City Council - Regular Meeting

here. Council member Berman present. Council member Grenlin Fox here. Council member Kennedy is excused. Council member OD present. Council member Simmons is excused. We have qu. Thank you. Changes or additions to the agenda as presented tonight. City manager Brown. Mayor do not have any changes or additions. Assistant city manager Benson. I have none, sir.

Any from the DAS? I'm sorry that's not I apologize. We do have a walk on that for the agenda that we needed to talk about uh which is the uh correction uh of the public hearing date uh for the budget. Uh we passed that as the 26th originally which would have been consistent with the second and fourth Tuesday MMO but unfortunately we had uh not picked up on the fact that we had changed the date on that particular meeting to May 19th. So, we're changing the date. Um, and it's uh Do you have the copy of it? Do you need a copy of it? Sorry. So, we'll add that as new business number seven.

Thank you. All right. So, we have addition to the agenda. New business number seven is a consideration of setting May 19th, 2026 is the date for the public hearing regarding the uh 2026 2027 budget. All right. So, we'll move on. Um, next item up is one of my favorite things. We got a presentation this departmental award ceremony for the Wixon Police Department. Chief Langmire,

good evening. Thank you for your time. Um, kind of a new thing that we've been doing last year with our first annual awards ceremony for the Wigs Police Department. We do it during this week because it's National Police Week. Um, this is the week where law enforcement officers across the country recognize those that have given their life to the line of duty. In 2025, 111 officers were killed in the line of duty. That's a 25% increase or a decrease from the year before, which is very, very good, but those numbers are still too high. I'd like to take just a moment, if we could, a moment of silence, so we can recognize the sacrifice of those officers. Thank you. Now, on to my one of my favorite things, and that's to talk to you folks about the great work that our officers do. Uh we have a number of awards here to give out. We'll go through them. I'm going to call them up so that you can get to know their faces and know the start with Sergeant Cory King and Officer Nick Joanowski. Included in this award, another one of our recipients is Detective Sergeant Dean Caldwell. as you know, he's at the FBI National Academy. He really couldn't leave their due, so uh we'll give that to him when he comes back.

We'll excuse him this time.

Good. Thank you. Um for these two folks, this is an award that's near and dear to my heart. I firmly believe in lifelong education and continual improvement and continual learning. These two officers exemplified that for us last year, as did Detective Sergeant Caldwell. First, I'll tell you about Dean. Uh Dean when I hired in um did not have his degree and that's one thing that I firmly believe in. I believe in that for all of our officers and have been pushing that pretty hard. Detective Caldwell challenged himself last year to get that degree and and he graduated from Clear University with his bachelor's degree. I'm very proud of that. And now he's on to the national academy taking master levers level courses. Um he exemplifies that educational standard that we've set and he's being awarded our educational award as is Sergeant King. Sergeant King challenged himself last year with a class called staff in command 400 hours at Michigan State University. Uh highly intensive, very very long class that challenges uh young leaders to better themselves. The class focuses on themselves, not so much the topics of budgeting or conflict resolution, but on yourself and what you need to do to improve. He challenged himself and succeeded in that class. And due to that graduation, he's set himself up to be a better leader and a better mentor in our department and for that he is being awarded the educational award. And then finally, Officer Jobski. As you know, mental health is a huge problem in our communities. It is. It truly is. Our core program helps us, but the key part of our core program are the officers that are crisis intervention trained. Officer Jovonowski challenged himself to attend that class and graduate. A 40-hour class, they put you into situations you can't imagine, and you have to handle them appropriately. It teaches you to deescalate situations and

diffuse situations and address the mental health issues that are going on at that time so that we can bring in our core response after the fact to help It is a a key component of our core program, our officers that are CIT trained. Nick volunteered to go to this class. He graduated from that class. So, for that reason, he is being awarded our educational award also. Thank you, GENTLEMEN. Up next, it would be Detective Sergeant Dean Caldwell again, Sergeant Paul Mahala, Sergeant Corey King. Cory, you can come back up. Uh, Sergeant Aaron Brenamman, Sergeant Mike Bber, Detective Andrew Taber, Detective Maline Connor, Officer Mark Westonberg, Officer Andrew Bishop, Officer Greg Evans, Officer Nick Joanowski. So yeah, most of the people that are here, Officer Westonberg and Officer Bishop uh and Sergeant uh Byberg could not be here. They had other things that they had to attend to, but again, we'll address that once they come back. Um folks, you are looking at the our field training unit. Um these this program is responsible for training every single officer that we hire. It's a four four to five month program with daily observation reports, weekly supervisor performance reviews. Uh it's very very difficult. It is very hard. As you know, when I started in here, um Chief Moore was the beginning of an avalanche of retirements for us. As you know, uh, in the almost four years that I've been here, these folks have trained 13 of the 22 officers that we have on the road. And every one of those officers are exemplary. They are setting

Wixom up for the future. They have without their hard work, their dedication, their determination, and at times perseverance, we wouldn't be where we are. But we are set for the future. hopefully for the next 25 years due to the work of these folks and for that we are awarding them a unit commendation. Thank you. Thank you. The next award that we're going to hand out is to detect paper. And these are the ones that I I' I've really enjoyed talking to you a little bit about because it's it's a case that we we had that started back in 2004. Detective Taber is our financial crimes investigator. He specializes in that. Uh these are very, very difficult crimes. In November of 2024, uh Detective Taber was assigned a case that involved one of our local businesses. Uh they reported that they believed they had uh an employee that embezzled over $1 million. He dove into the case and began working it. Uh 18 months later, the case came to a conclusion, but it takes that long. During that time, he was very determined to figure out exactly what was going on here. Numerous search warrants, numerous boxes of paper. Financial crimes are paper crimes, and there's a whole lot of stuff you got to look at to make sure that you prove the case. 18 months later, he decided he needed some help. He recruited the attorney general's office, their fraud people, to give him

a hand. and together they were able to to discover that this lady had actually embezzled over $2.1 million. Um she was subsequently charged by the attorney general's office and correctly recently pled.

Yes. So has now pled guilty to the charges. Uh due to his hard work, determination and perseverance, this case was brought to a successful conclusion and the responsible party was held accountable. For that we are awarding Detective Taber our meritorious service award. And our last one, Officer Jacob Floyd. You folks may remember Jacob. He's one of those 13 that we hired that got trained by those people back there. Uh they did a a marvelous job. He is approaching three years of service. Still doesn't look like he's old enough to go to a bar, but he's at three years of service. Um, but I will tell you that over those three years of service, he's he's really grown, especially in our community policing areas, um, and especially in our highdensity living areas. He spends a lot of time there talking to the kids. He knows there's a lot of atrisisk kids there and he spends a lot of his time there building relationships, chatting, spending time. Not things that we ever told him he needed to do. Not anything that uh anybody said he must do. It's something that he decided he needed to do when he saw some of the things that were going on, which was remarkable. While getting to know those kids, he realized that you know what, they don't have any kind of sporting equipment. They don't have any basketballs. they don't have anything. So, he started spending his own money to get those things for the kids. Last year, he had a pizza party at the end of the school year that again that he paid for. And we had no idea any of this was going on. Jacob has mentored these kids. I believe that

he's made a lasting impact on these kids. He's gone above and beyond to do things that nobody expects you to do, but he did it on his own. And for that, we're awarding him a leadership award,

folks. I appreciate your time. That's all we have for this year. Uh, I look forward to being able I will tell you all of our people do a great job. I look forward to coming to work every day. These are the people that are here. This is a good place. It's a hidden gem in Oakland County. and your setups for the future with these people here. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

And thank you to uh everyone who got an award tonight and uh we appreciate what you do to uh keep the citizens of our city safe and you guys work hard at that. I've been with you guys on rides and that so I know how you work. And at this time, we'll take like a brief 10-minute uh break for some uh cake and socializing. Thanks.

On our agenda tonight is the public hearing. I'll read the rules for the public hearing. They are as follows. Anyone wishing to address the council must first state their name and address for the record and speak directly into the microphone so that your comments may be properly recorded. Please note that the questions from the audience to the council are not permitted during public hearing and members of the council will not engage in the dialogue with individuals addressing the council and each person may address the council only wants to be limited to 5 minutes. And at this time, I'll turn it over to assistant city manager Benson to provide an overview of the subject matter for tonight's public hearing.

Thank you, mayor. Uh on your agenda tonight, uh city council has three public hearings scheduled. Uh all three of these items will be addressed by city council for for uh you know more detailed conversation under new business items number three, four and five. Um in your agenda packet, we did provide a very brief uh very brief kind of summary of what these items are. Um but I just to you know put kind of put a finer point on it. First public hearing is for consideration of establishment of an industrial development district at 29837 South Wixom Road. Uh then a completely separate public hearing that would be open to closed on its own for consideration of the request for the issuance of an industrial facilities tax exemption certificate for uh 29837 South Wixom Road. And then the third public hearing is uh to cons take comments on the uh proposed purchase agreement for the sale of surplus city-owned property um at North Wixom Road uh in pursuant to chapter 3 section 3.160550 of the code of ordinances. Um, we will dive into the, you know, all of the kind of nitty-gritty of each of those agenda items, but the purpose of these public hearings is to allow the u anyone interested in the public to uh verbalize their comments for the record on those items if they so wish. Do we have anybody who would wish to address the council on public hearing matters only? Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing and we'll move on to

Well, I was going to say I I would request that you individually um open open and close each individual public hearing. Um just for the record's sake that um you the minutes.

All right. So, first item on the public hearing is a public hearing for consideration of the establishment of an industrial development district at 29837 South Wixom Road, Wixom, Michigan 4393. Any comments, questions from the counc uh audience? All right, we'll close public hearing number one. Public hearing number two is public hearing for consideration for of a request for the issuance of an industrial facilities tax exemption exemption certificate for the properties located at 29837 South Wixom Road, Wixom, Michigan, 4393 for Quality Engineering Company. Do we have any public comments for the second public hearing? Seeing none, I'll close the second public hearing and uh open up the third public hearing for consideration of a purchase agreement for the sale of surplus city owned property in accordance with chapter 3 section 3.16.050 of city code sale of economic development property. Any public comments for the third public hearing? Seeing none, we have no comments. So, I will now close the public hearing and we'll move on to uh business number three is the approval of minutes. We have one set of minutes to approve tonight and that's from the regular city council meeting of April 28th, 2026. Motion

move to approve. Any discussion? Seeing none, I got a motion and a second to approve the minutes of the city council meeting of April 28, 2026. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I.

I. Opposed. Motion carries. I have two items of correspondence tonight. The number one, first one is the resignation of Jim Hud Hutchkins from the ZBA and I would like to thank him for his uh service. And the second one I got uh walk up today handed to me and it's uh from Donald Hodkins about traffic issues around Hickory Hills Golf Course. That leads us to the first call to the public. I'll read those uh rules again as they are different. The public shall address the council during 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 the time is extended by a majority vote at 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 first call to the public? Seeing none, I'll close the first call to the public. It moves us on uh city managers reports. We have two tonight. First one from the fire uh department from March 2026. Any questions? All right. Uh, seconds the police report for March 2026. Any questions? Very good. Consent agenda. All items listed on the consent agenda are considered routine by city council and will be enacted by one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless the council member sole requests in which event the items will be removed from uh the consent agenda and added to the regular agenda at the un end of unfinished or new business. Do I have a motion? recording.

