City Council - Regular Meeting

present. Council member Barman, present. Council member Gotcha, here. Council member Grunland Fox here. Council member Kennedy, present. Council member OD here. Council member Simmons, here. We have four. Thank you. Uh, changes or additions to the agenda as presented tonight? City Manager Brown, I have none, sir. Assistant City Manager Benson, I have none, sir.

All right. I have two tonight. Um, we have a presentation from the Oakland County Treasurer. um that'll be after correspondence and I would like to uh remove new business number three from the agenda as we're still waiting for some figures on that. So with that we'll move on approval of minutes. We got one set of minutes to approve tonight and that's from the regular city council meeting of January 13, 2026. Move to approve. Any discussion? Seeing none, I got a motion and a second to approve the minutes of the City Council meeting of January 13, 2026. All those in favor, please signify by saying I.

I. All opposed. All right. Uh correspondence. We have uh five items of correspondence tonight. If anybody's got any questions on them, uh bring it up at the end, please. We got a letter from Smart about the additional service proposals. Uh the drone delivery services economic development economic development marketing 2025 annual report public participation plan 2025 uh annual report and the city of Wixom planning commission 2025 annual report. Any questions on any of those council member G Fox

the um the smart information on the smart additional service proposals. Do we know what our wrership is? what the wrership is. Yeah, we have some information um that we asked for from SMART. We actually have uh Sean Stacil here from SMR if you'd like to hear from him directly. I would. Um but we do have information on that that that he's prepared to go over if you'd like. So John, sure. You want to go up to the podium? Yeah, come on up to the podium. Just state your name, who you're with, please. Hi. Uh Sean Stacl. I'm the senior scheduler for Smart Bus Transportation Service. Pleasure to meet you all.

Thank you for being here. So my so my question is when I when I drive around the different various communities with some other nearby communities. Um I I don't really see a lot of people on the buses or at the stops and I'm just wondering if you can talk a little bit about what the wrership is.

Sure. Um, SmartRT provides bus service that covers uh the suburban portions of all we we serve all of all of Mcome us and our partner organizations like BOD NOTA uh People's Express serve Oakland County and we're the primary transportation provider for suburban Wayne and our service area is almost 2,000 square miles. So, we do get a good amount of ridership. It's just spread out across a very large territory. Uh as far as routes that connect with Wixom, we get uh very strong ridership on 12 mile route 740 which connects all the way from St. Clair Shores at Harper all the way to the Meer at the south end of the city and that route gets around 900 to a,000 passengers a day and route 305 Grand River which

through the whole I'm sorry just through that whole area you're talking about all 12 mile. Yeah. Not just 12 mile that's in this in Wixom or the surrounding communities. You're talking about the whole the whole route. Um within Wixom itself, the route gets a couple dozen passengers a day. Couple dozen. And as does um route 305 Grand River, which runs from the Meer here at Wixom Road down to uh Old Redford in northwest Detroit. And that one gets around 4 to 500 passengers a day across the whole route. And then in the Wixom and southern noby area, it gets uh maybe a quarter of that. A quarter of that. You said roughly. Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome. Go ahead. Council member Simmons. Do we know regarding those routes, are those people Wixom residents that are leaving Wixom or are there people coming into Wixom? Both. Okay. We I described as we don't do passport checks for for passengers boarding or deboarding. So, it's a mixture of both. Anybody else? All right. See, now thank you. You're welcome. We're very excited to provide this new service hopefully later this year. Very good. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Any other questions on any other uh the uh correspondence? Seeing none, we'll move on to the presentation. We have a presentation tonight from the Oakland County Treasures Office, and it's a program that prevents property tax foreclosure. Tonight we have uh Treasurer Robert Whittenberg with us. So, floor is yours.

