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Detroit City Council Formal Session: Otter Voice Meeting Notes

Detroit City Council Formal Session

Detroit Documenters3h 59min

Unknown Speaker

03:36

Testing And

President Sheffield

04:35

All right, good morning, everyone. We will now call to session, our formal session for today could fall to order our approval session for this morning, Tuesday, July the second, and if our clerk will please call the roll.

Unknown Speaker

04:48

Council member Scott Vincent.

Unknown Speaker

04:50

Scott Vincent i

Unknown Speaker

04:52

council member Fred duha, the third council

President Sheffield

04:56

member durha indicated that he will be running a bit behind this morning.

Speaker 1

04:59

It was so no customer. Leticia Johnson, present

Unknown Speaker

05:06

Councilman Gabriel Santiago Romero, present

Unknown Speaker

05:11

Councilman Mary Walters,

Unknown Speaker

05:12

present

Unknown Speaker

05:16

Councilman Angela Whitfield Callaway. Council member, Coleman Young

Unknown Speaker

05:23

the second here. Council president pro tem, James Tate and Council President Mary Sheffield, present.

Unknown Speaker

05:35

You have a quorum present. Madam President, all right.

President Sheffield

05:37

Thank you. Madam Clerk, there being a quorum present. We are in session, and we will start off with our invocation. We have joining us, Bishop shomari Marshall from the house of prayer, international church, and if we can make sure he is moved over as a panelist. You

Speaker 2

06:15

I thank you for this opportunity, city council members, and let us pray Our God in heaven. We come before you humbly today, thanking you for another day, and we realize God that we need you in our world, our nation and our city. I pray today, God that you would grant these council members of the wisdom to know the right choices, to make the courage to make those choices. And God, I ask you that your anointing be with them when it appears that there's no good decision or choice to make. I pray for peace in our world, peace in our nation, because it is sorely needed, and most of all, peace today in our city. We thank you for this opportunity. Bless our endeavors, and we seal this in the name of Christ, may God's grace be with us all. Amen.

President Sheffield

07:05

Amen. Alright. Thank you so much, Bishop for joining us this morning. If the clerk would note, member waters has joined us. Good morning. Members Johnson has joined us as well. Were you here for a walk off? Okay? She was here as well. Alright. We have several presentations this morning, and we will start off with council member young, followed by our president, pro temp Tate, so the floor is yours. Council member Young,

Speaker 3

07:26

thank you, Madam President. I would just like to say before I begin, Madam President, I want to thank you, and I also want to thank working with Miss blessman for your professionalism and allowing me to be able to have this today, in this presentation, I just want to say I appreciate you and allowing me to be able to do what I'm doing right now, and for me to be able to book this time in advance, I just want to say to you and your team and your leadership, thank you so much. I'm going to keep this short and sweet, but I wanted to be able to celebrate Father's Day, and I also want to be able to celebrate Father's Day, even though there are people who are here, who are going to be celebrated, that are women, because they're both mother and father. And after my father passed away, I was 13, and so I know a little bit about, you know, my mother taking care of me and raising me at that time, and what that is, and what that entails. And so I just felt it's important for us to honor our fathers, our men out there and our women out there who are doing the right thing in their kids lives and investing in them. And I also wanted to honor people who make the city go and function, who I don't think get enough attention, who keep us safe, who keep this city running, and who allow us to be in this position to be able to serve you to our maximum capacity. And so I just wanted to be able to honor them with these tributes, and that is what I'm going to do today. So I'm going to read these are spirit Detroit awards. I'm going to read the entire spirit Detroit award, and then after that, I'm just going to go through the names of everybody, what their position is and how long they serve. So with that beginning, I would like to start with a Spirit of Detroit award presented as an expression of the gratitude and esteem of the people of Detroit to the significantly important and tremendously valuable person. You are, indeed a champion for the people of Detroit. You are an asset to our great city of Detroit. We thank you, and we are eternally grateful for your tireless efforts, exceptional achievements, outstanding leadership and dedicated devotion that lifts the spirits and fills the hearts of the people of Detroit, Michigan and America. The Honorable Coleman, a young the second Detroit City Councilman at large, number one with the entire Detroit City Council of Detroit, Michigan presents this Spirit of Detroit award to Sergeant James Knox. Two years to Detroit City Council executive protection unit. 23 years from DPD you

Speaker 3

10:03

they all say the same thing. So it's gonna just read the names that they say. They said they all spirit of Troy award. So it's not like I'm skipping over anybody's awards. I'll let you know. Okay, just so you get the spirit of what we're doing here. But, but I also wanted to say this too, when you say number one, that means I got the most votes. So thank you everybody in the room. I appreciate your support. I just want to let you know that Aaron, get help myself. I can't help myself. All right, this next spirit Detroit award will go to corporate Latasha Brown, 10 years in Detroit City Council Executive Protection Unit at 25 years at DPD. Let's get a round of applause.

Speaker 3

10:44

This next spirit Detroit award will go to Corporal Derek Dixon, 7.5 years Detroit City Council executive protection unit and 16 years with the DPD.

Speaker 3

11:00

This next spirit Detroit award will go to Corporal Dwight Featherstone, 20 years with Detroit City Council armament, Detroit City Council executive protection unit, and 39 years with DPD. Let's get round applause, everybody. You're not here. Oh, okay, of course. It's like my main man, honor him and he not be here. He'd be out in the street somewhere. That's like that's like him too. So the next spirit Detroit award goes to Corporal Timothy flake, seven years with Detroit City Council, executive protection, unity, and 25 years with DPD. Let's get a round of applause, everybody. You this next spirit Detroit award goes to Corporal Lloyd Leonard one month with Detroit City Council Executive Protection Unit at 23 years with DPD everybody.

