make sure we've got money for that area. And those families that don't know anything about a dog on border to border. What is that? And where is it running through their community? I don't know where it's running through their community. I haven't seen it. You can tell me. You can take me on a tour.

Be happy. But I'm just saying, you know, this week, we're not we're not calling the spade a spade. When you have the type of job and benefits and financial support to be able to come home and be done at 5:00 and take your kids out on their brand new bikes and ride for an hour and then come back home for dinner. Every community does not have that luxury. And I hope that with the east side parks and reccks, we are moving those communities in that direction. So that's my spill. If I got if I got a fall on my sword, I I've done it before and I will continue to do it. That community deserves it.

I don't disagree.

Tina, you're going to miss us. maybe a little.

Okay. Yeah. Um um Andrew, go ahead.

Yeah. Thank you, Chair. Uh thank you to Tina and Megan for addressing the questions. I I think just to the commissioner discussion, this is important for us and I hope you see through how much we are preparing, how how aggressively we are moving on this that we take your comments and concerns seriously. we can always do better, but you're getting a full court press on us. And I think, you know, the the long-term community expectations really are at the root of why we are bringing and and moving so aggressively on this. So, want to you will continue to hear updates from us as we work through this process. Um, and and want to continue to engage with this board and also just want to thank you for uh for you continuing to prioritize this as a project for the community. Your support has really helped get us here. Um, so with that, thank you, chair. That would conclude my report.

Thank you. Um, next item is a report from the chair of the board of commissioners. I I don't really have a report per se other than I know I talked previously about how we can form a woman's commission at the county. Something I'm still trying to pursue doing. I just want to say that I had a discussion with an another elected official this past week about my interest in doing that and I got a very quizzical response about why would you like what would a woman's commission do and why would you need that? Um and then on Saturday we watched Sherry Dvau be the first woman trainer who had a horse to win the Kentucky Derby. Wow. It was fun to watch, right? It was fantastic. But it's 2026 and we just said that's the first woman trainer to have a horse in the Kentucky Derby and it was like revolutionary. That's why we need a woman's commission. So, I'm still pursuing that and that's just my little blurb about that. Uh, next item up is a special order of business. Um, I have a public hearing on the 2026 27 urban county annual action plan.

Public hearing is open. Anybody here to comment on that public hearing? No. And the public hearing is closed. Okay. And the next is a resolution to set a public hearing on a 2026 mill rate. Would somebody like to move that resolution? Support. Okay. So that's moved by Labar, supported by Bean. Um, any discussion? Okay. Uh, that's a roll call. Brendan, Commissioner Hodgej, yes. Commissioner Labar, yes. Commissioner Light, yes. Commissioner Macheski, yes. Commissioner Robbie, yes. Commissioner Sanders, yes. Commissioner Scott, yes. Commissioner Somerville, yes. Commissioner Beaman,

yes. Motion carries. Fantastic. Uh, next item on the agenda, item nine is appointments. Um, would somebody like to move those appointments? So moved. Okay. So I have moved by Labar, supported by Hajj. Any discussion on these appointments? All right. This is another roll call. Commissioner Labar? Yes. Commissioner Light? Yes. Commissioner Machi? Yes. Commissioner Robbie. Commissioner Sanders? Yes. Commissioner Scott. Yep. Commissioner Somerville. Yes. Commissioner Beaman. Yes. Commissioner Hodgej. Yes. Motions carry. Thank you very much, Brendan. Consent agenda.

The move approval of the consent agenda. Chair. Support. Moved by Labar, supported by Hajj. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Okay. The item passes. On to the first reading resolutions. Commissioner Labar.

Chair, I'd move uh resolutions one A uh resolution to approve negotiation on purchase agreement with CH. B a resolution setting the 2026 county mill rate. C a resolution to authorize the above midpoint hiring of Thomas Clelication analyst from IT. D. A resolution to ratify the tenative agreement with the prosecutors association or okay pardon me moved by labar supported by Hajj. Any discussion on any of these items? Mr. Robbie.