Thank you very much. We got the microphone on. Uh I'm not the most technologically savvy person, but if I just have to press the button, I think I can do that. Uh we're going to do our best here, but uh Crystal, thank you for helping coordinate this. Uh it is that time of year. Uh so I'll give you a little background. I'll try to be as brief on this presentation as possible, but uh it's that time of year for uh foreclosure. um the timeline and and I'll go through it, but uh I go around. So, there are 63 cities, villages, and townships throughout Oakland County, uh more than any other county by far in the state. Uh so, 63 unique communities, and I try to get to as many as I can uh for this presentation to try to prevent foreclosure. Um I have not been with you previously uh and now I'm getting around to it. Um so, thank you for your patience on that. It's um I've been in office now. I was elected first in 2020 and then re-elected in 2024. So, I'm serving in my second term uh right now. So, uh I'll talk to you just a little bit about this is just our office at a glance. I won't spend a lot of time on this cuz that's not why I'm here today, but just there are a lot of different things that we do within our office. Uh and a lot of engagement with the local communities. Um actually on three separate occasions when I first got into office in 21, again in 23 and again in 25. I go meet with all the local tre as many as I can local treasurers here in Oakland County. out of the 63. I think the first year I got to 57 and then the last two years I got to about 58 or 59. Uh the last couple times I've come around to visit. So it's been really great to to try to collaborate and work with the local treasurers. We have no authority over them. People always think that we have authority over them. We do not. We work alongside of them and I'll talk about what that looks like. Uh so this just talks about the work that we do in our office. In essence, we are the banker for county government. We collect, we disperse, and we invest. So, the property tax foreclosure timeline. So, just to give you an idea, uh, I'll talk through this moving forward and then I'll tell you what it's looked like previously. So, uh, how it

works and and for anyone at watching here and at home, uh, the foreclosure process in essence is a three-year process. So, this year, your 20 let's use 2025 taxes for example, because you can still pay those two Wixom. Uh so for your 2025 taxes, you have until the end of February to pay them uh before they get turned over delinquent to our office. Uh they are they can be late. I don't know what the date is here in February. Is it the 14th? Do we know offhand? 14th. I think it's 14th. It is it is delinquent with or it's late with Wixom, but it's not turned over to our office until March 1st. So we in essence become the collections agent after that. We cash flow the local community. So if you have, you know, let's say, I don't know, a million dollars in taxes that people don't pay. Uh we cash flow you that. So you have you, you know, you can predict what you're going to have so you can run your budget, uh plan ahead, uh which is really important. Uh we have our delinquent tax revolving fund. So we use that fund with all the different communities and all 63 communities turn over 62 uh turn over uh something, right? They do have some delinquent taxes. So it is it is common to have delinquent taxes. So that first year, so again, these 2025 taxes, this March 1st, it's going to turn over to us as delinquent. On March 1st of uh 2027, I have to think of the numbers here. Uh it's what's called forfeited. In essence, we just put a lean on the property. And then March 31st of 2028, it is subject to foreclosure. So again, 2025 taxes, you're not subject to foreclosure until March 31st of 2028. Uh and during that time there are statutoily uh mandated interest fees, different things that get added. Um so we always encourage people to pay earlier uh and not incur those fees and try to save people money. Um so we work along with people uh directly. And I'll I'll talk a little bit about that, but that gives you kind of the timeline. Again, we cash flow you and then we

become the collections agent. I always tell people our our goal our what we're trying to do what we're trying to do our task in our office is to collect taxes. We are not trying to foreclose on people. So that's why I'm going out and doing these meetings in all the different communities to try to help. So, uh, this chart here, I don't know if it might be too small for you to see here, but in essence, it talks about that year one, um, that it it turns over delinquent to us on March 1st, then the forfeite the following year, and then the foreclosure the following year. Uh, the the interest rate adds up. It can be significant. Um, the first year when it's turned over delinquent, it's 1% a month. The second and third year it's 1 and a.5% a month retroactive back to when it first got turned over. Again, this is statutory. Uh we have no control over that. Uh I served as a legislator previously in the in the state house and we had actually moved to try to adjust the the rate. Um but that never happened. But so this is statutory uh what gets added to this. So, uh, why I'm out here again today, so to to try to let people know that we are here to help. And I'm going to give you numbers, um, that you can call and our information. But just to give you an idea on the work that we do, um, like I said, in our office, our our goal is to prevent foreclosure and try to drop that number as low as possible. I'm proud to say in so I took office in 21. Uh, there was a moratorum because of COVID, but in 23 we had our lowest foreclosure number ever here in Oakland County. So a real big push, a robust outreach to try to prevent foreclosure. So just to give you an idea, uh the writing is really small here, but so this gives you an idea of 2022 taxes. So this would have been the foreclosure. This is the uh the the data that we have uh full picture uh from last year obviously because the foreclosure has not happened yet this year. But so from 2025 foreclosures, that would have been 2022 taxes. Uh we had 41,498. That's how many parcels turned over delinquent to us throughout the county. Uh, and to give you an idea, there's about 500,000 parcels throughout Oakland