We got a motion, a second to approve the consent agenda as presented tonight. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. Uh we have no unfinished business tonight. So, that moves us on to the first uh portion of new business tonight, and that's a recommendation to confirm the mayor's appointment of Ran Davis to the zoning board of appeals with a term to expire June 30th, 2027. Do I have a motion? So moved for it.

Thank you. As mentioned previously, uh we did have a resignation uh from the ZBA and we had a resident who stepped up and filled out an application and uh Ran, would you like to come up and introduce yourselves and say a few words? Sure.

Hi everyone. I'm I'm Ren Davis. I live on Charmsville Road and it's my honor to serve the community. I've lived in Wix since 2018 December. So, it's been a great city or community in general and before that I lived in Cameas. I was telling Drew that. But so far, I've seen a great great growth of the city of Wixom and it's my honor to serve the community. Thank you. Thank you. You thank you for stepping up and we appreciate we're looking forward to it. All right. New business number two is a recommendation to approve a resolution of support. Is that

Oh, I guess not. Okay. All those in favor, I have a motion in a second to confirm the mayor's appointment of Brand Davis to the zoning board of appeals with a term to expire June 30th, 2027. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I.

I. Opposed. Thank you. Sorry about that, guys. Uh, new business number two is a recommendation to approve a resolution of support for the transfer of an existing Michigan liquor control license, class C on premise retail liquor license, an existing especially designated merchant SDM off-present retail uh, liquor license and authorize the issuance of a Sunday AM and PM sales permit and outdoor service permit and a social district for Wixom Station PT LLC at 49115 Five, Pontiac Trail, Wixon, Michigan, and authorize the updated social district map. Do I have a motion? Support.

Assistant city manager Benson. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, good evening, members of city council. Before you tonight is a uh is an application and request, as the mayor mentioned, to transfer a class C and SDM liquor license. This is in association with the sale of the Wixom Station business uh to another owner. uh they uh they intend uh per their application they intend to operate pretty much as they have before. I believe we have a representative uh from the applicant here tonight. Um and they you know may be able to speak more to uh you know their plans for the Wixom station business. Uh staff did do uh uh you know our cursory background and background checks research into um their request. We found no specific issues that uh would uh you know basically preclude them from from a recommendation to approve the transfer. Uh one thing to specifically point out is that uh the previous owner and the owner own owner of the liquor licenses prior to them um have all signed agreements that restrict the transfer of these liquor licenses. That was a practice that the city began in the early 2000s um or uh 2010s perhaps. Um so anyways uh pursuant to to those previous agreements, Wixom Station PT LLC has agreed um if issued the licenses that they would sign an agreement to also continue that restriction of the transfer and keep that class C license within the city should they ever cease to uh you know need to use it. Uh with that in mind, the applicants are here and if there are any questions for myself or them, you know, we'd be happy to try and answer them.

All right, before we have any questions, why don't you guys introduce yourself, state your address, you're going to be on the record. I'm Steven Meyer and this is my wife Jennifer and we're the owners of P of Wixom Station PT LLC and we're committed to run a clean, safe and uh professionally run business in the city to add value to the city of Wixom and uh we thank everyone that has put their work in to be able to bring this to the council and we appreciate that and are able to answer any questions that you may have. Currently, uh, we're looking for a home. Anyone know of any homes that are for sale? Uh, we are, we have somebody who can help you with that.

Yeah, we are previously from we built a home in New Hudson about 9 years ago. We moved to Savannah, Georgia to run a restaurant for 4 years and we're coming home because this is home. So, we homesick and taking care of my wife's family as well. So, that's the reason for coming back and we're very excited to join the community. Very good. You want to state your name and address for the record too, please? Sure. Um, my name is Anthony Shaw. I'm the uh attorney for for the applicant. Okay. Very good. Do we have any questions? Council member Barman. I'll just indicate uh I appreciate the willingness to follow our procedures we've had in place and I wish you guys nothing but the best.

When are you taking over? Oh, you did? This last Wednesday. We've been there. Anything big changing here? I'm making sure that we're come see as as my as my clients have told me, their goal is to organize, clean, and make sure it's a a good welcoming envir that's most important. We'll have to come in and support you. Appreciate it. And I want to uh say thank you to to Mr. Ben. He's been very helpful and very uh accommodating to all of our concerns and questions. And so we really really appreciate his effort. So thank you very much for that.

Any other panelists questions? All right. Well, thank you for coming home and uh we wish you the best. The menu going to be the same. Any any changes or just a few or Oh, okay. Very good. All right. Like we'll find out at the new ribbon cutting. Yeah.

Yeah. Let us know when the ribbon cutting is and we'll be we'll be more than happy to uh attend. So with that, I got a motion and a second to approve the uh resolution of support of the transfer of an existing Michigan Liquor Control Commission class C on premise retail liquor license and an existing specialty designated merchant SDM off- premise retail liquor license and authorized the issuance of a Sunday AM and PM sales permit, an outdoor service permit, and a social distant for Wixom Station PT LLC at 49115 Pontiac Trail. Wixon, Michigan authorized the updated social district map. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. Thank you.

Thank you for joining the social district two. That's that's big for us. So, we appreciate it. Thank you. Make sure you connect with Laura before you leave. All right. moves us on to new business number three and that's a recommendation to consider a resolution authorizing the establishment of an industrial development district at 29 837 South Wixom Road property identification number 22-06-400-30 in accordance with public act 198 of 1974 as amended and requested by Quality Engineering Company and is recommended by the tax abatement review committee Do I have a motion? Assistant, city manager.

Good evening, mayor, members of city council. U as the the the subject line indicates, uh the item before you is to consider the establishing an industrial development district. This is the first step of two required steps uh when individuals or companies are seeking uh industrial facility tax abatement requests. Uh the idea behind it is that the the state you know wants communities to designate the areas where they would consider tax abatements and then those certificates have to be within those areas. City's practice is historically to uh to establish districts alongside the uh consideration of the individual certificates as opposed to having a broad district and only accepting requests within that district. Uh but it is very important that the establishment of the district has to be first both in the public hearing and the actual approval compared to the certificate. Uh with all of that in mind, uh the property in question here is uh more commonly known as Wixom Logistics Park site E or where building E would have been uh per the the sets of plans that that planning commission you all have worked on for years. The site is currently undeveloped and uh quality engineering company is under contract to purchase that and develop a new facility. Um we will get into the nuance of their application and and you know their specific you know kind of qualifications for requesting the certificate. Um the the first step of establishing the district does not automatically grant them the certificate. So, if you were to approve establishment of the district, but not the certificate, that is, you know, that is something a council can do. Um, there's a a great deal of material uh provided in your agenda packet. So, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about either establishing the district or if you'd like to get into anything about their application materials, I can hop into that as well.

Do we have any uh representatives from uh quality engineer here tonight? We do. We have a variety of uh representatives here tonight and um they can somebody want to be available to answer questions as well. Any questions? I I just have a question about council member Glenn Fox Grenland Fox. So as far as the um establishing that industrial development district, is that something that we are required to do? Yes. Before you can issue any certificates for tax exemption, you do have to establish a an industrial development district. Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions? Council member Bman say we're going to have him introduce himself. I'm sure we'll intro he'll on the next item we'll introduce himself. I have no I have no questions on establishing more on the issuance.

Yeah. Everybody else good? All right. And I got a motion and a second to approve the recommendation to consider a resolution authorizing the establishment of industrial development direct uh district at 29837 South Wixom Road. Property identification number 22-06-400-030 in accordance with public act 198 of 1974 as amended by as the request by Quality Engineering Company and as recommended by the tax abatement review committee. All those in favor, please signify by saying I.

I. Opposed. Motion carries. Very good. Uh, new business item number four is a recommendation to adopt a resolution authorizing the issuance of a 4-year industrial facilities exempt exemption certificate for eligible and real personal property at 29837 South Wixom Road in accordance with public act 198 of 1974 as amended and authorized the mayor to execute a tax abatement agreement with Quality Engineering Company as recommended by the tax abatement review committee. Do I have a motion? support assistant city manager Benson.

Thank you, Mayor. So, following up on uh after the establishment of the district, now you can really dive into their application materials. The project they proposed is to build an 85,500 ft light industrial uh I'll call it an office, warehousing, manufacturing facility. Uh quality engineering company is currently in Wixom, I believe in a 40,000t facility. Is that correct? Uh we we occupy two facilities approximately 40,000 combined. Yes.

Okay. Uh so really what this uh this proposal is about is an opportunity for them to buy a larger piece of land and construct a larger facility to accommodate their growing operations. They would be consolidating their Wixom and Brighton locations um here in this new facility. They have already gone through and received preliminary site plan approval from the planning commission. um and they had submitted this application to the city prior to or basically alongside that site plan um review request. We've included some of the materials just to kind of show you know planning commission's thoughts um during the approval as well as staff's review um of their their project as a whole. It met standards and uh fits with the the the intent for the the district. Um, one key piece to keep in mind, um, is that the property that they are seeking a tax payment on is already included in the former Ford, uh, facility, Brownfield. So, the all of the tax revenue above the initial baseline is already captured by that brownfield redevelopment authority until that other applicant collects all of their um, you know, reimburseable expenses. Uh, we do anticipate that will be sooner rather than later. Um, and that's one of the benefits of promoting development on those sites is that the higher the taxable value gets, the more quickly the brownfield ends. And then all of the properties included in the brownfield, um, which includes a uh, buildings A, B, C, D. Um, you know, the sooner those get back on the roll. Um, the particular application here, uh, calls for a $13.4 million investment. um and they propose to consolidate uh between 25 and 30 direct employees, three to four contract employees, and two to three seasonal employees. Uh the proposed agreement calls for um no less than 24 jobs at the facility in the first year and a total of 27 jobs within the first 3 years. I will let the applicant kind of speak more to their staffing arrangement um

and kind of what this whole transition looks like. um they did go before the uh tax payment review committee uh a couple weeks ago and basically presented their case. The recommendation from the tax review committee based on the city's adopted industrial facilities tax abatement policy uh was a recommendation for city council to consider for years. Um you are ultimately the deciding body on tax abatement requests. The ad uh tax review committee is advisory only. Um and your you know the we included a copy of the adopted policy which is really just a it's a matrix based on the number of jobs they proposed to retain or create and the the total investment. So that's where the recommendation for four years comes from. Uh perhaps the you know the most important question is what is the impact of a industrial facilities tax abatement? I know um you know some members are newer or may not have um seen one of these before. The core idea is that a industrial facilities tax payment cuts the taxable mills in half. So as opposed to paying um on a commercial property you may pay 53 approximately mills here in Wixom you would be paying 26. Um and for the life of of that exemption certificate that includes uh a variety of different taxing entities. Um the state education tax can also be abated if approved by the state. In this case, um there is not a request for that as far as I know on the table. Um so it would just be local millages that would be um being abated. But the more important piece is to remember that with tax abatement requests, it's cutting the new the new taxable the new taxes in half. So in a case like this where you're developing on an undeveloped parcel uh there is usually and and our math kind of for you know shows this out as well that in net

the city and other taxing jurisdictions would still generate more tax revenue than they would absent a development. However, it is less than you would get if there was no abatement in place. Um, specifically, we estimate that the city would forego approximately 44,000 of the newly created 88,000 in um, city specific tax revenue um, if the full 12 years that were u listed in their application were granted. We estimate the applicant would receive um, approximately $630,000 in savings over the course of that. um in uh there there's a couple other calculations in here and again I'm happy to go over the math but I won't kind of bore you with every every example of it. Um but one of the key pieces is uh this property paid about $13,000 $14,000 in property taxes in 2025 as a vacant property. Um and we estimate would produce an additional $30,000 in tax taxable value um you know after development with the abatement. Um, again, all of these numbers are, you know, based on the applicant's statement of the value, which doesn't always equate to taxable value, but it's intended to give you kind of a big picture of, you know, how this kind of plays out. Um, so with all of those pieces in mind, again, any questions for myself or the applicants? Happy to try and answer them.