Speaker 3

12:01

This next spirit Detroit award goes to Corporal Italia Livingston, nine years Detroit City Council Executive Protection Unit at 25 years of DVD, she not here either. Okay, oh, that'll get robbed. I didn't know her name was Italian. I was going to say something about that. All right, next spirit Detroit award, it will go to Corporal Charles Patterson, nine months with Detroit City Council executive protection unit and 20 years with DPD. Let's get around applause.

Speaker 3

12:40

This next Spirit of Detroit award goes to Corporal Christine Rozier, everybody three years Detroit City Council Executive Protection Unit at 27 years of DVD, okay? She not here as I the thought that counts. Alright? The next spirit Detroit award goes to Corporal Derek Watkins, 18 years with Detroit City Council, second potential unit at 27, years with DPD, hey, rap, boss, everybody.

Speaker 3

13:16

This next spirit Detroit award goes to Justin kimson, Senior Director for Ford Community Center East, give our applause.

Unknown Speaker

13:32

Community,

Speaker 3

13:48

technical difficulties. I'm sorry. Alright, this next spirit Detroit award will go to Ronald Foster's special community father recognition. Thank you for your extraordinary and encouraging service. Mr Foster here,

Speaker 3

14:09

this next spirit Detroit award will be presented posthumously to Raymond Solomon. Thank you for your father and Ray Solomon, decades of work for Detroiters. Let's get around

Speaker 3

14:33

reason why I got this position is because of Raymond Solomon, and the reason why anybody took a chance on me at all is because of this, brother, let's give a very this is a very special spirit Detroit award to Attorney David Whitaker, director and a legislative policy division. You

Speaker 3

15:03

I was just a young whipper snapper that didn't know anything. This guy took me under my wings, so I appreciate him. This next Spirit of Detroit award is given to the Reverend Irvin Corley, Junior, legislative, Policy Division, executive, Policy Manager. I This next spirit Detroit award will be given to the Reverend Marcel Todd city council, legislative, Policy Division Director and City Planning Commission. I'm working out some stuff

Speaker 3

15:40

with him right now, and I also want to give this very special Spirit of Detroit award to Derek, head from the legislative policy division Detroit economic drug Corporation. I want to give this Spirit of Detroit award to Kimberly Reeves, Detroit City Council administrative services for 12 years. Everybody here, I applaud,

Speaker 3

16:14

and I want to give this spirit Detroit award to the important and tremendously valuable and wonderful Regina Rogers, Detroit City Council Administrative Services 10 years.

Speaker 3

16:37

And last but not least, I would like to give this Spirit of Detroit award to Yolanda Watson, Detroit City Council administrative services, 25 years, everybody. I

Speaker 3

16:58

just want to say this in conclusion. I think it's safe to say that when we're all up here, we're not up here by ourselves. And the reason why I have been able to do everything that I've had and achieve the levels that I have achieved is because of the men and women of the Civil Service who provide this work for us every day. And so I think it's important for us to honor those that honor us. It's important for us to elevate those that elevate us. And you know, there's a there's a quote that says that boys look to be served, but men look to be of service. And these people have constantly reminded me that service is the space i is the price I paid for the space I occupy, like MLK would say. So I thank you all. I appreciate you all. God bless you. It's such an honor for me to honor Detroit's finest and bravest. Thank you.

President Sheffield

17:57

All right, we want to do a picture with everyone, yeah, all right, before you all sit down, we're going to come down to council and do a group picture. That's okay. Before you all have a seat. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker

18:04

turn your cell phone to sidewalk

President Sheffield

18:08

please. Did you I don't know. We'll figure it out when we

Speaker 3

18:13

get down. Did you want to say something, or did you want to? Yeah, go ahead. You want

Speaker 4

18:22

to speak just a couple remarks, if I may, okay? No to the DPD team. Thank you for your service. Thank you for providing the safety and security that our civic leaders need and require to do to do their job so effectively. You are an intricate role, often unseen role, but very important role, in the operation of the city government. So thank you so much to all of you. I

Speaker 3

18:50

just want to thank city council, definitely, President Mary Sheffield and also council member Coleman, a young junior. So thank you for this. It was really special about it is it's all of us. So you're recognizing the fathers, you're recognizing the mothers, the public servants and so thank you for the invitation to invite me down to represent the Mayor's office. This is very special to me. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker

19:40

Well, okay, run,

Speaker 5

19:57

keyword, speed. It

Unknown Speaker

20:09

Yeah, I thank you so much.

Speaker 6

20:44

Super, all,

Unknown Speaker

20:58

right, okay, right.

Unknown Speaker

21:20

Oh, It's

President Sheffield

21:25

Oh, oh, My gosh,

President Sheffield

21:33

okay, you

President Sheffield

22:11

ready. All right. All right. Thank you. Council member young again for that presentation. We're going to cut off public comment at this time and now turn the floor over to President Pro Tem for his presentation.