County. So, this is residential and business. Um, so there's that that's what turned over. 39,77, that's how many were paid in full before the foreclosure deadline. That 1287, those are uh taxpayer uh uh repayment plans that we put people on. So again, if if they pay off their taxes before the deadline, they won't be forclosed or they have to enter into a repayment agreement with us, but they have to reach out to us. We don't know people need help unless they tell us they need they need help. So we try to work with them. So that's,2877 payment plans. Uh then we had 251 that were foreclosures. We had 81 that were withheld. Um could have been for various reasons. Uh title search, there was someone else there. Um they weren't served properly. There's all these different reasons. And then what happens is, and again this is all part of the process. It's all statutory. We had 172 properties uh that went to an auction. So we do an auction. We're required to do an auction uh of the foreclosed properties. This number was slightly inflated because uh we had a person who owned I think it was 40 vacant lots in Pontiac and every year kept pushing it off and pushing it off. Uh and the judge there is a judicial foreclosure hearing where a judge can actually grant them. Um, and this person had been granted a few extra years and eventually didn't pay. And so, uh, that number is slightly inflated, but so that gives you an idea of what it looks like during that process. Um, again, uh, we do what are called taxpayer assistance meetings. So, these are one-on-one. They used to be in person. Uh, now we do them, we can do them Zoom if need be, but mostly it's over the phone. Uh there are about seven of us in the office that do these uh all day every day that we're open from uh middle of December up until the end of March to talk to people about their unique situation and how we can help them try to prevent foreclosure to get them on a repayment agreement. So last year we had 1,035 taxpayer assistance meetings. Uh 1,287 that's what I mentioned. Those are the the plans that people were on. Um so this just gives

you an idea of the the different numbers. So again, uh I talked about the three-year process, March 31st being the deadline. Uh and again, the reason I'm out here is to let people know that we are here to help. Uh you know, you need to call our office 2488580611248858-0611. You can email us treasure oakgv.com. Uh if you don't remember anything else from this presentation today, you'll remember that please that we're here to help and then you have to reach out to us. Within our office, we have our financial empowerment center. So, uh, Rita, who runs that department, is like a financial coach, and we'll work with people to find, uh, grants that might be available to them, uh, and help them out. Uh, so, let me see here, the community outreach. That's what I'm trying to do is get to as many communities as possible to let them know. Uh, and I think that's it here. And again, if you know anyone that is delinquent in their taxes, uh, please encourage them to reach out to us. So, some other uh key dates just to be aware of, the judicial foreclosure hearing this year is on fe February 18th. It's at the county at our office at the uh county courthouse. So, people can come there and go before the judge. Um the only reason they might go, I mean, they can go there for whatever reason they want. Like I said, we try to work with everyone. So, if they work with us and we get them onto a plan, we always say you don't need to go to the judge because we're already working with you. But occasionally, we have some people who just won't work with us at all and we'll go direct to the judge. Uh, so that date is on there as well. Again, March 31st is the deadline to pay. April 1st is the foreclosure deadline. Um, I won't talk about the specifics of this and the history. There's a lot that goes into it, but uh, after the foreclosure, it used to be if you were foreclosed, you lost everything. Um, you know, you were foreclosed and any equity, anything you had in the property, it was gone. Uh, that's something actually when I was in the legislature, we changed the law so that now, uh, you're entitled to the surplus. So, you have to file a form. Um

