City Council - Regular Meeting

under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Roll call, please. Mayor Beagle, please. I'm present. Council member Bman, present. Deputy Mayor Gotcho, here. Council member Gland Fox is excused. Council member Kennedy, present. Council member ODay, here. Council member Simmons, here. We have a quorum. Thank you. Changes or additions to the agenda is presented tonight. City manager. I have none, your honor. Assist the city manager. I have none, sir. Any from the dis? Council member Gotcho. Thank you. I'd like to add a resolution creating a data center moratorum as new business, please.

New business number one. Any others? Thank you. Uh approval of minutes. We've got two sets of minutes to approve tonight as the first is the city council goal session meeting minutes of March 10th, 2026. I have a motion. Support. Any discussion? Seeing none, I got a motion and a second to approve the minutes of the goal setting meeting minutes from March 10th, 2026. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. Second set of minutes is the city council regular meeting minutes of March 10th, 2026. Do I have a motion? So move.

Thank you. Any any discussion? Seeing none, I got a motion and a second to approve the city council regular meeting minutes of March 10th, 2026. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed? Okay, we have no correspondence tonight. We have no public tonight. So, I'm going to pass on a first call to the public rules. Uh, city manager report, departmental reports for February 2026. Any questions? Council member Berman.

Thank you. Um, my question is are really for is for Deanna. Um, specifically regards to updates on Mac Park and Gunner Matella. I went through both of those parks this last week. Both of them look really rough. I know I talked in the fall about what's the plan on getting Mac finished and it doesn't look like anything's really happened. There's been no grading, just more concrete ripped up now at Mac Park. Still bench is missing. Like, are we doing this ourselves? We hiring it out. Um mo uh the the current things that we have scheduled to do, the drinking fountain is being ordered as we speak. Um the landscaping, John Hler with the trailway council is working with a committee from the trailway um volunteers that are designing the landscaping. So they're doing that separately. Um and as far as the benches, the benches that we do have planned have been installed in that park. And the concrete slabs that are out there are for a donor wall. And we still need to put the irrigation in which the city will be doing. As far as Gunnar Metalla, um we did get the date moved up for the restrooms um for that will be not this weekend but next weekend they'll the building will be arriving at Gunnar Matala. So that will start to be installed um and then finish. Of course, we couldn't do any of the concrete work from fall till breaks in the spring. So the concrete will be laid for the the pavilions, the benches installed in those um that are by the trail head and that park. So you're going to see most of that done by May. I was going to say well around the playground looks like a bunch of people trampled the protection fence down. So I don't know if we want to put that back up for safety. Um at the Mac Park in particular, anything we can do to speed that up? I mean, like I said in the fall, that's the entrance to our city and it really really looks poor right now. I mean, even just some top soil and grading would make it look better and

plant some grass seed. And if you didn't notice, they did put the sign in for Mac Park. Sign looks beautiful. Sign looks great. Yeah. So, I think that really matches well with the blue. So, it has a a sign kind of makes it stand out really nice. So, hopefully now that the weather will hopefully break, we can get a lot of that done. We pretty much have our hands tied from November till spring. Okay. But thanks. Thank you.

Any other questions? Seeing none, we'll move on to the 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 requests in which event 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? Support. I got a motion and support to approve the consent agenda as presented tonight. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I opposed.

We have no unfinished business tonight. So we'll move on to the new business portion of the meeting tonight and that's uh the first item is the temporary moratorum of data centers. Do I have a motion? So move. Well, is this a discussion or is this Do you want us to You can proceed either way you want to. If you if you want to have the discussion first and then introduce uh anything that you want to do or you just start off with the motion that you're looking to do and have the discussion afterwards, however you'd prefer.

It hasn't been read in yet, so I'm just going to read at least this part. I can do that now, too. Okay, go ahead. Okay, thank you. Um, I want to make a motion to adopt a resolution imposing a temporary moratorum for a period of 6 months on the establishing, permitting, consideration, approval, location, construction, andor installation of data centers in the city of Wixom or until such time that we have uh satisfactorily address our ordinances and want to repeal the moratorum. Thank you. Is there a motion? Yes. Do I have a second? Do I have a second? I second it.