Thank you chair. I just want to applaud CH for putting another wonderful proposal in front of us for purchasing uh two more facilities. Um as you know I'm a big fan of you guys doing this. Very excited to vote yes. Thank you for your work on it. Any other discussion? Okay, we'll have a voice vote. All those in favor of the first reading resolutions, please say I. I. I. Any opposed? Great. Those items pass. Um, would somebody like to move the final reading? Oh, and let's just let's just do final reading and then we'll do single reading. Final reading.

Thanks, chair. Uh, under final reading, A, a resolution adopting the Arbor South redevelopment plan. B, a resolution authorizing the uh, Board of Public Works to renew the Western Recycling Authority operating and maintenance agreement. Okay. Moved by Labar, supported by uh, Hajj. We'll just do each of these resolutions in order. There's only two. So, discussion on item A. Commissioner Robbie.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, so I obviously you guys know how I feel about this one. So I think that a lot of the comments that were made um today by members of the public um were extremely valid. Um some of the emails um that we received uh you know outlining some of the concerns around whether you know state rules were followed by the developer. I think raised some questions for me um about this project. Um I think understanding the perspectives of some of our um surrounding taxing jurisdictions that will be impacted by this massive tax subsidy for a developer um you know need to be considered. We heard some of that today. We had an elected official come and tell us that he was concerned about his um governmental unit's ability to continue providing um you know lowcost education for our community through the community college. Um, I think we don't fully understand the impact yet of what our community is going to be paying for the services that over a thousand units of housing coming online. Uh, but not paying taxes to support the many services in our community. What that's going to mean for our roads, for our libraries, uh, for other um, you know, public services like our parks. um we don't have a good understanding of any of that and I think there's a lot of questions um that still need to be answered. Um and so Madam Chair, I would like to make a motion to postpone this item to our May 20th meeting.

Is there a support for that motion? Support. Okay. Discussion on the motion to postpone. Hajj,

thank uh thank you. I will direct it at you because I'm supposed to do it that way. I would want to wonder what information what what is the information people would want to see before like for the next meeting. I'm not I I I guess I will defer that question to Commissioner Robbie because I'm not sure what information we don't have in front of us that would make this a more reasonable decision to have at this time. And I just ask it that way just so staff like if the motion passes then so staff know what information to bring back next. Yeah.

Yeah. Commissioner Robbie, can you elucidate that if it's permitted under Robert's rules to do that on a motion for postponement? Yes. Yes.

Okay. I think uh first and foremost it would be uh helpful to understand this issue around uh the department of licensing and regulatory affairs and whether or not there is a uh need to um deal with the storage tanks in the named facility. I think it would be helpful to um understand um whether or not the facility was um uh cleaned in any way, shape or form uh by the state um prior to this time. Um and what the current conditions of the contaminants on the site are. Uh I know that we have old data, but we don't have anything uh that is more current. So I think having a better understanding of what the site conditions are would be helpful. I think that from an assessment standpoint, understanding uh what the uh government assessors believe the value of the site to be um I think would be extremely helpful given that the uh assessed the assessment uh report that we have is from a hired entity by the developer and we I don't know that we that I have seen um a uh report from any either the city or the county assessor's office that would give a better indication of the true value of the property now as compared to previous value and then future valuation as well. Um, all of those things I think are crucial to understanding whether or not this is uh first of all a uh a project that qualifies under um you know the Brownfield act and whether or not it is something that um the calculations uh under that we have for the uh brownfield

plan uh still make sense based on those calculations. I think we might have some answers to some of those questions in the room. Um, but um, Commissioner Hodgej, does that help? Thank you. Yeah, that does help. I guess one other question I would have, is there any risk or downside to delaying it for two weeks? Do we know that? Do we know? It's just an albatross, but no. Okay. Uh, Commissioner Labar.