Before I ask any questions, you want to introduce yourself, say your title, and Yes. Thank you. First of all, everybody, uh, my name is Bill Uridano. It's spelled I O R D A N O U and I am the president at Quality Engineering Company. Very good. Questions from council? Council member Bman. Um so the request in the agenda is for four years. That's what we're being asked to consider this evening. I mean the request was for 12 but the agenda item four the agenda item was for four that is the recommendation

recommendation and I guess I guess my question from the applicant are are you comfortable with the recommendation from our tax debasement committee with moving forward with their recommendation of four years at this time? We are. And and then you're consolidating all your operation. So your your operation that's on the on the other side of Wixom Road will all move to this new building. Yes. Yes. Plus uh we have a a facility in in Brighton. So yes. Um I'm fine with the uh request as provide. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for investing in Wome. Appreciate it.

Thank you. It's a beautiful place. Thanks, Council Member Galla Fox. Thank you. Good evening. I have a question regarding your full-time employees. So, it shows um you have full-time, you have seasonal and then contractual. Can you tell us a little bit about those contractual employees?

Yeah. So, so these are employees that uh work only on behalf of quality engineering company. Um it is with a contract company that is based in a design contract company that's based in Southfield. Um we've been working with them since 2012. uh we have the same uh crew of designers from them that only work for us. So if you've been to a to a facility for example in in like General Motors um they have a mix of their own employees and contract employees are all working together. So that is a similar concept for us. Okay. So they work for a completely different company but then they come in and contract you you pay them as contractors to do certain projects.

Correct. but they've been full-time only on our project since 2012. Okay, great. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Gota, thank you. Um, more so to the brownfield. I you had mentioned sooner rather than later and that was almost verbatim what was in our packet from the uh tax abatement review. Do we have an estimate on the number of years? I know previously it was said it was ahead of schedule. Do we have any realistic timeline on when the city will expect that to be closed out?

We do. Uh I I I hesitate to say an exact date because we don't control the exact date. I would say uh within the next couple years, you know, 2 3 years perhaps. Um that's subject to any kind of new expenses coming up, but our understanding is that pretty much every eligible expense has been identified and expended or in the process of doing so.

Okay. Um, so it it's pretty close and then it's just about making sure that the um tax revenue that's been collected is enough to cover all those expenses. What would happen then if the brownfield closes out we'll say two years even though it might be longer and then you have this what is the difference to the is there no difference to the city or no you would get the you would you they would come back on onto the regular tax ro so you you would then collect um in this example we use the numbers I gave 44,000

so up until the if the brownfield exists longer, the 44,000 every year is just going to recapture the cost of that. If it closes out, then that's coming to the city. Correct? Okay. Thank you. Any further discussion?

All right. Seeing none, I've got a motion and a second to approve the uh recommendation to adopt a resolution for the issuance of a 4-year industrial facilities exemption certificate for eligible real and personal property at 29837 South Wixom Road in accordance with public act 198 of 1974 as amended and authorized the sale the mayor to execute a tax abatement agreement with quality engineering company as recommended by the tax abatement review committee. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I opposed. We're good. Congratulations. Thank you. And thank you for staying in Wixom and expanding your business. We appreciate it. We wish you the best. Thank you very much.

You're welcome. New business number five is a recommendation to consider a purchase agreement with Wixom Renton Partners LLC for the sale of surplus city property at 1 1912131 2011 205 and 221 North Wixom and 3343 and 3360 Ron with a purchase price of $250,000 in accordance with chapter 3 section 3.16.050 050 of the city code sale of economic development property. Do I have a motion? So moved. Got a motion and support. Uh deputy may uh assistant city manager Benson.

Good evening, Mayor, members of city council. Me again. This is an item that we've been very excited to uh present to city council. We do have our our proposed kind of uh partners here uh tonight with Luke and Mr. Fledo uh with Rent and Partners LLC um also known as uh the Fledo Group, Mr. Bonners with Bonner Group and as an adviser for them. Um we also have our real estate representative, Mr. Daniel Jacobs from Saviles here. So we've kind of got the whole team assembled. As you may recall, u you know, for those of you who've been on city council for a while, we've been working on the rent and redevelopment site for many years between assembling the properties, building the airline trail, um clearing the site, and then marketing it for development. The group uh group was in before you last April of 2025 to present a development concept, and at that time, city council authorized staff and the developer to work on a purchase agreement. For the last uh year or so, we've been working with them a on the agreement, b uh working with them to kind of uh understand the dollars and cents of it all and make sure that it's a project that financially would make sense for them. Um working on their development concept and then also uh you know presenting this to other groups. So they have been in front of our planning commission. They've been in front of the downtown development authority. Um and we've shared out their concept in a variety of places. So, we've been doing a lot of due diligence to get up to this point to then present you all with a purchase agreement. Um, there again, there there's kind of a lot of detail here and I know uh the applicants kind of have a a presentation here. So, I won't dive into all of the nuts and bolts of what they're looking at and instead I'll focus on the provisions of the purchase agreement uh you know is laid out for you tonight. the uh the you know basically the long story short is we're proposing to a sales price of

$250,000 for 3.6 acres. Um this is uh below probably it's uh its market value. Um it's less than we paid to assemble the properties. However, that was somewhat intentional to try to help um as a development incentive from the city side to um you know help make this project work. the applicants will be able to to talk to on tonight about really the challenges of trying to do a downtown mixeduse development like what's proposed here. Um, every dollar counts. Um, there's going to be a variety of incentives and kind of funding mechanisms that are going to have to be put into place for this all to work. Um, and I'll cover kind of those in more detail as we go. Um, a portion of those uh proceeds will uh are required to be uh basically to cover the cost of our help that we received from Saviles. um as they helped us market the site. Uh I believe we started working with you all in 2024.

Yeah.

So, it's been uh it's been a while we we've been working with them um you know and helping talk to not only the Fleer group but other groups and kind of getting us to this point. Um couple other key provisions in this purchase agreement. One, um the site plan must be reviewed by both planning commission and city council as a condition of this agreement. Normally, you all do not get the opportunity under your current zoning ordinance to review every individual site plan. We felt that that city council would likely, given it's city-owned property, want the opportunity to to have a direct say. So, uh you know, we put that in there and that was something that the the developers have been amendable to. So, it would need to go through both planning commission and city council. um there would be basically after establishing this purchase agreement, they would then enter into a uh I'll say a longer than average due diligence period. Um really to to go through all of the entitlement processes. So if approved tonight, this uh we're not closing tomorrow really. We're just entering the next step and essentially a an exclusive negotiation window where they have opportunities to to pull out. We have opportunities um depending on how it all goes. Um but basically we can't sell it out from underneath them. Um and that's that's fair, right? I mean they're putting a lot of time and effort into into getting to this point. Um some of the other key provisions um there are things about uh you know statements about timing on their part you know u having uh to start work in the next couple years actively working towards getting their site plan approval and those kinds of things. Um there are also uh reverter clauses included. Um you know if construction begins but certificates of occupancy are not obtained or kind of some other things the city would have opportunities to basically repurchase the properties. Um however the number one key there and we we know that was a priority for city council to basically not end up in a position like we did with east retail

where property is sold it goes you know under whatever happens and the city loses control. The key problem with that provision, we spent a long time working on that, is that ultimately to finance a project, the city will have no choice but to subordinate its position to a lender. Um, and there's almost no scenario that a development happens here that doesn't have financing attached to it. So at at you know at the bare minimum you know if there if there's no mortgage or any subordinated you know loans on top of our our claim then we would have the opportunity to relatively easily um you know seek reversion if needed. However u you know if there's a lender involved it gets a little bit more complicated. Um, you know, we had the city attorney involved, you know, helping us negotiate this and, you know, it was we felt that that it was the strongest position that we could have, but also really offer them the opportunity to go seek the financing that they'll need to do this project. Um, in terms of uh kind of what the next steps of all of this look like, the developer intends to pursue a variety of incentives.

Assistant manager Benson, we've got a quick question. Sorry. To clarify, are you talking about that's why we're going the repurchase route is because there will be financing as opposed to something a different way of clawing back property or Okay.

Yeah. I mean, the we knew the intent from city council was to have some some way to basically claw it back. Um so this was the strongest version of that that we could uh that we could agree upon. Thank you. Um the the primary layers of of proposed incentives are um a public private partnership with the downtown development authority where they would seek uh some financial assistance on the public infrastructure components of this streetscaping um a potential relocation of the airline trail lamposts uh the proposed on street parking which I know we'll we'll get into here in a little bit. Um that would be required there would be a separate agreement that would lay out how that deal would work. Um they also and probably the most substantial piece is they intend to pursue um a Michigan State Housing Development Authority or MISTA, Brownfield Housing Tax Increment Financing Plan to help um help with the affordable housing component of this proposed project. Um that would require the DDA to sign an agreement to have their own TIFF capture waved because taxes are already captured. They don't come to the city. Um, and there would likely be a a 25 or 30-year tax refinancing request on that. Again, that actual approval is a whole separate process that city council would have to be involved with. But again, you know, just kind of laying out the big picture of what this looks like. Um, and then once uh if and when reauthorized by the state legislature, we also anticipate that they would seek commercial uh facility tax abatements for the commercial components of this property. So, very similar to what we just did for the industrial facilities, um they would seek on the commercial side. However, the the two statutes that allow for commercial tax abatements are currently sunset, unless you've heard anything new, Luke.

Uh I think those bills are going up in probably June or July for uh recall. That's encouraged. Yeah. So, um yeah, they sunset on December 31st of 25 and our legislature has not yet reauthorized them. So, um again, there there's kind of a lot of components. I'll hop over and help the applicants pull up kind of their presentation, but um any additional questions, happy to try to answer it. Go ahead and state your name and address just for the record, please. Sure, absolutely. Uh first of all, thanks, Mr. Benson. Good evening, mayor, members of council. My name is Luke Bonner. I'm located at uh 1054 South Main Street in Ann Arbor.