Speaker 7

22:25

Thank you, Madam President, good morning everyone, and we are excited about all those civil servants who had an opportunity to be celebrated today. Her 20 years, 30 years, 30 plus years. And as member young mentioned, we cannot do this by ourselves, and I have the pleasure of also providing testimonial resolutions to individuals who have really given themselves, sacrifice themselves, sacrifice their family, family time in order to do the work that is necessary to move us forward in the city of Detroit, I have seen over the years the ebbs and flows of the city, and I'm excited about where we are today. And we didn't get here today simply because you had a bunch of smart people in the room. You had a bunch of smart people in the room who had heart and compassion and work with the community. And so this individual that I'm going to bring up first is someone who I've met actually in that setting with the community, and he has a testimonial resolution that we are going to be providing. He left the city couple of months ago, and we didn't get a chance to celebrate him. And I'm not going to read the entire resolution, as you see, it is very voluminous, because he's done a lot in his career. Because this testimonial resolution is not just about what you've done here in the city of Detroit. It's really a catalog of your life, starting all the way back when you were a young boy, and I want to bring forward Mr Donna wrench your former Director of Housing and organization. Thank three. Now you coming up this way. You're going to do it this way. So Mister Richard, he was someone who got a baptism, if you will, in community engagement over in brightmoor. And if anybody knows about brightmore, we know how to do it the right way to pull you in, and we don't let you go, but, but, but Donald did not run away. As tough as some of those conversations was because he was falling into a situation that he didn't create, that I didn't create, that was many there was a decade prior to either one of us being here in the city of Detroit, but it was up to us, and we're still working on it, to unravel this puzzle, to make sure that folks over in that right more scattered homes have an opportunity to stay in their homes, and the best case scenario, own their homes as well. He started the groundwork, laid the groundwork, and we're still moving forward. But Donald didn't run away from those tough conversations. Those folks was mad. They're mad at the city, mad at me, mad at him, mad at anybody they could talk to. But Donald made sure that he passed his cell phone number over to many of the residents, and we would talk about those phone calls, because I would get the calls too. But the good news is we were in a much better place than we were before, and I have no doubt in my mind, based on the information that I not only heard, but I was actually there, got to see the work that Don Richard put in in the brightmore community and throughout the city of Detroit. We see this affordable housing in the city that is increasing, again, a challenge around the country, but we're doing everything we can to ensure that Detroiters have a place to stay in the city, and Detroiters have a place to say, I hope you heard me when I said that. All right, so without further ado, like just read the first whereas, and then I'll go to the resolve. This again, is a testimony resolution on behalf of the City Council for mister Donald Richard, dedicated civil servant, husband, father and proud Detroiter. Whereas Donna Richard dedicated eight years of service to the city of Detroit, from February 2015 through december 2023 throughout his tenure, he assumed multiple roles within the Detroit the the housing and revitalization department, culminating into his appointment as director in May 2018 as director, he prioritized the establishment of affordable housing options for Detroit residents of all income levels, and spearheaded the implementation of diverse housing programs tailored to meet the city's needs. In January 21 its expertise and dedication led to his appointment as group executive of housing planning and development. In this capacity, he was entrusted with the vital task of creating investment strategies that would catalyze into vibrant, mixed income communities embodying his unwavering commitment and the city's ongoing revitalization efforts. Therefore, be it resolved that on this day, July 2, 2024 the Detroit City Council provides hereby acknowledges and expresses the sincerest gratitude to Donna Richard for a stall worth service, contributions and commitment to the city of Detroit. You exemplify the Spirit of Detroit, and we wish you all the best in your endeavors.

Speaker 8

27:41

So thank you so much. Proton Tate, thank you to the council. Through this time and the work that I've done here, I've learned so much, and pretty much learned a lot from our Detroit residents about what they want. I just want to continue to make sure we uplift Detroit residents voices and make sure people understand that we are here for you. I'm going to continue to ride for Detroit. I love the city. My family has a long history here in the city of Detroit, I want to thank the departments I work with, the land bank, the housing department, the planning department, and the mayor for entrusting me to move this work forward. I can't tell you how much this means to me. I really do appreciate there's definitely former team at the moment, they said former team members. I don't know. They said, come on down. I know I saw Heather, Michelle, I saw Edwina. I see Mark John. I see I see some of my new the folks that I work with now for my husband Weber team. But I appreciate. I know there's, there's people watching too, but we're in a virtual reality, but just again. Thank you to the folks what you're doing. So right now, I have the pleasure of being the the president, CEO of Hudson Weber foundation. It is a, it is a foundation that directly provides investment into the city of Detroit, trying to make a better place for City of Detroit residents. So I moved in one place and continue to try to do the work. I have an excellent team that supports us, and I can tell you they love the city just as much as I do, and so continue the work. And I'm here for anyone who wants to continue to keep that work moving forward. So that's what I'm about in Chelsea, it's all it's up to you guys. Okay, so Y'all give it up again for Donald, you earned it.

Speaker 7

30:08

So again, keeping the train moving, as it relates to servants of the city of Detroit. Now, you saw these awards, and typically you have one plaque gave Don rancher, two plaques. This next gentleman has three all of this information on but that's what happens when you work for the city of Detroit for 38

Unknown Speaker

30:31

years. Yay.

Speaker 7

30:35

We don't ask Mr Derek here to come on down. You.