there's a surplus the the claims form that has to be filed in our office by July 1st. So if someone does get foreclosed upon uh they have until July 1st to submit this form to our office. Uh and then if the property sells at auction whatever the surplus is you know up above the interest taxes fees and there's a little bit of maintenance cost things like that they are entitled to that. Um so the July 1st is when they have to have that to us. And then there's these other dates listed here as well. Uh there's the QR codes that people can go to to schedule that taxpayer assistance meeting with us. They can do it there. Uh or they can um the surplus claims that's hopefully we don't get to that that portion. So uh resources just to be aware of again within our office the financial empowerment center uh please call uh we are here to help. 2488580672 for that uh department again for our office 2488580611. Uh just for reference so people know, there is a poverty exemption uh which is based on your income in each community. It's different uh to reach out to your local assessor uh to find out that information. So just want people to be aware of that. And then another entity that we like to highlight, uh we have no affiliation with them, but they do really amazing work is Lakeshore Legal Aid, if if anyone's familiar. Um these are attorneys who are giving their time to this organization. So, they do free legal help for low-income families and seniors. Uh they do everything but criminal law and traffic violations. So, uh if you get a speeding ticket, don't call them. Um but if there's other things, uh you can call them. Uh these are just a couple initiatives just to make sure people are aware of. We have a new program called Smart Finance Academy. Uh it's a it's monthly webinar on various financial topics. Um, we've had some really good topics including first-time o for first-time home buyers for credit for um for debt.

Uh, we even did one I partnered with Sheriff Buchard and did one on uh preventing fraud and being aware of, you know, what's out there and and and what to do if anything happens. Uh, we also have a program now, the with Independent Bank. It's a home buyer assistance program. So, it's a $5,000 grant that goes to first-time home buyers. So, um, please go to our website if there's any, you know, people out there looking to buy their first home. Uh, and then on our website, we have a residential property owner education, uh, video series that talks about, uh, the pop-up tax and talks about various things that, uh, you know, people would be helpful for them to know. So, they're they're quick videos. Um, and I think that's it. I tried to get through as quickly as I could. Um, and like I said, we're we're here to help. Um, again, if you don't take anything else away from this presentation, just know that. Again, the phone number's here. I'll say it again. You're supposed to say things what, at least three times. 248858-0611. Treasure oak.com. Um, so please let us know. Again, we don't know you need help unless you tell us that you need help. So, um, happy to answer any questions that any of you have.

Council member Bman. Yes. Uh, thank you for the information. Uh, do you have uh off off top of your head just roughly how many properties in Wixom are possibly getting to that three-year mark? Um, that's a good question. I I don't have it off hand. Um, usually when we come meet with the locals, I bring that information. Um, I should have had it tonight, but you guys, you are my first presentation of the year. Um, so I'm just knocking the dust off right now. Uh, so I will make sure I bring that to other me meetings, but I can actually send that to you all. Um, maybe I can send it to you and then you can share it. Sure.

Um we can give you historical uh historic data and we can also give you right now um tell you how many are forfeited you know that are subject to foreclosure next year and how many are you know at risk of foreclosure this year. Uh we can do that and we I would love to do that actually because in a lot of the communities we'll send it to some of the elected officials. Mo a lot of times the county commissioners I work closely with them obviously and some of the county commissioners actually go out and knock on the doors of these uh places that might be subject to foreclosure and let them know um you know that they need to reach out. So I'd be happy to provide that information. Yeah. I I just like to know what the numbers really are here. Sure. Yeah. Be happy to do that. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Yep. Council member Gotcho, thank you. Um, with the like settlements and lawsuits going on related to um, the taking of equity for foreclosure. I mean, I know none of those are completed yet. I think like the application window is still open for one of the settlements. So, not with Oakland County. Okay.