Mike Fero, 440 Seldon Street, Detroit. Very good. Okay. All right, Crystal. Let's see if I can figure this out. Find the

Okay. Uh, thank you very much. It's an honor to be here tonight um for you to consider this uh first step in what we think is going to be a really fun exciting opportunity to partner with the city of Wixom to deliver uh mixeduse development um for your downtown area. Um so I think everybody's pretty familiar with the project site on North Wixom Road. Um love the traffic on North Wixom Road. I know that can sometimes be scary. we see it as a sign of progress and a and a good sign that this is a great location. Um, also like the context of location um around all of the other public assets including the downtown development authority which obviously you've had a number of significant um successful developments um in that district as well. So I introduced myself Luke Bonner with the Bonner Advisory Group, Mike Fo with the Fledo Group and Matthew Walters our third partner who cannot be here tonight um who owns uh the Walters Group. Yes, we all hired the same marketing firm to come up with the names of our companies. Um, we independently have our own firms, but we are partnering on multiple projects. Uh, we like to do uh cool spaces in cool places. So, we're before you tonight uh about this project. We have a project in Wixom, I'm sorry, Plymouth, and we have a project in downtown Dexter. Um, all um sort of new uh mixeduse developments uh residential heavy residential component to them. you're familiar with the site. I'll skip past that. Um, so here is uh the conceptual rendering of what we are proposing. Again, I do like to put some context around conceptual uh because this is um our first best effort at what we think could do well here on the site. Um this is something that helps us begin to model some of our financial projections on um and get some preliminary ideas of you know how the the different buildings could be

situated on this site. Ultimately once once we start getting into engineering and planning this might change a little bit. Um we may discover other things from an engineering perspective that we might have to change but this is our our our best start. I can tell you for example uh that that open space that you see on the site plan, we're already talking about shifting that to the south end of the building. Um but basically we have two buildings. Um we have a retail building uh facing the street that um is 10,000 square ft. Um the empty space next to it allows us actually to expand up to 15,000 square ft. Understanding that retail is incredibly important to the downtown. So that is a big component of this project. uh why we're doing 10,000 square feet and not 15,000 square feet. We want to make sure that the market can support it and whatever retail goes there is successful um before we would expand uh future retail. Uh we also have uh 75 units of uh multifamily um apartments as the other building uh component here. So, here's a look uh closer look at the multifamily building. The ground floor um facing uh North Wixom Road is the entry point, the lobby, the essential amenity, uh workout facility, lounge, if you will, uh for the residents there. Um this is essentially a four-story product, but it's really three stories of residential units on top of a grade level parking. So it's a podium style development. So the parking will be at grade level and then the units will be built on top of uh that podium. Um from a design perspective, we wanted to make sure that we were providing a design that fit well within the DDA and is similar to other uh materials and architecture uh and design and look and feel as a lot of the other developments um are as well in the DDA district. Um

here's another look uh looking more south at the property. um having again some public amenity uh street facing with some outdoor seating area uh as well. And then here's a a closer look at the retail building. Here's a view of the retail building from uh the current um I'm going to call that a gazebo. I know that's not exactly what it's called. Um but that's a look from uh from the gazebo. So, uh, when I talked about earlier how we're already starting to look at changing things, that open space that could be the future expansion of retail would flip, um, to the, uh, south end of the building, uh, that would be closer to this particular pocket park. Um, and also would give us a better opportunity, um, to have a an endcap, uh, restaurant on the retail space.

You want to comment anything,

Drew? I'm I apologize for the the move, but I haven't talked to you about it yet. The reason why we want to why we have to move it is if you look at the building on the south side of the building, you'll notice on the other side there's like literally three parking spaces for that uh that endcap. That endcap was going to be like the 3,000t restaurant. So, as a usability standpoint, no 3,000t tenant is going to go in there with three parking spaces. So, with all the parking to the north, it's a lot better for uh patrons to go. So, the intent of this deal, I know the retail or the front parking is uh I don't want to use the word contentious, but it's a it's a discussion item is that we know the most important part of this whole project is the retail, and we got to make sure that we're bringing good retailers in. They they can actually stay and are viable. Uh and not to mention, these buildings are $350 a foot to build. So um the reasons why the layers of financing is to make sure the affordability of the retailers and the tenants uh or not affordability but the the costs of of renting these spaces are affordable so they stay uh and they don't leave. Um retening restaurant spaces is very risky and very hard to do. Congratulations to people that are buying restaurants, but you never want to go into a second gen restaurant space that's failed previously. So, there's a lot of intent on focusing on the retail um and making it viable. And you're going to see as we go forward, like you'll see that beautiful pond. That pond in the back was my brilliant idea. And now we're going to get rid of it because we wanted to save on cost. Underground detention is very expensive. So, we wanted to save on cost. Uh but now we're starting to realize we're going to need more parking. And mind you, when we go through the zoning analysis and and planning, you'll see that we're like 25 spaces over parked, but when it comes to developing things like that that are so

important to uh a city's downtown, zoning is not everything. It's got to be about you usability and, you know, we feel like we need more parking there um to make sure those retailers feel good. And same thing with the tenants. I probably talked too much, but I just wanted to interject on a few things that uh were interesting.

One other thing is uh the the proposal in front of you tonight. Um it the concepts they show show the airline trail being relocated. Um so basically being in between the uh the on street parking and the the buildings uh fully acknowledge there there's been some questions and some concerns about that. That will need to be you know designed and fleshed out in greater detail. Um, you know, the applicant has talked about that. Um, and I think you guys have mentioned perhaps a, you know, a consideration of keeping it in its current location. I'm not pressing you one way or the other. I'm just saying those are conversations that have happened. Um, you know, and so an an Apple opportunity for city council to provide input. Um, again, planning commission DDA kind of touched on a lot of these topics as well to provide preliminary feedback and and you know, help them know how to proceed. Um the intent is to retain 27 ft of additional right ofway consistent with how uh how all of the downtown developments have gone. Um so just like with um uh Genesis Credit Union across the street, the on street parking would allow them to take advantage of of that additional width while also retaining the city's opportunity to basically do what it needs to do and grow into, you know, have the rightway widths to grow into um you know, depending on how how the future goes. So, um, yeah, just wanted to add those again context.

Yeah. Council member Bareman, for clarification, the on street parking, if approved as proposed, would be in in our right way. Correct. Okay.

Actually, well, it will be in the county's right of way. Technically, we will have to eventually dedicate it to them. U Wixom Road is a county road. the way in uh the actual vacation of Reton Street, which is a city street, and then the the splitting off of right ofway and combining the parcel. Um we do not intend to dedicate or recommend the city council to dedicate that right of way to the county road commission immediately, mainly because there's no reason to just give them control of it until you all decide that it's the appropriate time to do so. Um provisions to that end are actually referenced in the development agreement or the purchase agreement. We talked about that. Um, so the intent is to retain control as long as we can, but eventually, yes, we will have to give it to the road commission and then we'll have to work out a deal with them for how the on street parking works.

Eventually they'll put a fiber box right in the middle of your parking lot. I hope not. But yeah.

Yeah, that is a good point. And we had really good feedback from the DDA um about the on street parking um and not only the on- street parking but also how it interfaces with the sidewalk because now you're seeing wider sidewalks and downtowns are now welcoming to people on bikes or on scooters and that has conflict with pedestrians. So, we want to take all of that stuff into account as well and make sure this is all designed the right way, including potentially keeping that trail where it is um and in pushing those types of uses on the trail and away from pedestrians um in front of the development on North Wixom Road. So, there are a lot of different things to take into consideration when we're going to, you know, finalize this and and feedback going through the process is going to be really important in in what the final design is going to be. If not when, but I mean uh when but not if the retail fills up the 10,000 square feet, when will you commit yourself to the other 5,000 square feet?

That's a really good question. So, the idea is to put a sign up front to start gaining some uh market interest and um really we we don't know. So, another reason why we did 10,000 instead of 15,000, a bank is only going to give you, you have to lease at least 50 or up to 65% of your building to get construction loan. Leaving at 10,000 requires less pets to commit. That means we can move faster.

So, it it just it really depends on where pricing is coming in coming in at and how much demand we're getting. and we have not started. We started brief conversations with brokers um a couple local guys and a couple national guys. So, we haven't really engaged them until we know that, you know, we're able to move forward.

No, it's understandable, but I just don't want to see, you know, you do the 10,000 square ft and you're content with that. Um, you've even said how important retail space is downtown and and um so if the when the 10,000 square feet sells out, I would like to see something done sooner rather than later cuz like I say, it's just easy to sit back and do nothing and you don't have to worry about it. But all right, with that, I'll turn it over to uh council questions. Deputy Mayor Gacho,

thank you. Um, even though nobody wants to call on street parking contentious, it is. Um, I understand wanting to have it there for retail. So, I I I guess looking at, um, exhibit B because that's what's referenced in our purchase agreement as what needs to be generally followed. You had mentioned the pond is going away to the back of the property. So everything blue partially. So

are looking at if we can do half and half because the pond's a water feature, but what we think we need. If we go 15,000, we're definitely going to need more parking. But right now, we feel like we've got we need more parking. Which portion would be going away immediately for what from what's drawn on there? Because that diagram on that is exhibit what's exhibit B in our packet. Yeah. And if I can just point out most likely um this part of the pond will go underground so we can have parking. So how many more spots is that? Probably around 30 or 40. Okay. That's a guesstimate.

Sure. Do we have any I like ballpark number what's behind drafting table for parking count and what's behind west retail for parking count I've looked at it before too I apologize I don't know right off hand

I I know yeah and I didn't take the time to look at Google satellite and count individually either so um what strikes me is like we have this conversation about retail And then restaurant. Restaurant's going to be more meal time evening probably when retail is closed. If that is retail instead of offices, if it's offices or like a AT&T store, then it's going to be less busy altogether. I don't know that we need the on street parking. Um, and I have raised that concern before in terms of that's a busy intersection. People don't like going slow, even though it's a 25 mph speed limit. You have people that try and beat the light because they've been sitting in traffic or they get stopped by the people who stop randomly at the airline trail when the lights are not flashing for them to stop. So, I feel like it's going to increase the accident count, having people try to back out when others are not paying attention or they're driving frustrated from being backed up for school, airline trail, train, all sorts of stuff. Like I don't especially if we have a train there and everybody's stacked up, you're not backing up. You're sitting there for 25 minutes. So, I I don't think that that is um something that I would support for this plan overall. Um the getting into the actual agreement language, it says if construction does not begin within a year of closing, the city may issue a notice of default and pursue available recourse. What do we have in mind as available recourse once we've closed the sale? I think we would uh basically start diving into some of those um reverted clauses if if we got to that point. Again, I view that specific section as

being very context specific. So, as an example, right, if we're not having any communication, if we're not um you know, there's no documented kind of progress. Um I think it kind of opens up different avenues. Um we didn't as as you note, right, it's not um explicitly predescribed. It kind of depends on the context. Okay. Um, with respect to the other language, if construction begins but certificate certificates of occupancy are not obtained, the city may exercise repurchase option as follows. Then depending on the years, um, a percentage of fair market value. Then we state all throughout this that this is at incentivized pricing, not fair market. So it kind of opens up a loophole where we have to repurchase at a multiple of what we sold it for for getting no development at all. So, it could be like a hold in profit situation as well, which I think that the fair market language needs to be changed to a percentage of the sale price since that's what we're selling it for at um what everybody agrees and references as an incentive price. Um so, I don't agree with the fair market pricing language in there. Um the if we need to one thought came to mind was possibly splitting the residential building and the commercial site certificate of occupancy language to um adjust the initial timeline down from 3 years. One of it it was odd in looking at the agreement. We say must build within one year, 360 days in another spot, must build within two years in another spot, and then penalties in

three years. Like none of it seems overly cohesive to me. Um, one question I had. So, the brownfield tiff, you had mentioned in the write up that the DDA has to agree to forego their tax capture on that. Is that something that's already been asked of them and they've agreed to it or have we not brought that up with them? It was uh we've covered to some extent when we met with them. We didn't get into the nuts and bolts of it all because we don't know the overall estimated value. Um, we've had conversations. So, I have a decent idea of what they're looking at at this point. Okay.