Speaker 7

30:49

All right, Mr Head has been a mainstay here with the City Council for a number of years, not just in the capacity that he's in now with the legislative policy division, but he started, like many of those of you who are in these Council offices, he started in the office of Mel rabbits as a policy analyst. As a matter of fact, 38 years providing service to the city, as I talked about that sacrifice, and you don't go 38 years with the city of Detroit, moving your way up through the ranks without personal sacrifice, professional sacrifice. He could have been gone a long time ago, but we're so thankful that he waited 38 years to finally, you know, take his talents elsewhere, because we've been definitely able to benefit. As been said multiple times, we don't do this by ourselves. Many times, people think that council members come up with these ideas, and we just do it and we approve, but we have a group of folks called legislative policy division, led by Mr Whitaker, who also received awards day and Mr Corley and Mr Todd. They're the ones who really, outside of our office, help analyze all of this data that comes through, whether you're talking about the budget, whether you're talking about the contracts that come before us, whether you're talking about ordinances, you name it, legislative, policy vision has their hands on it, and they have the pulse on the community as well. They're not just folks who live in ivory towers. They live in the community as well. So today, we want to congratulate mister Derek head on his ascension from the city of Detroit on to new endeavors. I don't want to spill the beans. I'll let you do that if it's the time is is right, but what we want to do is again. Thank you for all your dedicated service here with the city of Detroit. We love you. You are not a friend of the city of Detroit. You a brother, you a son. And we, we truly, truly, truly, immensely appreciate all that you have done with the city of Detroit. So I'm not again going to read the entire three page testimony resolution, but what we will do is read the first whereas and then the resolve. This testimony resolution is again on behalf of Detroit City Council for mister Derek, head city of Detroit legislative policy division now retiree, soon to be retiree, uh, whereas mister Derek head, known as the Swift army knife for his versatility and adaptability, is retiring after becoming, after being employed by the city of Detroit for 38 years, he has been selected. Yeah, I can see it. Yes, sir. Alright. I just want to make sure he has been selected as the new senior vice president of public policy and operations at the Detroit economic growth Corporation, better known sbeg. It's brand new news, y'all, it's breaking news. First time you heard that Derek has served as fiscal analyst for fiscal analysis division, and later the legislative policy division for the City Council since 1998 and again, going to the resolve, therefore be resolved that on this day, Tuesday, July, 2, the entire Detroit City Council hereby present the testimonial resolution to mister Derek head as the highest expression of gratitude and esteem on behalf of the residents of the city of Detroit for his more than 30 years of civic service, demonstration of the utmost integrity and immeasurable guidance. May you be blessed in your retirement. It's not really retirement you're after and achieve success in your new role with the Detroit economic growth Corporation. Ladies and gentlemen, I only have two hands. Y'all, please join me and congratulate Mr Derek. Thank

Speaker 9

34:41

you. Council President Pro Tem through the chair. I've stood on the shoulders of giants. I had to I was blessed to have opportunity to work for three of the finest public servants in the history of the city, Mr Mel rabbits, Mr urban Corley and Mr David Whitaker. If there's a person that works harder in the city than Mr Corley, I like to meet him. If there's a smarter man that I've ever met then David Whitaker, I also like to meet him. It's been a privilege to work for this city council this this this population is growing for the first time in 57 years, and these people are a big part of it. I thank all of you. I thank the citizens of this city. You've given me an education. I have a PhD in government now. And I And Madam President, that concludes my comments. And I thank

Unknown Speaker

35:42

you. Oh, the morning. Oh,

Speaker 9

35:44

may I add that I also boy, I also want to thank my wife and my family, my wife who is here, my youngest son, Devin, for allowing for the late night, the weekends, all the phone calls, everything. So thank you. Yes,

Unknown Speaker

36:02

sir, beautiful, you can't do it by yourself. No, right if you are.

Speaker 10

36:14

This is a very, very important day for us to see Derek head move on to higher heights. We're going to really miss him. I have been thinking since he told me that he would be leaving what we do without him, and I really don't know he's been indispensable to me, he became part of the legislative policy division when that division was formed. So that's been 12 years now, and 12 years he's been my right hand. And like I say, I don't know how we how we'll get along without him, but we will limp along and and do the best we can, and we really wish him the best in his endeavors. Amen,

Unknown Speaker

37:10

beautiful, beautiful.

Speaker 2

37:16

Derek is Superman, Batman and the Black Panther all in one, Mr utility, Swift knife. I mean, just a wonderful public servant, hardworking, intelligent, good with numbers, good with PowerPoints,

Unknown Speaker

37:34

good with petty cash.

Speaker 2

37:39

I mean, just this name, it, Derek is just a wonderful public servant. We're going to miss him, but I'm grateful that he's only a stone throw away, and so I appreciate that, but just been a pleasure, Derek. You just a beautiful person and a wonderful family. Thank you.

President Sheffield

37:57

Say a few words as well. Yeah, I just want to thank you, President proton, for doing this. I just want to public just wanted to publicly also thank Derek Kidd, you were here when I first got to council, when I first got elected, navigating just the government in general, and I sat on the Planning and Development Committee, and you really helped me understand economic development and tax abatements. And I don't know where I would be without your guidance and your support. So I just want to public, publicly say thank you to you for your service. You are always someone who I can call you will be. And you would take the time to break it down, like, let me, I want to know the whole thing from the you know. And you would take the time to really walk me through both sides. And I appreciate that. And we have a little inside joke every time I see him, he has his little briefcase with him. And I say, Derek, do you ever get a chance to relax? And I mean, everywhere he goes, he has his briefcase because he always is analyzing and always is working. So thank you so much for your service, and thank you for the support that you have given me during my time here at the City Council. And I didn't get a chance to say to Donald as well, I want to also thank you, Donald, because our passions aligned around housing and affordable housing, inclusionary housing ordinance. You were there and I watched you grow. I know you came straight from Mr here, and to see you excel and to continue to grow here in the city of Detroit, it's just an honor to watch. So I appreciate your service and the support that you have provided me in my time here at the City Council as well. So congratulations to both of you guys, and I know neither one of you are going far at all. So thank you. Thank you. Pro Tem,

Unknown Speaker

39:27

Yes, Madam Chair,

President Sheffield

39:29

Council Member Callaway, followed by council member Johnson, Yes and

Speaker 11

39:33

thank you for your service. Mister Ritter, I remember when I graduated from law school, I accepted a position as the legislative assistant to Reverend Keith Butler, and there you were working with rabbits. And so we've known each other that long. We reunited when I became hadn't talked, hadn't seen you in all those years, and your wonderful professional individual, and as madam president said, You explained tax abatements in a way that folks can understand it, and I was one of those folks who needed to understand it. So thank you for returning my calls and explaining it over and over and over and over again, because I will ask the same question until I get a full understanding of the matter. So I want to thank you for that, but I remember you from all those years ago, and you were mannerable, professional and courteous then, and you still are. And God bless you, because I know you're a Christian man, foremost, you're a believer in Jesus Christ, as I am, and I bless your family, and I know you couldn't do what you do without your family. So God bless you and your family, and I'm proud of you and congratulations.