We settled. We actually were the only county that settled uh, the lawsuit. So the the actual lawsuit emanated here in Oakland County and we settled that lawsuit there to get into the weeds a little bit. So that was you know you took there uh the property was was was foreclosed and then it went to auction. There used to be or there still is but um a a right of first refusal so communities could exercise their right of first refusal and before it goes to auction they could purchase the property. So we had a lot of communities that did this. uh Hazel Park, Southfield, Pontiac, Oak Park, some of the communities when it was foreclosed, they would take that property, they'd pay, you know, the the minimum bid for it. Uh and then, you know, whatever they would do, they usually would like uh uh try to uh fix it up or whatever they do and then, you know, sell it. Um it had to be for like community good. Uh that those are still going, but there's only a select few cases that fall under that. Um, and they're almost all in Southfield. So, those right of first refusal cases are the only ones that have not been finalized. We're in negotiations with the ones that that are still uh pending. But, as far as the foreclosure, kind of the broad foreclosure, we settled that and we were the only county out of 83 counties in the state that settled uh that.

Are we fully through like financial impact to the county that

We are. We are. We had actually we saw it coming um and we put that money away. we put away and I can't give you exact numbers but I think we had uh set aside I think it was 38 million and at the end of the day I think it was under 20 million um in settlement I think even less it might have been like around 13 to 15 million I I don't know exact offhand um but the number was low I mean when you think about it right the foreclosure process we are sending throughout the process that three-year process we talked about they're getting at least 12 notifications uh they're getting first class mail priority mail. We actually stake the property, put something on their door, like two different visits to the property. So, a lot of times, you know, we've done everything we could and then years later during the settlement, you know, it's difficult to get a hold of these people that you couldn't get a hold of to begin with anyway, right? So, um but as of now, you know, that that has been settled.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for that question. Council member Gland Fox. Oh, I don't have a question for you. Um but thank you for being here. I do have a question for the manager's office. Do we have a link or can we if we don't have a link on our website to this information for our residents? You you probably don't yet, but we're happy to. Pretty sure not, but we can add it certainly. That'd be great. Yep. And we can get you that email us or you can go on our website and find the information. So, I appreciate that. Yeah. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having such a great program and continued success.

Yes, our pleasure. Thank you for having me again and stay warm and please reach out to me if you have any questions. Thank you.

All right, and that moves us to the first call to the public. The rules to the call to the public are as follows. The public shall address the council during the call to the public, which shall be included on the agenda immediately after correspondence and again immediately after new business. The first call to the public immediately after correspondence shall be limited to agenda items only. A person shall not address the council in excess of five minutes unless the time is extended by a majority vote of the council present. Persons wishing to address the council shall identify themselves in their place of residence and shall state their reason for addressing the council and all comments by the public shall be made directly to the council. Do we have anybody for the first call of the public? Seeing no. Go ahead.

State your name and address please for for the record. Hi, I'm Anna Beal. I'm here for um another topic, but I do have a question about the agenda items. I'm a Wixom resident. I live at 2849 Apache Trail um 48393 Wix, Michigan. I had a question about the drone delivery services item. I did have a chance to look over your documents that were submitted ahead of time with the uh packet. Um, my question is, is Amazon asking for permission here to establish a drone delivery service site or are they telling us that they are establishing a drone delivery site? I'll let assistant city manager Benson answer that.

The the city does not currently have an application from Amazon to start that service here. They're uh the environmental assessment that they've submitted to the FAA is basically, our understanding, a precursor to asking for that permission. Um, so we're not under the impression that they're telling us that they're doing it. Um, and to I guess their credit, they have been in communication about what the local approval process would be if they want to establish that surface uh service here.

Okay. Thank you for that clarification. My um uh concerns would be around the environmental impacts as in their research that was submitted they say they have not studied a lot of the biological and the hazardous material impacts of these drones especially because in Wixom we are here on Clinton River like watershed community. So I'd be major I would be concerned about the impact to that based on the site location. But also have any of all have any of y'all ever seen the drones delivery like in person? No.

Okay. Cuz they're like they come up they're super loud. they come down. And I know one of the things they're proposing is that like it's going to help our community based on having a lot of elderly residents that like aren't able to get out. Like these drones literally hover and like yeet the package down. I don't know a better term for yeet. So it's like they literally like yeet it down like wherever they feel like. Um just some things for consideration. Like mostly concerned about the environmental impact, but like the the service itself is is interesting. I would highly encourage the council to experience it uh before making a decision. Thank you.