Um, but no, we haven't taken an agreement there and we don't have a the the required work plan or any of those things that'll have to come through yet. Okay. because I know in reading one of the I think we had two bits of DDA minutes in our packet today and there was concern about losing the library millage revenue when they opt out and that is probably going to be less than I would imagine a brownfield reimbursement will be because I think they were talking like 40 or 60,000 if I'm remembering that correctly

um to get a sorry I'm taking so each time. Um the actual purchase agreement. So in the recital list section DA um it says that we have to confine or re classify all this to a single parcel. Since we're building two buildings, does it make more sense to do two parcels over one parcel or are we going to have to do one and then split it back into two at some point? That is an excellent question. We spent a long time talking about that. Um, ultimately what they will most likely do is establish a condominium on top of this that then divides it into two parcels. Okay.

However, we didn't want to do that on the front side because it gives them the flexibility to basically configure them how they see fit. Um, and it makes the transaction a little easier for us to say, "Hey, we're handing you one parcel with its own description. You know, put your condominium on top of it." Okay. Um, you know, the most important piece was that we were able, if we do the splits and all that ahead of time, we we're able to retain the parts we want and we control what they get.

Okay. Um, the bottom of page two, top of page three is not a section. It's a paragraph. And the paragraph, I cannot make sense of what we're trying to say at all in there. So, I'm wondering and I guess I preface this. I'm going to ask that we post like you said one of the the options are approved deny postpone. I and more of them I postpone and rewrite. Um, that paragraph, if we can remove it or actually use plain English, that'd be preferred because it's talking about um parties that aren't a part of this agreement that will have a say over other parts of the process and everything runs concurrent or it uses the word contemporary contemporaneous to the closing of the sale of the property. Um, but it doesn't like actually reference anything that's happening.

You're talking about at the bottom of page two, top of page three. Yeah. Yeah. The intent of that is it's it's really hammering home the point that there are multiple approval, you know, entities as a part of this and and it we get into it in more detail later on, but you know, basically they want some level of protection and we want some level of protection that that they can get their sign offs from the planning commission, city council, and downtown development authority acknowledging that each of those are independent, you know, entities, right? You you don't vote for them, they don't vote for you. Um, so that is why that section is in there. Um, to basically to acknowledge that all of the parties at play here. Okay.

Then we'd have three other parties. Uh, well, three other approvals. Two from Oakland County, one for Brownfield, one from road commission, and one from Michigan. Just Yeah. Yeah. What he said. Yeah. I guess just the the final sentence or the final after the comma portion, the terms and conditions of which will be mutually agreed to by the parties and become effective contemporaneous with the closing on the sale of the property um to me is like vague in terms of tying all these other parties to an agreement. If we want to do that, then we say that. This is a little vague to my

Well, and I would say that the way that's worded isn't I mean I I do get your point. It is not the most clearly worded sentence. So, if let's put it this way, if the direction from council tonight was, hey, we like where this is at. We've got some comments. Let's table it and, you know, make some revisions and bring it back. That's certainly a section we can look at. But again, I think there there the the intent of the point is that, you know, all of these things become a package and then that's what happens at closing. like, hey, we got we got all the approvals we need. It's all it's all a bundle.

Yep. Um- which brings us to the closing date um section and conditions of closing. So, closing date shall be within 30 days of the later of either site plan approval or satisfaction of all conditions of closing. Then section six is all the conditions of closing allegedly. But then when you get to section seven, it says this is also um something that the purchaser can use to terminate the agreement being like the site plan approval process. Why is that a separate condition? The in theory it should be or at least in my mind development approval conditions should be a part of section six not its own section if if the closing dates is going to be based on getting through all the conditions and that is a condition and that's what was said earlier. So it's more of just a structuring thing to my mind. Um the other part of the that process is the entire timeline and you had mentioned a longer than normal timeline. We have 30 days to get to closing from the end of submission and review or inspection. So a 9-month inspection period plus 30 days for closing. And then we're saying aside from inspection or in addition to we need site plan approval from planning commission and us but that seems to be uh an additional timeline not as a part of can we work out a way to run those together or is it our thought that they are supposed to run together right now

the intent is that they do run together. Um, as an example though with with some of the due diligence, I mean they'll and you guys can correct me on your timelines here a little bit if I get them wrong, but you know, it might be 30 to 60 days of doing things like geotech or uh any any additional environmental work they want to do or those kind of things alongside preparing their site plan applications. Um, so I mean we do intend that they run together, but you know also and that's where this got a little challenging. It is part of why it took so long is there was a lot of components on both their side and our side that we wanted to make sure were explicitly clear. Um, and I do think that's how the structure, you know, kind of came to be as we were melding all of these pieces. We wanted to make sure that everyone's interests got covered as well as they could. But yes, I intend for them to be or I expect them to be contemporaneous if you will work. Um, and if you guys want to add anything, happy to.

Yeah, I the only thing I would add is, um, we tried real estate development is not linear in fashion to begin with. Um, uh, the due diligence process, there's a lot of things that can happen in that. Um, all of the other approvals that we're seeking kind of take on, you know, their own life. Um, but at the same time, we're trying to build a site plan that's presentable. So, um I think what that does is, you know, protects for all of these things to happen, but not necessarily they don't all always happen sequentially. Um the process moves all over the place. So, I think what that does is just kind of protects the moving of all over the place.

Okay. I I'm trying to find the section again because I think the 30-day window for or the threemonth window for submission to planning commission I think somewhere might be worded that it is after inspection period is closed but I'm going to I'm trying to scan through here. So, I'll ask my um section 12 goes over um construction commencement and this is kind of what I mentioned earlier all of the different year timelines. So, that has 360 days. Then section 9 or section sorry section 12 says 2 years section 9 says 360 day 360 days for commencement of construction. Our repurchase program begins at three years. So I wanted to ask there's somewhere else at reference that the builder will try to get everything started within one year. Like which one's the actual goal? One year. Well, I would I might phrase that question a little bit differently. It's not which one is the goal as much as what hammers fall at what timelines. And I do think that's sort of how we got to, as an example, the two years on the reconveyance. Um, you know, all of these provisions ultimately are subject to the city and and the developers kind of um interpretation, right? This comes to play when we end up in a lawsuit, right? That's when we start playing these out. And so, um, you know, I think that's part of why like, hey, you know, if you get over a year, but you're working and you know, we you could theoretically, um, you know, pursue section I'm making the numbers up, section 11. Um, and, you know, we try to work that out, but they I think what they're trying to do was, you know, either a we didn't reconcile those correctly or b um it's it's been intentional to kind of build these

steps. The consequences get worse the longer that it's delayed. Does that make sense? Yes, in terms of like repurchasing, but I guess I would just want to see us go back through this and make sure all the dates actually match up because it's weird to have one year used in one section, 360 days used in another, two years in another, and three years in another is it should all be on the same timeline to me. If I can, I just kind of like see number nine uh section information nine as kind of being what we'd like to see and and this the language 12 being however if we don't see that and it gets to the 2-year mark then we're going to commence the efforts to reconvent property. So the first one is is a bit bit of a goal oriented one and I think 12 is more of a that's the drop dead date if you will from from the the seller side of things that we're going to start to get serious about it but it has to happen within two years. Okay,

that's my take. Yeah, that is consistent with a lot of the conversations of

Okay. Um the other part of section 12, it has like the 90day um kind of use it or lose it notice. And I don't um I don't like the idea that we can't serve notice at any time during default. If we have for some reason something happen where we have staff turnover something like that like we're not going to have someone else who negotiated this and as familiar with it as you are. So the 90-day window may come and go and we end up with another east retail situation because we had staff that hadn't read this that thoroughly while learning. So, from a city's standpoint, I don't like the 90-day deadline on notice for solely that purpose. I think that creates another east retail issue for us, and I don't don't like that. Um, the last thing that I had before I go looking for this um timeline again, section 15 um says that no one is hired or working with a broker. and I we clearly have been and we're compensating them. So, I just didn't know whether that should actually be in there or not or if our um compensation to them is outside of this agreement. So,

yeah, I think I believe the intent of that section is basically we're not responsible for each other's brokerages broker situations, right? So, Saviles is not directly a party to this agreement. we have our own separate agreement, you know, basically where they helped us market the property. I do I acknowledge that's it's a little oddly um oddly phrased here, but so that could be something that could be cleaned up, but I think that's the intent, right? We're not responsible for whatever brokerage they may. Yeah. And we don't have a broker anyway, so

that's fine. It just it literally says that we rep everybody represents and warrants that we've not dealt with a real estate broker agent or salesperson in connection with the purchase and sale contemplated and that's not accurate. Thank you. Might be just eliminate that first sentence potentially work council member ground fox. Hello.

Sure. So, with regard to the um the agreement itself, I I agree with um Deputy Mayor Gachel. The inconsistency of the timelines are are confusing. I understand what you're saying and that they they have a purpose, but there's so many. It's just I find it confusing. Um as far as the project itself, I'm I'm excited to see something go into that that area. Um I do have a a a question and then maybe a couple concerns. Um you had mentioned the um multif family residential was apartments, correct?

Is there is there a reason why they're not going to be owner occupied?