President Sheffield

40:52

Member Johnson, followed by council member Benson,

Speaker 12

40:54

thank you, Madam President, Mr Head, I had the opportunity to congratulate you and also thank you at the Planning and Economic Development Committee meeting last week, but just wanted to say thank you again for all of your hard work. I found out that you were a Virgo, and it helped me to understand how detailed you were in the work that you do, but I appreciate you going through the process to learn and understand all of this, to be able to share that knowledge with us. And you know, we've had conversations. I would text you on a Sunday. I remember you were headed to a birthday party, and you said, No council member, whatever you need. How can I help you? And you have always just been that open and willing to share your time and yourself. So I wanted to say thank you to you, and to say thank you to your family for giving him the ability to share his time with us, whether it was a weekend or an evening hour, we know the sacrifice and the commitment that goes into these positions and those of us that are willing to offer our assistance to others, to be able to impart knowledge is is something that is very valuable to us, but we know that it's a sacrifice to you. So thank you so much to your wife and to your your family for sharing him with us. We truly do appreciate it.

President Sheffield

42:25

Thank you. Member Johnson, Council Member young, excuse me. Council member Benson. Alright,

Speaker 13

42:31

thank you. I'll go to mister venture first number one. It's just been an honor and privilege to work with you all the work that you've done and the impact you've had on the city of Detroit with increasing our portfolio of affordable housing and understanding the challenging times we were coming out of when you arrived here to take us to the next level and really ensure that we're making a difference when it comes to affordable housing. You have a dedication and a life's mission when it comes to affordable housing, and you consistently repeated that. And I really do appreciate that. It's good to have somebody with that mindset and the ability to deploy those type of resources and the staff to manage that process here the city of Detroit, and just have a transformative change and how we engage with affordable housing here, and your impact and your legacy that you've left with the portfolio of affordable housing. And there's a there's a theme here. It's about affordable housing moving forward, and just how you also now talk about and adopted. We really do need to look at how we engage and grow our middle class here in the city of Detroit. You've been very helpful to my office in that space as well, and really want to thank you for all that you've done. And then that deserves an applause, that would be appropriate. And then for Mr Head, who, when I got here, as well, to have somebody that you can talk to and really work with when it comes to the numbers and understanding how economic development and how development incentives work, because it's a very complex piece of legislation. Is a very complex this mathematical calculus that people have to do on how these items work. And very few people who say they understand them actually understand them, but it's good to have somebody who does and then can help explain to you what's going on, how these numbers are going to work, how this waterfall is going to work, how these cash flows work, and then be willing to make modifications and change. And so you've helped City Council engage with D, E, G, C, in the past to change how they vetted and looked at economic development deals to strengthen that process. In addition, you modified your own reports to help educate people on what actually occurs, not what people say occur, not what people come and complain about, what they say occur, but what really doesn't occur, but really to educate people on what's going on with these numbers and how we're working to grow the city's general fund as a direct result of these tax abatements that you recommend to us for either approval or denial based on the work that you get from DGC. So now it's very interesting to see how you have now moved across the street, and you will be handing to this city council deals for somebody in your office to vet soon, and they'll recommend either approval or denial to us. So it's good to have somebody who we know and we can trust in that space, who we know, and have a huge level I can speak personally for myself. I'm probably speaking for my colleagues as well of confidence that you're going to give us honest and candid recommendations and say, Hey, this is a good deal. This is not a good deal. And then let whomever is going to give us a final recommendation. But it's really good to know that you've got somebody who's come from this space on the 13th floor understands how it works, understand how people think and understand how we're so committed to helping the residents of the city of Detroit. So I just want to honor you, and I want to thank the Pro Tem for allowing us to share in these honors as well, and the President, as was mentioned as well in this type of just acknowledgement publicly. We can't give you money, but we can acknowledge you in front of your peers. So that's that's always, that's always well received in some circles. So it's an honor and privilege. Thank you all for your service. Fair winds and following seas.

President Sheffield

46:08

Thank you. So Pro Tem will come down now, if you okay, we'll come Down. Colleagues, we'll take Mr Richard first. Okay? You

Speaker 5

46:34

bye that first.

President Sheffield

47:02

Please, oh, you sure, which, okay, So this way, okay, okay. Approaching. Let's

Speaker 14

47:47

you gotta

Speaker 14

47:56

open those up. You

Unknown Speaker

48:11

it's properly.

Unknown Speaker

48:26

Okay? Donald Richard,

Speaker 14

48:35

good to see you. Great. Baseball?

Unknown Speaker

48:44

Are you playing baseball? Too? Okay,

Unknown Speaker

49:02

Come on.

Unknown Speaker

49:23

Thank you.

President Sheffield

50:01

Director Todd, we see that you are joining us virtually. Did you want to share anything as we wrap up? I'm sorry. I just noticed that you were there. I apologize.