Thank you. Uh, city manager Brown. Um, I I defer to Councilman Gotchel on that.

All right. Thank you. Um at our last meeting it was shared with us that um I well I guess to go back we had thought originally planning commission's work would hopefully be wrapped up by this meeting or sometime this month. Um and they've been doing a good and thorough job of reviewing and I think probably asking the right questions to make sure that uh things turn out the way that are positive for Wix. Um but as part of that it was shared last meeting that we shouldn't expect any um ordinance recommendations from them until May instead of this month. So looking at the um original thoughts that I had um back in November when I asked for planning commission to begin looking at that project was that if we're getting things by March then that should be um a satisfactory timeline at least in my mind. Um but now with the delay I it's extending beyond what I feel comfortable with just leaving things open. Um so I did want to introduce a moratorum to help kind of ensure that planning commission has the adequate time to get through their um study and recommendation process and nothing feels rushed on their end and we can um really consider what is best for Wixom. Um, that's why I've introduced this.

Thank you. Any other discussion, Council Member Baron?

I mean, ultimately I I agree that I'm disappointed that we don't have um this ordinance change done by now. I can support the moratorum. Not not not because I I I think that we should be prohibiting them completely. We need to make sure that, you know, our ordinances are being followed and and and updated properly. But I just don't want this to be construed that we're prohibiting it because that could be his own problems down the road for us if that was the case. Um but I do think um it needs to be made abundantly clear to administration and to the planning commission that we need this done and we need this done. You know it should have been done by now. I I kicking it down the road to May. I I feel like we should have had this done by now. So for that re those reasons I'll support the moratorum up until we can get the ordinance changed through the planning commission. Any other discussion?

All right. Uh I can support this but my feelings on this is back in November we asked administration to take this to planning committee and they did it in a timely manner. Planning commission is looking at a timely manner in an important decision such as this. Do we want the planning department or planning commission to rush through this and maybe miss something? I mean, everybody's doing exactly what council asked them to do and now we're saying, you know, oh well, gosh, guys, you're too slow. You're dragging your feet. Now we need a moratorum. Why didn't we do this moratorum in November when this was wassued? Nobody got an answer. But here we are today because they're not moving the way that we think they should move. Um we trust them on everything else that they do. So now are we going to undercut them on everything they do? They've asked for a little bit more time. Let's give it to them. Let's get this done right. Let's just not, you know, throw say gosh, I'm disappointed the planning doesn't have this done yet. That that that is foolish to me. Unwarranted. Any other discussion?

Council member Simmons. I guess I'm under the impression that from reading the minutes in our packet that the concern is that we want to make sure that we have an opportunity to get language together uh before we're caught a little bit offguard. Um so I don't think it's a necessarily at least from my perspective if everybody's moving the way that they are um that's great but nonetheless it's still not done. So if we need more time, if they need more time, I guess I'm looking at it from a perspective of they need more time to get it done and this is helping them to do that. Council member Baron.

Yeah, I mean maybe my comments were taken a little bit off guard. I'm not blaming planning necessarily that it's not done. It sounds like from reading the minutes that they weren't provided with an ordinance language that they could adopt based upon their first feedback. So maybe that's a consultant issue or maybe that's our administration issue, but I I don't believe given the fact that we asked for this in November and we were told it could probably be done by March and now it's has to go back and start all over again that it's they understand the urgency that council should is putting on this. I mean, there are municipalities throughout the state of Michigan where the residents are literally recalling the entire township and municipal boards over data centers. City managers and other governmental employees are losing their employment. This is not something that we should be sitting back and and not taking seriously. and the fact that, you know, re and I I could go on about reading in the minutes the things we're finding out in the minutes from the planning commission that weren't shared with us. This needs to be taken seriously and needs to be done and we shouldn't have had to do the moratorium. You were absolutely correct, but but given the fact that we don't have a resolution yet, this is probably needed.