Uh we had never intended to do owner occupied and we don't build owner occupied developments. Uh we build multif family for rent. Yeah. Um, I'm not in favor of on street parking either and I would rather keep the airline trail where it is at least based on your initial scope of this or not scope but um overview of the project. And then lastly, I have a concern about the um the uh commercial buildings. I'm I know you see it more than we do, but it it seems to be that retail commercial is challenging everywhere right now. So, what do what are your ideas or what do you propose to make that work for us? Well, the first thing we're going to need is on street parking. I'm not joking about that. Um, the idea is to make this very viable. Yes, Wixom Road is a very traveled road, but it's not a main main drag according to other to to like national retailers that will pay a lot of money to be in a in a space. So all we can do as a developer is make sure we're planning a site, working with our city partners to make sure that we are designing things that a retailer can live can't live without. And what makes our site competitive to other sites that may have more traffic or have more of an economy or a bigger economy because they're more established, they're older city, they have a lot of retail. So, you know, once we start construction, there's there's not much we can do other than, you know, discount rents and then everybody loses because then you get type of retailers in there

that are really not, you know, may not be super stable. So, all this work when it comes to retail is all front end. So, the parking, additional parking, moving the building north, figuring out ways with our brokerage partners, how how does how does our how is our site more competitive compared to the other sites that you're saying? So, you're talking about from an accessibility standpoint, you know, the streetscaping, you know, the lamposts, all of those things are some of the that that's what you're getting at in terms of being different than or competitive compared to other types. All retails, all retailers care about is how do they get to my building and people from their car in the building and how many people can I do a day.

So, it's the ease of of getting there. That's why you're saying that the on street parking is a must. It's convenience factor for customers.

Well, and the other thing I know and it came up in some of the other conversations that have been had is um the on street parking will inherently make this more difficult to drive through. Right. And that's it's somewhat intentional, right? It forces cars to slow down. It forces, you know, people on the trail to go slower to look at their surroundings. Um, and we see that a lot even with like east east and west retail right now where the the on street parking is used pretty heavily. Um, and you see people, you know, on the street and around the street, but people have to look both ways. It creates conflict. It does, right? It creates situations where, you know, two people can run into each other, two bikes can run into each other. Um, but it will help slow down traffic and that slowing of traffic also helps from a visibility perspective. Um, these buildings will be comparatively very close to the street compared to some of our other retail establishments. Um, you know, I know we talk on the north side of like the North Wix and Plaza that's hidden behind us and it's, you know, it's 50% vacant because you can't see it, right? You don't even know it's there. And that's one of the fundamental things that why we believe and we see this that our downtown vacancy rates are significantly better and we're getting higher rents down here than we are in any of our other commercial areas except for maybe right off 96 um it's a whole different really asset class at that point. But um you know I I think that's part of the argument. If you can get people to slow down, if you can make it feel attractive to pedestrians, those can be the kind of market edges that differentiate it from other types of retail that are struggling more. But it is a trade-off. Like that's a that's a fundamental point. Um, you know, cars and people don't mix.

Um, my last question, what are you um what are you thinking or what is your target for um rental rates for those apartments? Uh they start at $1,400 or $14.86 now studio studio and then they'll go to 2350

and there would be a portion as a part of the brownfield this you would you would get to see these in more detail but part of what the brownfield does is it requires that portions be um income restricted to 80% to 120% of area median income. So, it's not section 8, it's not lit, it's not some of these, I'll say um ultra low u income housing, but it's it's designed to be workforce housing. Um but there will be restrictions in there that will specifically kind of require them to keep at least portions of the building within those rates. It is the market rate as we've seen it for weeks.

That's all I have. Thank you. I don't know if this makes sense or not, but maybe a compromise with the uh street parking is since you're flopping the building and the park around, we reduce the number of uh street parking spots since we're going to be filling in the pond and adding more parking spaces there. I don't know if that'd be a good compromise or not where you reduce the number of uh street parking that you have and that eliminates some of the issues that we're talking about and we still will have additional parking in the back. I don't I don't know if that makes sense or we we can definitely look at it. I mean, you know, a lot of the other surface parking in the back is for residents as well. Um but, you know, we can we can certainly look at it. I mean, we want to do what's right for ultimately the retailer and the customer, but we also want to make sure we're designing this the right way that's going to be successful for the community, too. So, we can look at all those options.

That's what I'm saying. Maybe that might be a good compromise. Uh, Council Member Bman, thank you. Um, the agreement, uh, who wrote it? At this point, I would say it was a it was a co-effort, right? I believe we provided the initial template and then we've gone back and forth. We're probably on what, revision eight by now. Did our city attorney review it? Yes. Our city attorney was fine with the dates and all the terminology as proposed? Yes. The city attorney, did they point out any inconsistencies they were concerned about? No.

We're not here to approve a site plan tonight. I I don't like on street parking, but I see where it may be viable. I don't like necessarily that there as a rental product, but I see why we need the residential component to support the commercial component. I'm perfectly fine moving forward. We got to move this this forward. Let's approve this this evening. And I mean, you've heard our feedback on the site plan. Um, I personally am fine with you moving the trail. I'm fine with you utilizing the property to the best of your ability. I think I told you that the first time you came before us. Um, if if regardless of everybody's in the parking lot and having to come out, if the train stopped, they're going to be st stopped in the parking lot or they're going to be stopped not able to back up. It's going to be it's going to be a problem when there's a train stopped. But, I mean, it's a good problem to have if we have a bunch of people downtown visiting a new restaurant that's built. So, I'm I'm fine moving this forward as proposed. Thank you. Thank you,

Council Member ODay.

Thank you. Um I'm echoing the sentiments of Council Member Council Member Beerman as well um on a couple of the items there in particular being that we move it forward tonight. We're not, you know, putting anything too um concrete into the record other than just saying we want to proceed as is. Um, I get the street parking and I would support it. Um, as somebody who likes to just run in and get back out, um, I see why that's necessary. As far as the airline trail, it's interesting that we're discussing it tonight because I was at an HOA meeting last night where this was brought up um and how it is um really backing up the traffic uh quite a bit in that area and I don't think this the elementary school is the reason for it. I don't think once it's off with some road that will alleviate that. So, it may be something we need to look at anyway and even more so once this development is there. So, while I don't love the idea of moving it, I think it might be something that we would have to really look at anyway. So, um I support this as is.

Deputy Mayor Gotcho,

thank you. Um I guess referencing back the section seven is the one that says that um site plan submission shall be 30 or 3 months after the end of the inspection period. So that's the one that points out that it's not concurrent. Um, I think they should be at least semiconcurrent. And if we need language that says that we'll reimburse for site plan filing fees or something if it doesn't work out, like if that's the concern, um, that they're paying us just to get shot down and terminate dur earlier. Um, but anything related to site plan, I'd be comfortable reimbursing for um, not inspection due diligence related. Um that's its own thing, but I that's a year out from even seeing a plan potentially and that's um a long time. Um but I do think one of the problems is that the due diligence pieces have to be completed at least some portions a lot of them have to be completed to put together the site plan application. I think that's why that's worded that way. Um as opposed to trying like you know you can't get you know you can't submit a site plan without knowing what your soils are. Just as a very some of it that will need to be done, but if we're going to call like the getting brownfield approval or what have you from another party at month 8 is like to me that's not really dependent on the site plan. I wouldn't say

it to some extent it is. They'll have to they'll have to have certainty on what they're approved to do be in order to be able to move forward a plan that Misha will accept, right? They will want certainty that oh, it's going to be 75 units. They're going to be composed this way, right? They won't they won't care necessarily about parking calculations, but um and Luke, you may be able to or Mike, you guys might be able to speak to kind of what that looks like, but I think you you'd have to have entitlements to some extent. Okay.

Yeah, I think we'd at least need some comfort of preliminary site plan approval um you know, before we submit to to Misha. And we will submit stuff to MISTA ahead of time anyways just to get some ideas from them. The um the one tricky thing about MISTA approvals, however, uh they don't operate like the Michigan Economic Development Corporation where you can constantly go back and forth with the MEEDC throughout the process. You can submit information, peacemail, they'll give you uh feedback on it. The way MISTA approves the the work what's called a work plan for their approval is they need all of the local approvals done meaning the local brownfield approval done and all of the resolution signed from the Oakland County Brownfield authority board of commissioners the city council before they will actually review the plan. So that's just how they operate. Um, so even to get to the brownfield authority uh meeting, we want to have a really really good idea of what we're actually going to be doing so that we don't have to go back two months later and amend the brownfield plan and change it because the project changed for some reason. So

So I guess we're saying different. You're saying no site plan until this is all done and then they're saying we'll need some site plan done. No, what I'm saying is that you can't do the site plan without the the basic due diligence, right? They're going to need to understand the geotech. They're going to need to understand, you know, how storm water is going to have to work, how big the pond's going to have to be, um, you know, all of those pieces to put together a site plan. And then in order to apply for the incentives, they're going to need the site plan, right? So, it's kind of like a one, two, three process. Some of them can overlap, but really they're they're kind of somewhat dependent on each other, right? You need the step before to give you certainty. Correct. Yeah,

but in here like development incentives is listed as a condition of clo like of closing. Let me get to the just rolling up conditions to closing. So the conditions to closing don't need to be done even though we have environmental conditions in there as inspection period. It's done after I think environmental conditions would be done on the front side. It's all listed in the same section as a condition to closing though with without different timelines.

So are we saying section six all the conditions of closing have to be done within the inspection window or no? Because if it's no then this could go on forever quite literally because there's no end date. Um, I'd need to I would need to contemplate.

I guess while we think about it, we talked about parking for um the residences. We also have the city lot just to the north of that um in front of the elementary school parking lot that hasn't been a part of this discussion that I think could probably alleviate some of the concern on the residential parking at least. Um, finally, I guess to address some of the the other comments, if if you're trying to back out and it's stacked up, you're not going to move. If you're pulling out of a parking lot, you can head north on Wixom Road. You can head across the street and get wet or east if you need to by cutting through uh Joanna. So, I don't think it's the same. Um, then the thought that like move this, we're not doing anything concrete. you are agreeing to a legal document. It is a very concrete thing. So even setting aside my concerns over the timelines, we would be agreeing to repurchase if we need to at a multiple of what we're selling it for, which I don't think is um in the city city's best interest or taxpayer best interest. we would be agreeing to um do a few things that could set us up for an east retail situation since there's a loophole as I already pointed out. Um I I don't think this is a hey, we got to do it to do it and let's move it forward so we can say it's done. Um, I would rather see us close all the loopholes and make sure we know what we're agreeing to rather than thinking that we're not agreeing to anything because we are. That's what dictates this. It even references exhibit B and we're having discussions about that today. Um, I understand

that'll get cleared up in the um site plan approval process. So, I'm less concerned about that than setting us up to spend a fortune to buy back property that never got developed or let us um notice on day 92 that we didn't serve them notice of default and then sit with footings in the ground like we have for East Retail for decades. So, I think there is some cleaning up to do. Um I am going to make a motion to table this for further review if there's a second. All right, I have a motion. Is there a second? Is there a second?

Okay, motion dies. Can I make a comment or no? Not allowed to go. No, that's something. Okay. Um, in any purchase agreement, there is a period of time where you have an inspection period.

Usually, it's 90 to 120. In this case, we're asking for 270. The inspection period only gives us that window to make sure a project is viable. So we have preliminary reports, look at preliminary studies, we order a market study, you have some geotech and to make sure the project's out, it gives us nine months. There is a point in the purchase agreement where if we don't commit at that point and pay an additional deposit, all parties go their different way. That means that we get our deposit back. You guys get you guys get control of the land again. We go at nine months. I believe we pay an additional deposit to commit ourselves to go through the next phase of the project. And that next phase phase would be additional engineering for site plan submitt review package. Sorry, the agreement only outlines one deposit.