Well, thank you. Anybody else? All right. Seeing none, I'll close the first call to the public. Move on to city manager reports. We have two reports tonight. The first is the departmental monthly reports of December 2025. Do we have any questions? Council member Barman. Uh, yes. Thank you. I for just I've heard other communities saying they're out of salt. Where where are we? Are we

we have we currently have salt and uh we are trying to limit it because we have heard the same things um we have under contract with Detroit salt um this year to to acquire up to a thousand tons um as a whole and we've only ordered 400 so far. So we have we have some um ready to order right now. Uh we're about uh half half full a little running out. We do we do not plan on running out and we have not heard anything from our uh our suppliers that uh indicate that they would be they would not be able to fulfill the orders that we've um previously uh asked for. So

okay, it should be fine. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions on the first uh departmental report? All right. And then the second one is the financial department quarterly budget and investment report from September 30th, 2025. Any questions? Getting off easy tonight for the first meeting. Man, I She votes I.

All right. Very good. That we'll move on to consent agenda. All items listed under the consent agenda are considered routine by the city council and will be enacted by one motion. There'll be no separate discussion of these items unless a council member so request in which event the items will be removed from the consent agenda and added to the regular agenda at the end of unfinished or new business. Do I have a motion? So move. I got motion and support to approve the consent agenda as presented tonight. All those in favor please signify by saying I. I opposed.

Motion carries. We have no unfinished business tonight which moves us on to new business. New business number one is the recommendation to confirm the mayor's reappoint of Bruce Favor to the board of review with a term to expire December 31st, 2028. Appointment of Carl Mclaclin to the downtown development authority with a term to expire June 30th, 2029. Appointments to Anna Bchel and Stefan Gutman to the Parks and Rec uh Commission with terms to expire June 30th, 2026. and reappointments of Eric Jarvis and Eddie Osman to the tax abatement review board with terms to expire December 31st, 2028. Do I have a motion?

So moved. Any discussion? All right, seeing none, I got a motion and a second to approve the recommendation to confirm the mayor's reappoint of Bruce Faver to the board of review with a term to expire December 31st, 2028. Appointment of Carol McLaclin to the Downtown Development Authority with a term to expire June 30th, 2029. Appointments of Anna Bchelum and uh Steven Groomman to the Parks and Rec Commission with terms to expire June 30th, 2026. And reappoints of Eric Jarvis and Eddie Osma to the Tax Abatement Review Board with terms to expire 20 uh December 31st, 2028. All those in favor, please signify by saying I.

I. I. Opposed. Um, I I messed up a little bit, but Anna, will you Anna's going to be on the park? You want to come up and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself, how long you've been here? Don't worry, you're still

Hi, it's good to be back. Uh, it's been a long time. So, I'm Anna Beal. Nice to be here again. Uh, I moved to Wixom in May of 2025, so I'm very new to the community. was very impressed with both the parks and recreation and just the downtown focus of this community. Um I really appreciate the especially all of the community engagement events. So I was um happy to be a part of that. I would love to see the community continue to grow and grow its engagement. Um especially with younger people that are maybe coming out of the city or families that are moving out a little bit further and uh just happy to be here. Great. Well, thank you for stepping up and joining our commission and welcome to the family. Thank you. give her vote. Okay.

As youly the charter ordinances the city of welcome Michigan and will faithfully discharge the duties and responsibilities parks and recreation commissioner to the best. Thank you.

Crystal,

thank you. All right, moving on to uh new business. Number two is appointment of the deputy mayor in accordance with the uh Wixom City Charter Chapter 4 section 4.7. Do I have a motion?

Thank you. Um, as you can see, accordance to the city charter, the council shall elect a uh from its members a deputy mayor who shall act as the mayor during the absence or disability of the mayor, and if a vacancy occurs, shall become mayor for the remainder of the expired term. And uh with that, I'm asking for your support uh to I'm going to nominate uh Council Member Godel as the next deputy mayor, and I'm asking for your support to uh proceed with this. So, do I have a motion for that? So, moved. Any comments? Any questions? Council member Bearman,

I'll just add that uh in in in your absence, in the deputies, mayor's absence uh last year, he did a phenomenal job running the meeting and I think uh of all of us, he's the most deserving for this. I agree. Yep. All right. So, uh, see no other discussion, I have a motion and a second to appoint, uh, Kenagot of the as a deputy mayor in accordance with the Wixom charter chapter 4 section 4.7. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I opposed. That's one way.