Speaker 15

50:14

Thank you, Madam President again, my apologies that my health does not allow me to be present. I was actually seeing to that this morning, but wanted to jump on as quickly as I could. Let me simply say it has been an honor and a privilege, and I'm just thankful that he won't be far away. Kudos as kudos to Mr

President Sheffield

50:37

hit. All right. All right. Thank you. Thank you again to President Pro Tem Tate and council member young and all of the awardees for your service and the clerk will note council member Callaway has also joined us, and we will now proceed to our agenda for this morning, the Journal of the session of Tuesday, June the 18th, will be approved. There being no reconsiderations or unfinished business. We will proceed to the budget Finance and Audit. Committee for the budget Finance and Audit standing committee, two reports from various C departments. The two reports will be referred to the budget Finance and Audit standing committee for the internal operations standing committee,

Speaker 5

51:15

three reports from various C departments, the three reports

President Sheffield

51:19

will be referred to the internal operations, standing committee for the Neighborhood and Community Services. Standing Committee,

Unknown Speaker

51:26

two reports from various city departments.

President Sheffield

51:30

The two reports will be referred to Neighborhood and Community Services, standing committee for the public health and safety. Standing Committee, nine reports from various state departments. The nine reports will be referred to the public health and safety standing committee. We will now move to the voting action matters. Under other matters, there are no items. Madam President, under communications from the mayor and other governmental officials and

Speaker 16

51:53

agencies, there are no items. Madam President, alright, we

President Sheffield

51:56

will

call now for our general public comment, and everyone will have one minute for public comment this morning, and we are going to start with Miss Lyons, followed by Miss Daisy, followed by Miss Ford,

Speaker 16

52:16

Mister Richards and Mister head. Please remember us as I present this, I am up here again asking, where is the over $600 million in overpaid property tax belonging to the Detroit residents? Where is it? Where is the proof that we were notified in black and white? This is to legal and signed off in black and white, nothing has developed. You City Council has lost your power. Instead of making these people come up here, sweating bullets with the questions that you have, you're friendly with them, allowing lame excuses. Also last week, Miss Callaway gave a heart felt presentation. It was short, but it was about that solar program, and I agree with her. And instead of listening to her, own

President Sheffield

53:22

alright? Thank you so much. Miss Betty Lyons, Miss Daisy.

Speaker 16

53:30

Good morning, city council morning. Thank you guys for listening to us. I'm here to speak on the abandoned houses that's in the neighborhood. I have abandoned house on my block, 2434 field street across the street from me, and I've been a resident of field Street for 53 years. I have 19 great grandchildren, so I have a lot of children on my block, and there's a lot of seniors on my block. They were supposed to have torn this house down. Someone came along and bought it. They stopped it. We have been keeping the house up as a block club, boarding it up, keeping the grass cut to make our block look decent. We're tired of doing that. The city council need to have someone come out that opera money should not be moved away from construction and demolition and departments. We do not want to give that money back to the government. We want to use that money to demolition, to demolish these houses that we have. They are in danger to our children and our seniors. Secondly, we support the neighborhood solar and intensity. We pay DTE $9 million for energy. The solar will help save the money and the power and the recreation. Miss Daisy, that's your time police stations and all city building. Thank you.

President Sheffield

54:47

Thank you, Miss Daisy, and if we can get that address from you on field street before you leave, okay, we'll get that address from you. Miss Dave. Madam

Unknown Speaker

54:53

President,

President Sheffield

54:54

thank you. Madam

Speaker 13

54:55

President, uh, yes, anybody that comes before this body and says you have 19 great grandchildren, you need to be recognized, and so I just want to give you a round of applause.

Unknown Speaker

55:10

Thank you.

President Sheffield

55:11

Thank you. Thank you. Member, Benson, Miss Edith Ford,

Speaker 16

55:18

you guys know this has to be important for me to lead the streets of the east side. So I'm here about the reloc reallocation of the demolition dollars. We still need those dollars in our neighborhood. I have three locations in my neighborhood. One has been burned down, and the slumlord is asking the neighbors to board the house up for him. One was already condemned, and he's a part of this family that just takes over houses. It's full of mold, it's dangerous. We need these houses torn down. I'm going to send a list and pictures to Paris. Blessment. I've only done from Van Dyke to Cadillac, no from Van Dyke to Rome. So I will have more for the pictures the rest of the week and addresses also Mac development. 11 years ago, wanted to do the solar power, and we, and I see now that they're allowing that to be done. So we need that in our neighborhoods. It's going to help the neighbors. It's going to keep their bills down. And thank

President Sheffield

56:24

you for Thank you. Thank you Miss Edith Ford, we appreciate you for coming down. And let me just state this. I know that there's a lot of residents that may be either coming down or calling in from district five. We were made aware, and I was sent a letter that residents were signing that essentially urge you all to come down regarding some properties, because we held Council, held some demolition contracts last week, and now this, this campaign now to get you all to come down here to talk about the importance of demolition, which I think we all agree. I have not seen any shifting of funding from ARPA money going away from demolition. There was just a we held some contracts for questions that we had. We wanted to make sure that the money was allocated appropriately various questions that council members can speak on themselves. But that's our job, that you know, to ask questions. It's not to not demolish home. So I just want to make sure you guys are aware that there's nothing before us that actually takes money from demolition to put it elsewhere that's before us today. So appreciate you coming down and also eat at those properties. If we can get a copy of those the list will make sure that we report those alright. If the clerk will note we've been joined by member Dorff, and you will be next. Miss No. Miss Maxwell, I'll see that one. Okay, come on up. I don't have Miss Maxwell. Oh, Patricia Maxwell, yeah, okay.