There should be an extension fee in there. Or the deposit goes hard. Either one or the other. Meaning we carry an additional level of risk after the nine months.

Yeah. more so than the amount of dollars we're going be spending in the nine months trying to make sure the project is is feasible. So there's there's layers in a purchase agreement that releases both parties and more risk to us if we continue moving forward. Just wanted to make that super clear. We're not it's not our intention to waste any time. We don't have any time to waste. You guys have been fantastic. City has. So that's not our intent. I understand your your your pause there, but there there should be limitations within the document. It doesn't allow us to sit on the property for three years and do nothing.

I don't disagree and trying to scan through this. I don't know if you were as well, but I'm not seeing anything and I didn't recall it from earlier seeing anything that had an extension fee, had a hardening of the deposit because that was one thing that came to mind, but

I didn't necessarily see that either. I'd have to do a little bit more digging, but it it's not coming immediately to mind. But the other I mean the only other piece I can I can say is, you know, I think there's some valid questions here. Um, you know, again, it took us it took us a lot of turns around to get us to this point to make sure that it the language worked for them and it was, you know, comfortable for us. So, I think it it's difficult to get it fully perfect. Um, but the most important piece is that ultimately, you know, we don't even start getting into the reconveyance pieces or any of those until after we close, right? So, the worst case scenario is that we end up tied up for what, a year, two years tops, while they work through due diligence. And I'm sorry, I'm not saying this you directly, right? We get strung along or it gets strung along. You know, we could be we could be tied up for two years where we can't essentially sell this to somebody else, right? But we're not going to be in a circumstance where we're out the property or we have to somehow go claw it back. You know, once we get to closing basically, I mean, it it'll almost be at that exact time that they'll be assigning the financing on top of it. We'll subordinate and you know, that's where that also I mean there's not a scenario where we don't essentially lose control, right? I mean that's that's there is a period of time that this bad things can happen, right? And it happened across the street in09. Um so that's that's what concerns me. I you guys have been nice working through all of this. So it's not coming out of a spot of like somebody's going to get each other. It's uh we've been dealing with this scenario for a while and I don't want to knowingly put ourselves back into that potentially. And that's where some of the terms of this agreement do.

But the whole key is and the the current owners across the street, they bought it out of bankruptcy or they bought it from a bank. It's a I understand it's a different situation. But

well, but no, it's the exact outcome that like again the worst case scenario here is that because that's the logical progression, right? If a bank lends on this, they'll they need to be able to have some collateral against it. Then if everything goes bad, they take it and then they're going to sell it to whoever will pay the most. We'll have some rights to to be in the chain there. But, you know, again, if things are in those circumstances, we might not be in a position to want to pay, you know, let's say it's 50% built. So, the fair market value is now a million dollars, right? We might not be in a position to want to buy a half built project. And I mean, there there's risk with this. There is there's there's no scenario where, you know, we can have this perfectly and have them either a be comfortable doing it or having a have a lender be willing to participate in it. Um, but I I acknowledge your point fully. I mean, trust me, that's that's part of why this took us a a year to get to this point was we had a lot of these conversations and, you know, had to basically find the level of risk we were comfortable recommending to you all.

I understand. We can't guarantee that they will begin, right? Like it's nice to think that financing will hit when we close and everything like that, but you never know what's going to happen. If it takes financing to get to closing, then that's one thing on its own, but it Well, but they wouldn't be able to finance on a prior closing. They wouldn't have title to it.

Correct. It's just it strikes me as we do leave some open avenues to get into a position we don't want to be in. I don't understand the rush to um leave ourselves in that to say we voted yes tonight. I guess that instead of closing it like I I genuinely don't understand that. But um thank you. Well, Council Member Mcrellin Fox. Thank you. So, since we're not going to table, is there can we approve this purchase agreement tonight with the um understanding or the agreement that we're going to address these open-ended questions, the deposit, the timelines?

I would I would need some level of specificity of exactly what provisions. I mean, we've covered we've covered kind of a lot of things tonight. Some of which are questions, some of which I feel like we've answered. Um I guess and city manager Brown, please feel free if you and you know have any thoughts here, but my preference would be to have um you know, if there was an approval that was conditional on changing um a section, you know, section five, right? That's pretty easy for us to take that motion and understand the direction of council and say, "Okay, we can administratively work that out." or you know if your motion was fix section five and bring it back to council. Okay, you know we can do all of those things which is specificity right because if we start uh you know we've talked about a variety of sections here tonight um I mean that could fundamentally change the terms of the agreement and again you know depending on what they they're willing to agree to it would be awkward to then have a completely different agreement than what you saw. Does that make sense? Yeah, I agree that we would need something specific to to address because otherwise it just leaves it too open-ended with this basically could be rewriting the entire agreement as it stands. So

So you're going to check on the deposit though? Yeah, I'm I'm familiar with with the first deposit for sure, right? That's section three. Um but yeah, I'm not sure about the the um the hardening of it or you know some of those pieces. Can I make a suggestion that the city attorney write a clarifying memo of all the deal points that are in the purchase agreement? I mean, that might help.

I mean, we Yeah, we can, but it's it's being asked to approve a purchase agreement, not discuss it again. That's why I made the motion. Just a thought trying to trying to

No, understood. I mean, and in the beginning of this agenda item, as council member, you know, Gotcha will point it out. Um, you know, if you have specific direction of specific sections you want to change, amend your motion to include those. You can if uh council did decide to table, we, you know, revise it, come back to address. Again, the more detail you give us on specifically what you want changed, the easier it is to do that. Um, but you know, if I could just quick clarify, some council members have expressed interest in proceeding tonight and one council member has expressed some concerns about the the language. Some of those points are valid points that that council W Mayor Gotchel has. Um, and the only thing I would say is if you could, you know, you could think about this has taken a year. If we take another two weeks to clarify a couple of points, uh, it's it's not the uh not the be all or end all of this deal. Um, but that's up for again the majority of council to make a decision as to what they want to do. Um, right now there's a little bit of a disconnect on that. You just need to work out that, come up with a consensus as to what you want to do. Uh, proceed with the vote as roughly as is or if it's going to be postponed and postpone a correct word. Correct me if I'm wrong. Um, that's a little inside joke that I was corrected on tableing it. So, um, postpone if it's going beyond this meeting, um, would be the right terminology of any kind of motion to put it off for another two weeks.

And again, and and I'm going to say this, I I appreciate the sentiment of the council members that were in favor of moving it forward because I would like to see it move forward, but by by the same token, I want us to be comfortable and and if you're willing to to uh absorb, if you will, a twoe additional delay, I think that's all that we would be looking at. We could bring it back at the next meeting. Well, be probably three weeks at this point. Next week is probably not going to happen. So it' be at the first meeting of June.

Thank you, Council Member Barman. So it's a four-week delay because we don't have a meeting. Our next meeting is next week about three weeks, right? So two more week. Well, no, you're right. Because then it goes into four. Yeah, you're right. So So it's not a two week delay. It's a It's a month delay. Correct. Right. So I'm not I'm not So you leave that to the applicants. Are you fine with another month delay? We, you know, been here. This this is a partnership, so we want to make sure you guys are comfortable with whatever you guys feel comfortable with. We're okay with it. Yeah. Thank you for the correction, Counc It's

Any further discussion? Can I make another motion to postpone or does somebody else have to make it? It's not the same motion you were making. So you could the first time you wereing this one would be postponing but just postponing the contract or the agreement based on you should have something on what you would like to change.

Okay. I I'm I'm confident that we have enough of an understanding about the different points that are raised that we could come up with clarifications that would satisfy a majority of those concerns and be able to come up with something that I think would address enough to move forward. So, it's just up to council what your preference are. Deputy Mayor Gotcha. Thank you. Can I make a motion to postpone consideration of the agreement until we have it figured out again based on all the feedback given today?

All right, I got a motion and a second to um postpone with the conditions provided by deputy mayor. Uh all those in favor, please signify by saying I. I opposed. N mayor, no. Deputy Mayor Ashel, yes. Council member, no. Council member Benz, yes. Council member, no. Motion pass. There you go. Any further discussion?

All right. I've got a motion and a second to approve the recommendation to consider a purchase agreement with Wixom Rent and Partners LLC for the sale of Surplus City Property at 119,121 131 2011 205 and 221 North Wixom and 3343 and 3360 Reton with a purchase price of $250,000 in accordance with chapter 3 section 3.16.050 050 of the city code sale of economic development property. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I opposed. No. Deputy Mayor Gota. No. Council member Bar. Yes. Council member Gman Fox.

Yes. Council member OD. Yes. Mayor Be. Yes. Or yes. When our motion passes. Thank you guys. Thanks. We look forward to working with you.

Thank you. Uh, moving on. Uh, new business number six is a recommendate recommendation to approve the purchase of roadway deicing salt from Detroit salt of Detroit, Michigan through the Michigan Intergovernmental Trade Network for the 2026 2027 winter season for $71.81 81 cents per ton for an estimated total cost of $84,018. The first year with a 5% increase each year for four years split equally between local roads account number 203-441-963.090 and major roads account number 202-411-963.090. Do I have a motion?

Support. Your way.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mr. Mayor and members of council, uh before you today, I know it's a long ways off or it seems to be, but uh we would like to uh get our agreements ready for next winter and that would include a salt contract with Detroit Salt. This uh cont this uh this this particular uh proposal uh included Farmington Hills and 20 other uh communities in the area. and we brought it to brought it out to uh Mitten for uh quotes and we did receive two quotes. One was um from a group in Wisconsin and the other one was Detroit Salt. We work with Detroit Salt for um as long as I can remember and uh it's been uh very very uh beneficial to us. They always support us when we need salt. um and other communities had trouble this winter and uh Detroit uh salt came through for us um throughout the year. So um with that I recommend that uh we we uh do uh this agreement and um yeah move forward with future agreements with Detroit salt.

Yeah, I see it. I see here that we have the option to increase by 30% which is a good thing because some communities got caught last year. Um how much salt do we have in the barn right now? We have about uh 750 ton. So we yeah we have a good a good backup and uh we could actually buy another couple hundred ton yet this year if we would like to under under um yeah under the agree under under the current agreement. This one would be for next uh fall. Okay, very good. Any discussion? One question deputy may or council member Breman

just you brought that up. What is the current agreement pricing like? Is it cheaper for us to buy a ton under the current agreement before we do the new agreement? Yes, and we can do that. I mean, just Yeah, if we have the agreement, you might as well exercise that option. Yep. First agreement first. This summer, we will wait for the dry driest time of the the summer and purchase some some salt at that point. Thank you. Yeah, that's usually what we tried to do. Okay, good point.

That'll probably be August or September. Any other discussion? Seeing none, I got a motion and a second to approve the recommendation to approve the purchase of roadway deicing salt from Detroit salt of Detroit, Michigan through the Michigan Intergovernmental Trade Network for the 2026 2027 winter season for $71.81 per ton for an estimated total cost of $84,18. the first year with 5% increase each year for four years split equally between local roads account number 203-441-963.090 and major roads account 202-441-96390. All those in favor please signify by saying I

I opposed. Thanks Jim. Thank you. New business number seven is a consideration to of setting May 19th, 2026 as a date for the public hearing regarding the fiscal year 2026 2027 budget. Do I have a motion? So move. Crystal, you want to take this? You want Steve to I've got it if you want. Sure.