All right. Uh, the second call to the public is up next. Uh, I'm not going to read the rules except that if anybody's in the audience, you'd come up and speak whatever's on your mind. Please state your name and address for the record. Hello again. Uh, Sean Stull. Uh, I live in uh, uh, 3901 Cornell in Dearborn Heights. So, I'm a little far a field, but it's good to be here. Uh I just wanted to let you guys know about the new bus service that'll be providing uh tailored particularly for Wixom Wald Commerce Township residents that'll be coming uh in the next few months. Um it's a uh 7-day a week service that'll uh have local stops that runs from the Meyer in the southern end of the city all the way up through uh along Wixom Road to the downtown heart of the city and then east along Pontiac Trail to downtown Wald Lake. uh northwestern Novi and then onto Maple to enter Commerce Township with an eventual end goal of reaching the Walmart on Pontiac Trail in Hagerty. So we'd like to serve all that commerce those industrial areas uh a lot of residential and uh multif family housing housing developments uh uh and then uh easy access for uh people who have disabilities or who are seniors through our paired ADA service that we also provide. And we're hoping to have that launched by mid to end April at the earliest. And if we can't make that window then uh mid June at the latest and we're happy to be here.

Very good. Thank you. Anybody else?

Russ Meredith. I live at 378 Fletcher. Uh, it may have slipped your attention, but there was a little bit of snow over the last week, week and a half, and I just wanted to commend the work DPW did to make sure Wixom kept moving during that mess because I looked outside and my street was actually clear, which was kind of cool. So, thank you, Tim. Thanks, guys. Anybody else? Seeing none, I'll close the second call to the public, move on to city manager comments. City Manager Brown.

Uh, thank you, your honor. Um the city manager update. Um we had uh information uh for uh members of council, department heads, anybody that would be interested in attending uh the Oakland County State of the County address. Um it's scheduled for Thursday, March 5th, doors opening at 6:00, speech at 7. Uh it's located at the Oakland Center at Oakland University, and I ask if you'd like to RSAP to contact Cheryl and our office to uh handle that for you uh if you're interested in that. So let us know as soon as you can. Uh that was just the uh only other piece of information beyond uh work anniversaries uh ranging from uh 11 years to two years and we have uh Brad Stilly, Pastor Brad Stilly as our uh chaplain with his 11th anniversary coming up on February first. So we thank him for uh his 11 years of service to the city in that capacity. We appreciate him. Uh and that's all that I had. If there's anything I can answer in relation to anything that's on your mind, I'd be happy to give it a shot tonight. Otherwise, there's the dates to remember on the next page there as well. different events that are upcoming in the community.

Very good. Any questions? Assistant City Manager Benson, any comments? Uh, beyond the, uh, myriad reports I provided you all in my annual information dump, I have no additional comments tonight. Very good. Uh, council comments. Council member Simmons, I get to go first tonight. Um, no real comments tonight. Just again to echo what Russ said. I would it's we've had a lot of snow. Um and so just grateful that when we do look out on our streets that they are plowed because we have been talking to people whose streets are not plowed. So well done and way to go wix some.

Thank you council member Bman.

Uh just thank you to our volunteers to our boards and commissions uh our our two new members and then uh our existing members that agreed to step up and serve another term. Um we appreciate everyone that gives their time and energy to better their uh positions within the city. Uh and the only other thing is uh with regards to our billboard on 96 looks like last week during the snowstorm it got stuck not on Wixom and it hasn't been uh hasn't been rotating for the last week. So I don't know we can see if we can get some sort of credit or something because it's when I came home today it still wasn't on Wixom. I'm still not moving and it's been it's been just about a week now.