Council got Thank you. I I think we're all pointed in the same direction here. I think some of us are I think all of us want to make sure that planning commission and city council and Wixom have the ability to kind of control where this goes and our destiny and make sure it's exactly what we want to see to protect Wixom. Um because that's really where this comes from is buying time. That is not having language in the ordinance for Howell and Seline and Augusta Township and all these other places that end up getting sued is what we're trying to prevent with that. And if it takes a few more months for planning to get there, then it takes a few more months for plan to get there. And I think we need to like even if it takes longer than May, I think we need to step out of even what the consultants are finding out from around here. I think we need to be talking to communities in other states where these have been built and residents are having to leave their newer construction neighborhoods because of the noise and the aggravation that comes with this. We need to be talking not just to cities around here that have gotten sued, but talk to the ones who have gotten screwed up by some of these situations where things aren't fully thought out. We need to make sure that this is crafted in a way that Wixom allows what we find acceptable, not what a developer finds acceptable for Wixom because those are two different sides of a coin. Thank you. Well, I also think that in some of the communities around, especially one that's neighboring us that's getting a uh data center right now, I think um administr their administration tried to pull a quick one over the people's eyes. I don't think our administration would ever do that. I think that if somebody were to come in and, you know, sniff around and ask about a data center, I

think our administration would be s smart with them and they would tell them that, you know, we have a discussion with ordinances going on right now and we're not going to accept any applications or anything like they're not going to they're not going to try to pull a fast one over on us or our residents. So, I mean, like I say, I can support this. I I get it, but why? You know, the the words were, "I'm disappointed that we don't have something by now." Well, let's get it done, right? And if it takes an extra month, extra two months, that's fine, and we and we'll be covered. But why are we disappointed in in this stuff, especially in a a situation that is so important in this that, you know, we're bringing it now? It's so important that we're going to do a moratorum that we don't want those here. I mean, if it's that serious, let's get it done and get it done right. That's all I'm saying. But this should have all been done at the same time as one big package, so we had the time to do it. But now it's like in my eyes, I feel like everyone's saying, I shouldn't say everyone, but people are saying, gosh, it's not done by now. So, we've got to we've got to do this and we've got to do that. But administration and planning is doing just what we told them to. We didn't say planning commission, we want this done by March. We said planning commission, we want you to set standards for this. That's all we said. We didn't give a time limit. And I'm not saying that they should drag their feet and come back to us next November. All I'm saying is we didn't give time dates. We didn't say anything like that. But now we're saying, gosh, it's not done now. So, we're going to have to do this because we because you're you're dragging your feet or whatever whatever it is. That's all I'm saying,

Council Member OD.

Thank you. Um, excuse me. Um, I have to agree with the mayor. Um, with regard to the timeline that we're at here, uh, it is March. It's March 20th for that matter. So, um I think in in the big picture, we're not really out it it's not something egregious to me that a planning commission hasn't come back with something yet. If it was, you know, September or like you indicated, November, and we hadn't heard anything, that would be a different story. Um just knowing the importance of getting this language right and getting it done right. So I want to support your position there. I did have a question as well. You had mentioned if someone were to come forward and um you know we and we don't have anything in place yet, do we have the ability to put someone on pause at that point or

is it kind of out of our control at that point?

The uh there isn't a clear technical answer. Um, you know, anybody can apply for anything at any time, just like anybody can sue for anything at any time. Um, a moratorum does give you an additional layer of protection. Um, I don't want to give the the false impression that it is foolproof. Um, those have been challenged in other communities as well. Um, you know, in talking with the city attorney about this over the course of time, the fact that it's been publicly noticed, I mean, we've held public hearings about our data center ordinance. We feel that there's there's a decent, you know, it's clearly obvious that we're working on something. So we would have the leverage to, as an example, planning commission could table a site plan submission if it were to receive one um and say, you know, we're trying to finish these regulations. And it really just depends on how contentious it becomes. But yes, this is an additional layer of protection, but you know, depends on how it plays out. And just for clarity, we do not have any active applications. We've never received any.

Follow-up question. Thank you,

Council Member Kennedy. I just want to say that I support the moratorum if and only if because I it seems to have gotten contentious in other places where someone comes in with a site plan for something and then sues when the ordinance isn't explicitly saying they can't do it there. This I feel like just gives us more time gives the planning commission some more time to tighten that up and make sure we're in a place where we're protected for that. And I can't see any reason to not do it. Any other discussion? Seeing none, I got a motion in a second to approve the uh motion that was read by council member Gotacho. All those in favor, please signify by saying I.