Thanks, Chair. I I was going to ask staff if they could uh provide a little context here for some of the questions or some of the items that Commissioner Robbie raised. Um I'm happy to hear that out. I I haven't seen yet something that would indicate we've sort of um gone outside the normal bounds of of of process. So I'm I'm happy to hear that. Uh I don't know if if Nathan or somebody else wants to um could I ask a quick point of order again? Is it allowable under Robert's rules to have this type of discussion on a motion to postpone? I think we probably just need to discuss the merits of postponing,

right? But if you're looking to have more information to help you decide if if the motion is um has any merit, then I do think that's fair to discuss. Okay. Could we review Robert's rules just to make sure? My my understanding is that you're only supposed to discuss the time and manner of postponement. We can review that. Let's take a moment for our corporation council to review that.

That was a dad sneeze. I stand corrected. It is limited to the time to which the question will be postponed.

Thank you.

Any other discussion on the motion to postpone? Commissioner Sanders. Well, I did want to just add some context um because I did have an opportunity to meet with Oxford this morning. Um but then I also received multiple communications um providing me with additional information slash asking me more questions. And so, um, but I've also asked, um, for other information that I just basically learned, I think, uh, definitively today that is not going to be provided. So, um I would like to be able to speak with my um township supervisor uh because we likely are going to be affected. We're literally across the road. Um and there are at least one or two other um folks that I'd like to talk to and so I'm more comfortable having those conversations done and then voting. So, if that helps at all with the inquiry that um Commissioner Haj has made, hope that helps.

Any other discussion on the motion to postpone? Brendan, we'll do a roll call for that. Commissioner Machetski, yes. Commissioner Robbie, Commissioner Sanders, yes. Commissioner Scott, no. Commissioner Somerville, no. Commissioner Beaman, yes. Commissioner Hodgej, yes. Commissioner Labar, no. Commissioner Light, yes. Motion carries.

Okay. Um, do we postpone that to a time certain that comes to the May 20th? Okay. All right. Well, that will come back on May 20th. Um, Commissioner Somerville. Yeah, I just want to make a comment. I will not be at our May 28th meeting and so unfortunately I won't be able to vote on this item, but I would have voted yes. So,

thank you, Commissioner Somerville. I also would encourage my colleagues to look at the Brownfield Authority uh itself, the meeting there. There's many experts on that committee, engineers, experts in Brownfield funding, including James Harass. they look at the the the engineering detail sometimes makes me crazy at this meeting. Um but they are because I want to be like let's go but they are so detailed and it is past muster with them. Um so you could probably reach out to any number of those people as well to get information too. Um, next item on the agenda, a resolution authorizing the Board of Public Works to renew the Western Recycling Authority. Any comments, questions, or concerns on this item? Okay, let's uh have a roll call vote on that. All those in favor, please say I.

I. Any opposed? Oh, sorry. Roll. It's a roll call. Sorry. Final reading. Roll call. Brendan. Commissioner Robbie. Commissioner Sanders, yes. Commissioner Scott, yep. Commissioner Somerville, yes. Commissioner Bean, yes. Commissioner Hodgej, yes. Commissioner Labar, yes. Commissioner Light, yes. Commissioner Machi, yes. Motion carries. Great. Uh, would somebody like to move the single reading, please? Commissioner Labar.

Chair. Under single reading, A, a resolution authorizing uh for authorization to exceed 10 grand for the maintenance limit on Whitmore Lake level district repairs. B, a resolution honoring National Small Business Week, May 3rd through 9. C, a resolution authorizing acceptance from DTE Community Supports Fund for Barrier Busters. D. A resolution honoring Tina Gavalier upon her retirement and celebrating her distinguished service took county and hoping she and Cheyenne travel well. Uh e a proclamation recognizing May as Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, May 10th through 17th as Taiwanese American Heritage Week and celebrating the 24th anniversary of the Michigan Taiwanese American Association. APA resolution recognizing National Nurses Week May 6 through 12th, 2026, and honoring the contributions of nurses in Washington County and beyond. Uh, I'd also move claims.

Great. Okay. Uh, any discussion on any items here? Commissioner Robbie.