Speaker 17

57:47

Well, I'm just piggybacking on Miss Daisy. I live right down the street from her. I've been in the community over 50 years, and I have seen a whole lot of changes, and I understand what you just said, so I'm not going to keep elaborating and repeating the same thing, but we do need help. We truly need help in our community, and we're in the island view hood, so thank you. We appreciate

President Sheffield

58:11

you. Miss Patricia and Miss Kimball. Kevin Jones,

Speaker 3

58:19

Kevin you Hello, Madam President. I come because I love working with our youth and and there's some abandoned buildings right across from the facility in which I work. And I'm just going to name a few. 4438 Moran 4442 Moran, 4600 Moran, 3413 Garfield, 4200 Shane, I'm gonna say that one again, 4200 shame and 4173 Joseph Campbell, I am just afraid that some of our youth may be abducted or hurt. We had an incident in community last week, which the people come from out of the one of the abandoned houses, so I just want us to tear some of them down, and let's build our city as we already do. Em.

Unknown Speaker

59:17

Thank you.

President Sheffield

59:18

Thank you so much. Mister Jones Andre James, followed by Beverly Jones,

Speaker 15

59:26

good day, Council. Um, you already addressed it.

President Sheffield

59:30

You've already addressed our concern. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you, sir. But if there are properties though, that you do have, please let us know specific properties. Okay, well, it's 4081 Columbus, okay, well, but I was going to get it from you all right. Thank you, sir. Beverly Jones, good

Speaker 17

59:55

morning Council. My name is Beverly Jones. I'm a district five and part of the Petoskey Ise go Neighborhood Association, we have a number of addresses that we are concerned about in our community, and I just want to list those off. I think you address where we stand as far as reprogramming of any demolition funds. So thanks for the clarification on that the address is of concern that we do want these address land bank, bank homes address for demolition is 9156 North Martindale, 4019 Virginia Park, 3739 Vicksburg, 4031, Montgomery and 4081 Columbus.

President Sheffield

01:00:36

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr Burton,

Speaker 18

01:00:44

how y'all doing again? Nice seeing y'all, I think y'all the best city council I've been with in the 71 years I've been in the city and the native Detroiter, and they've done what would happen most of my life. Any case, I'm the director of Miss Van as I have to always tell you, community development, outreach nonprofit organization, and the member of District Two, and I polled the area, I went out talk to them, and that's 100% everybody agrees with it. I appreciate getting the $25,000 I'm glad to hear yesterday, the people come up and make mention of all the things that they are doing, and all the misconceptions because but one thing is concerning me is that not thinking about 5g powers and cellphones to the kids here was causing cancer, but they were worried about wires, the misconception. So I'm glad to see that all that happen, and you will see me down here a lot more every day. I mean every meeting coming down to protest today, especially about my nonprofit organization. Thanks for giving you time. Alright,

President Sheffield

01:01:44

thank you so much. Dooney, that next. Gregory Parker, okay, good morning, Council.

Speaker 19

01:01:52

My name is Gregory Parker. I live at 4470 Mitchell Street. I've sent a number of you emails regarding the property at 4458 Mitchell, it's abandoned home. It's been abandoned for over 20 years. My mother bought the property at 4470 Mitchell, 7075, years ago. It's a matter of No, 1975 I'm sorry. I'm the only house on the block on the corner. There's no other homes on that block period. There's rodents and rats vagrants living in the house. And I want to know from the city council, because I cut the grass and everything, what are you going to do about the property? I've been fighting this for a long time.

President Sheffield

01:02:40

Got you all right, thank you for coming down. We can get the property from you offline my team and we can look into it while you're here to get a status of the demolition of the property. So if you don't mind, just stepping aside, and my team will get with you to address that for you. Okay, thank

Speaker 19

01:02:55

you very much. Thank you. Also like to thank Keith Butler for reaching out to me, right?

President Sheffield

01:02:59

And you know, I it's just unfortunate that we're here at this moment for holding up a contract to ask questions. I do appreciate a lot of the residents coming down, and we will make sure we get a status on demolition of these properties, but these are two different, you know, conversations I think that need to be at. I just think it's unfortunate that a whole campaign will be launched because we were doing our job of asking questions and making sure money is being appropriated the right way. But sir, we're going to make sure we get a status of the Mitchell property, and we're going to make sure that the demolition Park Department has funding allocated for it as well. Okay, for sure. So we'll call them right now. Actually, let's get them on the phone now to address all of the concerns that are coming down today regarding district five properties so they can get status updates today. Thank you very much. Yep, since they were all told to come down and Mister Washington, if you can hear me, we could please have someone from demolition, actually, if they're here, someone in the building, or we can get Miss counts on the phone to address every single property that's being questioned today would be be very helpful, since they all came down, because some of these are not even before Council today, and may not even have funny funding allocated, but it will be great to know So sir, thank you for coming down. Step aside, and we will get a update for you. Okay, thank you, sir. All right, so we will move on to Mr Shelton. No

Speaker 20

01:04:31

Good morning. Transparency, transparency, transparency. We have a situation here in the city of Detroit that is not based upon rumors or it's not based upon anything that happened on January the sixth, 2021 we have evidence. Witnesses signed affidavits. One of them is Ramon Jackson. He has evidence that his signature was forged on an absentee voter ballot. That's evidence. That's not a rumor. And we have other people who swear that they've never voted or they've never voted absentee, but the city has them voting, and they can come forward this July, the ninth meeting that's supposed to address these allegations. It cannot be a viable or effective hearing unless or until the individuals who say they've never voted are brought forward. So what I would ask this body to bring those witnesses forward so they can address that issue.