I.

Opposed. Motion carries. That concludes the new business portion of our meeting tonight and we'll move on to the second call to the public. I'll read those rules. They 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 5 minutes unless time is extended by 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 to second call to the public? Step up. State your name and uh name and address for the records.

Hi.

Um my name is Sam Zagelman uh at 1449 Lakeside Courts. Um, and as a resident of Wixom since I was about four, I have grown to love everything around, grown to see everything that has been around. I've heard every almost everything. though I never had heard that a data center for AI would be getting placed into the city. Now personally as a writer and in a family of writers AI is a very contentious thing within my world. It's often it can be beneficial because AI is just machine learning is the ability to use the ability to use it as a tool is good. But a data center tells me that it's something that could be powerful enough to not just assist but also take jobs. Now, how much do each of you know about AI as a whole for the purposes of this?

Um, anyone? They don't have the policies. We don't That's fair. I learning um as this is my first time here. Um but I want the question immediately came up as I had no information and I don't know if any information was true was and or is truly available to public about this potential uh discussion. I haven't heard anything from anyone. So, um, we can't we we can't comment.

I didn't know if that was All right. Good. Yeah. If you're good, we're good. Thank you. Anybody else for the second call of the public? Seeing none, I'll close second call the public. City manager comment. City manager Brown.

Uh, thank you, your honor. So, uh, work anniversaries for this month of coming up in April. We've got uh service stretching from 2 years to 28 years. And the uh title holder for April starts is our own Deanna McGee uh our director of parks and recreation who has 28 years of service. So, thank you to Deanna and everybody else who's celebrating uh a work anniversary in April. And there's a couple other people in this room that are also celebrating that this year, this this particular one. Uh the second thing I had on there was uh the Wixom DDA um had partnered up with uh some surrounding communities, Highland, South Lion, Lion Township uh and their DDAs and and hosted a an annual food fight on Maine in February. It's the second one uh referred to as four wars and it basically had uh different uh different uh restaurants and bars providing their uh specialty drinks for competition, a friendly competition. Uh and downtown Wixom earned top honors again. Uh finishing in first place was Wixom Bar with their entry as well as finishing in third place was Valari Restorante with their entry as well. So congratulations to the two uh two winners from Wixom and everybody who participated in a fun competition. Um if you're interested in checking out those uh those uh opportunities, you can always check it out at those locations. And then lastly, the Michigan Airlines Trail. Um they put out uh their calendar for 2026 events uh which I listed here. There's uh around a handful of them that are listed in the uh in the city manager update. Uh and then there's dates to remember uh for the various events that are coming up uh including uh different things through the parks and recreation department, different things through the DPW and Rosak. Uh if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Otherwise, that's all I have other than uh one item being a a compliment that we received uh for the police and fire department for work that they did which was provided in the city manager update as well.

That's all I have. Okay, assistant city manager Benson. Uh just a couple of updates. Uh you've you all have been seeing the new signs going up around town at a couple of our parks. That will continue over the next couple weeks. So that's been exciting to see them go up. Um as I've mentioned in some of my monthly reports, the the last things that we'll see are um the gateway signs. Um anything in the right of way will just is the most complicated to permit. Uh but it's just encouraging to see them starting to come in. Um, and that's pretty much all I have for you. Happy to answer any questions you may have. Very good. Thank you. Uh, council comments, Council Member Simmons.

Okay. Um, thank you for the logo on the TV. This looks fantastic here. Um, couple of notes I had. Uh, just thoughts and prayers, uh, to our neighboring community, West Bloomfield. I grew up in West Bloomfield with Temple Israel and uh just all the thoughts uh with them. Uh I did attend the Main Street Oland County Summit with uh some members of the DDA and Assistant City Manager Benson. Learned a lot. So uh thanks for the invitation and uh all the things that I think we're going to be able to do uh with the DDA. Uh congrats to one of our downtown businesses, Drafting Table, on their 10 years. Um, and lastly, I had a scheduled uh conference call with Drake uh from Oakland Thrive uh today uh in just kind of analyzing what Oakland Thrive is doing for current Wixom businesses and some opportunities that uh we have for increased support. So, I'm going to be talking to city staff, I guess, about some of their uh fish tank, if you're familiar with their fish tank uh opportunities. Uh, it's scheduled to go to Highland, then Farmington Hills, and then maybe Wixom. So, we'll talk about that and that's all I got.