Thank you, Chair. I wanted to take I didn't have an opportunity to do this earlier, but since we're voting on it, uh, Tina, I want to thank you for your service. Personally, I've known you for a long time now. You are an incredible public servant and somebody whose legacy will live on in this county for many years to come. People will look back to your example of the work that you've done. Um, and I think build a better county as a result. So, wherever you go in your retirement, just know that you're leaving this place in very good hands because of the work that you've done to build a group of people that have the same work ethic and knowledge and passion that you do about this work. in this community. So, thank you for your public service.

Commissioner Sanders, I just want to pile on and say I've been able to reach out to Tina when I've got questions about questions. Uh, and I have always appreciated her ability to just be just be honest. Uh, that works for me. Um, and so I want to say thank you for that. um you know, just allowing a a a commissioner to be, you know, nosy and intrusive um and and giving me the answers that I needed. Not that I wanted, but that I needed in order to be able to make a better informed decision. So, thank you. I'm insanely jealous and uh I am prayerful that you will enjoy your retirement.

Any other comments? uh you know, we're interviewing for CFOs now and so I think there seems to be an assumption sometimes with some of the candidates like like what are you looking to accomplish or do? They ask us a question like that. Is that what they ask? Yeah, I'm looking at Commissioner Sanders and we're we're all sort of left like um right, there's nothing you need to do that's happening that's bad because what we have is really good. Um and I think sometimes candidates are like what? Um, and I I hope that makes them think a little bit because they really are coming in to a position that has been filled admirably, professionally, um, exceptionally.

I know. which on the 15th.

I think that when Commissioner Robbie said like exemplifying a public servant, that's right. I'll tell you something else that will make you laugh maybe then too because then they say like what do you want in a in a CFO and we're all like somebody who can say no like you like you you can do it. um you've set a bar for what we are looking for in this county. It is going to be difficult for somebody to fill and that is a good thing. And so I want to thank you so much for your attention and knowledge and depth of experience and we're going to miss you so much. Thank you. Well, made myself cry at the same time. So, um, any other comments or Commissioner Somerville?

We're getting out before tomorrow for you. I I asked for business and brevity and hey, somehow it worked. We do have to take the bus home. Thank you. Um, could we do if there's not any other questions? Thank you for business and brevity. Thank you, Tina. Um, we'll do a roll call vote, please. Commissioner Sanders, yes. Commissioner Scott, yep. Commissioner Somerville, yes. Commissioner Bean, yes. Commissioner Hodgej, yes. Commissioner Labar, yes. Commissioner Light,

yes. Commissioner Machi, yes. Commissioner Robbie. Motions carry. Thank you. I got to go on with the rest of this meeting. All right. We have a pending item, resolution to work from home policy from human resources. Do I have to move to pick that up again? Okay, let's just discuss it. Uh, Commissioner Robbie. Thank you, Chair. I just had a quick question um clarifying some of the things that uh Mary and Nancy said, and perhaps corp counsel or administration can answer this. They were saying that there was a commitment made that this was going to be bargained. Is that did I understand that correctly?

Uh Nancy and Mary put out a joint request to bargain the impact of of the policy and we're committing to that. Okay. What is what does that exactly look like? Is that in terms of bargaining the impact? We're not bargaining the policy but bargaining the application of the policy essentially. Correct. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any other questions on this item? Oh, great. Let's do a roll call vote on this item. Commissioner S Scott, yes. Commissioner Somerville, yes. Commissioner Bean, Commissioner Hodgej, yes. Commissioner Labar, yes. Commissioner Light, yes. Commissioner Machi,

yes. Commissioner Robbie, Commissioner Sanders, yes. Motion carries. Oh, fantastic. Um, items for current and future discussion. Any items for current and future discussion? Commissioner Robbie. Uh, thank you, Chair. I just want to say you ran an excellent meeting tonight. Thank you. And with that, I'll uh motion to adjurnn. Thank you. Uh, is there support? Is there support for the motion? My lord. All those in favor.