So uh we originally uh were looking to move the um uh council meeting date to accommodate an error that we had on a public hearing note. uh setting date of May 26th. Uh in the end um we decided on the other course of action which was setting the uh council meeting uh keeping the council meeting at it at its current date of May 19th which required uh the change uh for setting the date of public hearing from the 26th to the 19th. It's going to result in need for the clerk to resend some notices to to agencies that need to be notified of these matters. Um, but that's the course of action that ultimately was decided to be pursued. Uh, so we back have this motion before you this evening to uh set the public hearing for the 19th to match up with your council meeting date of the 19th. Uh, and then uh, cutting to the chase, my city manager's update has just been rendered invalid. So, you can just cross out everything that I had on there because that was talking about the 26. So, basically, I'll put a corrected city manager report in the file here with nothing in it uh, because that's the only thing that was covered. Very good. Any discussion?

Council Margar Fox, I just have a question. So, are we going to have the meeting on the 19th and the 26th or is the meeting No, I'm just saying on the 19th. Just on the 19th. So, no meeting on the 26th. And and for the for the audience's uh benefit on this, we always have our meetings on the second and the and the fourth Tuesdays of the month. However, in this particular case, because of considerations in association with the timing of the Memorial Day holiday and everything and how we were going to be having a meeting the day following that, uh, we had moved it from the 26th to the 19th. And then when we did the public hearing setting in the first place, that didn't dawn on anybody and we set it for the 26th when the meeting was actually on the 19th. So now we're just correcting the public hearing date to match that. Okay. Thank you. Yes.

Any other discussion? All right. All right, I got a motion and a second to approve the consideration of setting May 19th, 2026 as the date for the public hearing regarding the fiscal year 2026 2027 budget. All those in favor, please signify by saying I.

I opposed. Motion carries. And that concludes the new business portion of the meeting tonight. Moves us to the second call to the public. I'll read those rules again. The public shall address the council during the call of the public which shall be included on the agenda immediately after correspondence and again immediately up to 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 the time is extended by a majority vote of the council present. A 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 I have anybody for the second call of the public?

Good evening. William Day, 2950 Loom Drive. Uh Wix. First of all, I just want to congratulate the officers who tonight received the recognition from the chief. Uh my father spent 40 years on the job as an officer in Detroit and I have great respect and admiration for the work that police officers do and the service they provide to the community. So I just wanted to pass that along. Uh what I came here to discuss tonight I'm a little lost to bring up because uh my experience with the planning commission has been that after about two hours everybody loses their focus and we've passed that benchmark. Uh but and I don't know how much any of you know about recreational boating but we have a significant issue on Lon Lake and the destruction of Lon Lake as a natural resource in the nature of wake boats. A standard ski will put out a weight that will dissipate within about 50 ft. A wakebo which is a boat that has ballast tanks will sit lower in the water and put out a huge wake so that you can actually surf behind the boat. Those wakes do not dissipate in less than 500 or less than 500 feet. Uh because of that we are having tremendous erosion of the shoreline uh along the lake. We're having the bottom uh they also they affect the bottom of the lake. They uh they uh affect habitat. They affect uh fishing and uh they also in terms of uh they're a danger to uh to swimmers especially young toddlers who are in the water who could be knocked over by these weights. Um there is a recommendation if I can approach I'd like to pass out this article.

Certainly. Thank you. I found and this is from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Thank you. It's a long article. I really not expect anybody to read this entire city. Do you have an extra copy by chance for administration? Yeah, for the other council here for sure, too. There's two copies for this. Thank you, sir. And if you if you could pull the microphone down a little bit, please.

I printed out the whole article because I wanted you to see that this is a very thorough and wellressearched article. And you can take note of the fact that there are three and a half pages of cited sources for this article. Uh I would at least encourage you to read the executive summary on page two and the um the possible solutions and conclusion on page eight and nine. And I I think as stewards of uh the city of Wixom and as stewards of its natural resources, I believe it's really incumbent upon council to seriously consider adopting an ordinance which would uh limit limit the use of wakeboats or eliminate the use of wakeboats in wake mode on Lon Lake. and whether doing it specifically for Lon Lake or passing an ordinance. It says on lakes of under 100 acres, which would obviously affect the only lake, the only sports lake that we have in in uh Wixom. Uh this is an issue that I think is really u I I know my shoreline has been decimated. Uh, one of my neighbors, his mooring lines for his boats have been snapped by these wake uh, by these wakes such that his boat has been knocked up against this dock. Uh, our beach, our community beach has been eroded. U, it's uh, it's tearing up the muck on the bottom of the lake and uh, it's uh, really damaging to the habitat uh, we have for the uh, amphib amphibious life and the uh, uh, reptiles that we have. uh on the on the lake. Uh so I I really think that this is an issue that um I I really believe that if any of the council members had lakefront property on Loom Lake, this would already be an issue that was at the forefront of your minds for consideration. And I really strongly uh uh strongly request that this be uh given serious consideration uh given the damage that's uh being done. So thank

you for your time. Thank you. Thank you for the information and we'll look into it. Thank you. Is there anybody else for the sec second call to the public? Anybody else? All right, I'll close the second call to the public. We'll move on. City manager comments. He you said you didn't have any. I'm going to tell you that I'm going to totally do do away with my original comment, but we do have a notice that we want to give you about a py event coming up and be of interest to council.

Yeah. something. Uh we'll we'll distribute this after um you know, planning on doing it tomorrow, but new subdivision, Timberside Reserve, and their developer, PY. Um they're planning a little bit of a groundbreaking um you know, celebration, volunteer, um I'm trying to think of the best word for it, um donation that they do to a wounded veteran. Basically, they donate one of the homes. Um they've invited city council um in the city to participate. So, we'll share more information on that, but just wanted to give you a heads up that that's kind of floating around next Wednesday. Um, again, we'll follow up with that. Um, do you have any other comments?

Okay. Um, I do. Um, just wanted to give a shout out to uh Laura and the downtown development authority for uh Derby Day on May 2nd. Um, incredibly well attended, best ever in terms of total attendance. Um, it wasn't that cold, so it it was very nice and they did a great job. Um, also thanks to everybody who came out for Let's Brunch's uh ribbon cutting day. We all know they've been open for a little while, but it's always fun to to have the pictures and uh it was really encouraging to see how many people attended there today. So, um, glad we've got a a good business in there that's being wellreceived. Um, and then the last thing that I was going to bring up, uh, again, my my regular follow-ups on the data center ordinance discussion with the planning commission. Um, they met and discussed it for, I believe, the sixth time on April 20th. Um, after some input from the public and specifically a sound engineer, um, planning commission's direction was to, um, add they they fixed some specific provisions and they asked us to consult with a sound engineer. So we have uh we found someone on an on an as needed basis um as a professional service. Um we're consulting with them and anticipating kind of bringing them to participate with the planning commission. So the ordinance is moving forward. It it is taking time um at this point. I do still feel confident that uh we'll be able to get that completed um in advance of the moratorum moratorum expiring. Um but I know it's a it's an important topic. So want looking to provide an update if there are any questions on that. Happy to happy to answer.

Any questions? All right. You good? See, man, you're good. We're good. Thank you. All right. We'll move on to council comments. Council member Barman.

Uh first foremost, uh congratulations to all of our uh police department uh employees uh that received recognition this evening. um a great presentation that you started last year. I'm glad to see that you're continuing it and hope it continues next year. Um second thing, um I I know very little uh about voting, but I know if my property was being destroyed as presented this evening, something that I think we should take seriously. So, I I would be fine with this item maybe being added to uh an agenda item at one of our next meetings for us to discuss and determine what we think we should or shouldn't do from there. And and lastly, um I've thought about it a little bit lately. Um we seem to have a lot of these meetings that are going longer. Um, I do think that potentially we should look at changing our um, council uh, policy or rules or schedule, however we have it situated. I appreciate Mr. Day waiting two hours to have his conversation with us this evening. Um, but I know a lot of other municipalities just have two calls to the public and the first one doesn't have to be for agenda items only. And we don't get a lot of public that necessarily comes to our meetings. Um, I I I would be fine if we were to look at changing our first call to the public to just being a general call to the public as well. So, if someone had an issue, they could come and have a conversation with us and not necessarily have to sit through a 2-hour discussion on uh that they didn't want to hear, but then maybe that's something we should also add to an agenda item in the future to see if a lot of people that would support that change.

Good. Yes. All right. Thank you. Uh, Council Member McGrella Fox. Thank you. I'd like to congratulate the officers um and thank them as well for uh who were recognized this evening and also thank Jim Hutchkins for his service on the ZBA and uh wish him well. Thank you. You're welcome, Council Member OD.

Thank you. I will just continue on uh giving my thanks to the officers of uh this department who do an exemplary job. As a matter of fact, I was already planning to shout them out because again um I referenced earlier the HOA meeting we attended last night and they were uh very complimentary of the police department here as well as uh DPW and the job they did this winter um and just the overall services we receive um as residents of the city of Wixom. So, we're very fortunate and um just thankful for everybody's hard work.

Deputy Mayor Gotcho.

Thank you. I'd like to uh thank our officers for their great work. Thank Mr. Day for providing us with uh this report and agree that uh hopefully it'll be on an upcoming agenda to discuss. I think one thing that immediately comes to mind is how we um can enforce it figured out. We don't have a patrol boat to my knowledge. So I don't don't uh I don't know exact I see that as one of the things that will need to get worked out. But um to have residents here saying property is being destroyed um for their community property and their um personal real estate property um obviously is something that we need to address. Um Loom Lake you wouldn't even think is big enough to want to go that fast and that far. Um seems like you might get up on your skis for like 10 seconds before you need to slow down again. But who knows what people are up to out there. Thank you.

You're welcome. Uh I want to thank Ran again for stepping up and um being on our ZBA and it's very exciting that we've got people uh residents who say nice things about the city and want to step up and continue and do their part. Um and I also want to uh thank Mr. Day. What is it? How how long have you been on planning commission now? It's been over 30 years.

30 years. That's that's great. And you guys don't everyone doesn't understand that these are volunteer positions. They they dedicate their time. Uh that's time away from their families and everything like that to uh serve this city. And we couldn't be more thankful for that. Just as well uh like we are with the police department. I'd like to congratulate all those officers um who awarded citations or whatever tonight. That was um very good. I'm glad to see it. I like I've said before, I I'll put any of our city staff against anybody's city staff. I think we got the best staff in the world out here. Um and the residents really appreciate everything that they get too. And then congratulate Laura and the DDA on a great uh derby day. Was uh well attended, well done. Can't complain too much about the weather seeing how Derek Kever was here, but uh I want to thank Derek for being here as well. And with that, do I have a motion to adjurnn? support.

Wow, I didn't think we want might want to stay for a little bit longer.