Very good. Thank you, Council Member O Day. Thank you. Uh, not much. Um, just happy to see that we actually have three April workversaries in the house here tonight. So, uh, congratulations to all three of you and especially, uh, Deanna on 28 years. Um I all of your hard work and efforts are quite visible around the whole city. So thank you for that. Very good. Council member Kennedy. Uh not not much for me either. Just want to say congratulations on 28 years to Deanna. Also, assistant city manager Drew Benson and city manager Steve Brown. Congratulations.

Thank you. Um want to say the new signs have been looking really nice. Excited to see more of those go up. And that's everything. Very good. Council member Gota,

thank you. Um I primarily even though we don't have uh comments during call the public where we answer questions, I did want to I guess address the the questions that were made there. Um, in terms of what tonight's resolution was, it was back in November, um, in looking at a bunch of the other surrounding communities getting sued when proposals for data centers were getting um, put in front of them and, um, through the court process, the city's being told they had to allow them and, um, usually to the favor of the developer and the land owners, not to the current residents. Um, we had asked our planning commission to begin to look into drafting an ordinance and rules that would be acceptable because that's really where the basis of all the issues are coming from is Michigan individually as cities is not remotely prepared in terms of our zoning and planning wording to call data centers something different than most other commercial uses. Um, so this is really a part of that process. We don't have any applications for data centers in front of the city. This isn't addressing any specific issue. It's just along that process of allowing the planning commission to continue their work. Um, so I understand there wasn't much since this was an addition that I did to tonight's meeting. There wasn't any uh publicized anything, but if anything, this is protecting the residents that we do have. It's not trying to pull one over anybody because there's nothing in front of the city. It's just buying us more time to protect the city.

Thank you, Council Member Bman. Thank you. Um, just two things. Uh, one, that the signs really do look good going in. Um, I I think when they're all done, it's going to really be nice, but it's just nice to see them start pop popping up. Every day you see a different one. Uh, and the second it was just a followup to our last meeting. Have we received any communication back from the school? on the Maple Road property after our public comment.

Yeah, we've been having some interactions with the with the school district on that front. Um pretty heavily involved with the fire department uh as well as uh with other aspects of administration as we're looking at other concerns that that were addressed during that public hearing. Um some of the information that we're going to be getting back to them is is u still being finalized in terms of what we're looking for on the roadway. That's one of the key key issues. Um so we're in active discussions with the school district. So I I guess my followup to that is um you know strategically they did schedule their special meeting for this evening so no one could attend from the city. Um but their next uh regular scheduled meeting is April 9th. Um I just we need to figure out before April 9th if we need to have some representation from the city there or not. I mean, if you feel like you're going in the right direction, it still might not be bad idea for some of us to show up and thank them. And if it's not going in the right direction, maybe some of us should still plan on attending to continue to urge them to take the safety of our residents uh into account. So, we could just have some followup before the April 9th meeting. I appreciated that. I don't think we have a meeting. We don't have a meeting before that, but

I'm going to take that as a request for an update before that that meeting. We'll provide one so that you have an idea of where we're at. Thank you. Yep. And we'll set up a game plan too with regarding who should who should go and how many because we we all can't go obviously, but we'll figure something out. Yeah. No more than three, right?

Uh it depends on where we sit. Uh, I would just like to congrat I would like to congratulate everybody on their workversaries. Deiana, thank you for 28 great years. Steve and Drew the same with eight five years. Thank you for everything that you've done for the city, for the residents of the city. Um, and the only other thing is I'm looking forward to seeing everybody at the Easter egg hunt this uh Sunday 1:00 at Willis Park. It's always good time. With that, do I have a motion to adjurnn? support. Wow, I'm a little worried there. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. Thank you.