Okay. Thank you, Council Member Kennedy. I just want to say I was out in the snow when it started coming down being a white out and there were plows on the road within 10 minutes. That was really nice. Thank you, Council Member Gran Fox.

Thank you. Well, just keep the love going, I guess, there, Tim. And yes, you your staff have have done an amazing job. So please share our appreciation with them. And then congratulations and uh thank you to all those employees celebrating workeries and also thank you to all those members of the community that came out to um to volunteer to be on the various boards. And then congratulations. Thank you. Good council member OD.

Thank you. We'll keep the love flowing. Um, very grateful for that. Um, you're too fast because I got caught uh the other day by not having my car out of the street in enough time. But keep up the great work. Um, and then I would also say um how I've heard from several different um residents and non-residents about what a great thing is uh that here in the city of Wixom we are providing a warming center for folks uh during these you know bitter cold days, months, weeks. Um so I'm really I'm just appreciative that we offer that service and just proud of our city.

Deputy Mayor Gotel.

Thank you. Um, I also wanted to thank all of our um, board volunteers, those returning and bringing their experience and our new members as well um, for bringing their experience and love to see new faces on our um, boards. Wanted to thank all of you for your support being deputy mayor and council member Barman's comment. Um, I also I I had brought it up previously, but I'm glad that a resident a new board member Anna was here to comment on the drone delivery service because um that's also something that caught my eye. I obviously emailed uh everybody or alerted everybody when we got an email cuz it genuinely with our new um email filter and the way the subject was looked like spam. So, it was tough to catch the uh environmental assessment um notice, but I I think this is something similar to um directing planning commission to look at data centers. This is probably something that we should be proactive about as well rather than waiting until we actually have an application in front of us um to start doing this. I think it we need to be creative in how we approach it. um instead of just accepting kind of what we're told from state law and the FAA about you have to allow this. I don't necessarily agree that uh it can be imposed upon us. Um I've had my algorithm on Instagram because of my drone research showing me um a bunch of drone videos and um Amazon seems to be the most tame at least. Walmart is delivering with drones in Texas and those drones do not stop on their way to deliver um things. So people, there's one video I have saved that when we get to discussion I'll share with all of

you. But uh one guy ordered salt and pepper pistachios for the novelty of having a Walmart drone fly very fast and drop a box from probably 30 plus feet in the air into his backyard and watch it tumble across the yard. Um so the likewise the environmental assessment um they had a page on there of things they didn't consider and it was like everything to do with the environment. Um so I think we need to be very proactive in this. I know I've had a discussion with the uh assistant city manager already. So hoping we can set some time aside either meetings or study session or something to get into this before it is uh an actual application. Thank you. You're welcome. Um I want to thank everybody who stepped up to uh be reappointed on a board or stepped up to be a new member of our board. Appreciate it. um like to congratulate everybody on their uh work workversaries with the city and I'd also like to give a big thank you to uh Marilyn Stamper, our treasure. Her last day is Thursday, but um she's been great for us and uh she surely is going to be missed by by myself for sure. And um I'm the treasur's office is in good hands with our with our new treasure, but we're going to we're going to miss Maryland. Um, and a couple other things. I still need some goal setting session dates. Uh, last two weeks of February or the first week of March, if I'd get some dates for you guys so we can uh schedule this and then the goals that we go over in the goal setting meeting, we'll still have time to get them to all the department heads before they um uh start working on their uh budgets for next year. And also, um, after the meeting, I'm going to hand out the the, um, evaluation forms for, uh, city manager

Brown. Um, I'd like to get those back by February 27th. And at the first meeting in March, March 10th, uh, we'll go over his review. I'm sure that, um, he'll want to do it in the close session again. But, uh, if I can get those and we'll get that information all tallied up and then, um, we'll, uh, get it ready for for the meeting, the first meeting in March. And, uh, congratulations to, uh, Deputy Mayor Gotacho. I'm pleased to have you on board. And with that, do I have a motion to adjourn? Still move. Support. Thanks. I didn't think we're going to get that. I know. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I.

I. Opposed. Motion carries. Thank you everybody. Stay warm.