President Sheffield

01:05:42

Thank you so much. Mr Shelton, Mr Foster, followed by Ms Moore,

Speaker 21

01:05:53

good morning through the president the chair, I want to say I'm very grateful and surprised to receive this acknowledgement today on behalf of my children. Now we're very, very grateful. Um, I think it's important that we continue to uplift black black people in our community, and I think it's important that our children see that black people can exceed and lead organizations and lead government. And so I'm very, very grateful for that. We have a lot more things to do. Also want to just express mister Whitaker, don't know, but 20 years ago, 30 years ago, I was a youth, and we used to go to the YMCA downtown, where the u of D law is, where Comerica Park is, and used to be in there playing ball as a young man. And so it's important that we understand that we are always being watched and that we lead examples. I just want to encourage City Council this year, it's a new fiscal year, to keep up the good work, continue to get the power and continue to fight the good fight. My children, our children's future depends on every decision and everything. So I appreciate Mr young and council as a whole. Thank you all.

President Sheffield

01:07:01

Thank you. Mr Foster, congratulations to you, sir. All right. Miss. Renita Moore,

Speaker 16

01:07:07

good morning. I want to thank y'all for the help y'all been giving me. But I think that our agencies that they have out here with low income, I think things need to be changed. They're not doing inspections right there. And then these owners that don't live in the city of Detroit, I don't think they should have these homes, because they're not checking up on what the the people they have managing them, and they do whatever they want. And then if you're not getting them fixed, when they send people out, like they supposedly, they doing jacked up jobs, like half doing stuff, stuff that won't pass inspections. So I think it should be something done. I think the housing situation should be the people that live in the city, not people out that do not live in Detroit, Michigan.

President Sheffield

01:07:54

Thank you so much. Miss Moore Barry Johnson, followed by Erica Nixon,

Unknown Speaker

01:08:03

yes, I'm in support of the solar panels. I live in District Three, and they're supposed to people that bought in. I'm in support of the council paying the people for early buyout for the homes. And I live in District Three.

President Sheffield

01:08:29

Thank you so much for coming down.

Speaker 22

01:08:39

Thank you council members and President Sheffield. My name is Erica Mixon. I'm a resident of district five as well as a community advocate. Thank you for the clarification that you gave this morning regarding the dollars for the demolition. I would like to share the addresses with the contact that we have, and I am assuming that the solar issue is for a later discussion, so I will oblige to that. But thank you so much for the approach appropriation of the funds. And I will give these addresses, actually a total of 10 for the Claremont and Taylor area. I'll leave it with the the person. Thank you for your time and support. Thank

President Sheffield

01:09:24

you. Thank you so much. Yes, President Pro Tem Tate, thank you, Madam

Speaker 7

01:09:29

President. I just want for those residents who are in support of the solar project, and my saying this is not trying to sway you either way. You can make your own decision, but I ask if you are aware of what the solar farms will look like, because that is a question that they have not been able to answer. When I ask the question in district one, what will they look like from the exterior, from your home, from the street, if they can't answer those questions, I think the challenge is we've gotta know what questions to ask. We hear that there's funds that are going to be coming and benefits, but there's also some other questions. It's been said many times that residents don't care if that property is demolished or if something is redeveloped, they just want the Blight removed. I gotta attribute that to member Johnson. She said that early on, but that's true. I've talked to residents, and they've all said that same thing. So what we're what's being pushed forward is demolition and solar panels. And I'm not saying that solar panels are not a solution to our sustainability challenge that we have within our country, this world, but I think it's imperative that residents ask tougher questions. Again. Remember where you sit and that's your home. That's where you're located. This is not about trying to tell you what to do, what not to do, but I'm just asking for residents who are in support. It goes well beyond just benefits. This is where you're going to live. Moving forward, our city is looking to expand and get more single family dwellings in the city of Detroit. That's a lot of land that will be gone and no longer available. So ask those questions, because that's where you and your family and your generations beyond you, if your your generational wealth passes down, will be living. Thank you, Madam President.

President Sheffield

01:11:19

Thank you so much. President Pro Tem Tate,

Unknown Speaker

01:11:21

Madam Chair,

President Sheffield

01:11:22

yes. Member Callaway

Speaker 11

01:11:22

and to protems point, solar panels will disrupt and destroy entire neighborhoods. There will be no future affordable housing being built anywhere around a solar farm. Go over there to capital in Greenfield and you know exactly what I'm saying. There's no, no new housing over there. Potentially, it could have been but, but it's not a way to address blight and crime, because after you install solar farms that are only happening in these types of neighborhoods, right? That's not going to address the Blight or the crime problem, we're still going to have those same problems, so we need to address those first, and your bill is not going to go down. Your utility bill is not going to go down. As a matter of fact, DTE is asking for rate increases as I'm speaking, and they usually get them. So I think a lot of residents think that you're going to benefit from the solar panels. No municipal buildings, and I'm understanding other buildings as well, will benefit from the solar panels that are being installed in your community, in your backyard, and I argue that the solar panel should be on the buildings that are going to benefit from the power. Not one resident will benefit from any of the solar panels being built in their neighborhood, not one, and you will continue to seek increases in your utility bills period. Thank you, Madam

President Sheffield

01:12:50

Chair, thank you so much. Member Callaway. Madam President, yes Council Member Santiago Romero, thank you, Madam President, just want to share that yesterday, during public health and safety, there was about two hour conversation around the solar arrays that are being discussed right here at the table. I welcome everyone to please look at that session. Please send over questions to our office, to any of us, because right now, we are in that process of having conversations. And frankly, I support solar, I support housing, I support trees. We need so many things, and I believe that we have an opportunity to do it right, if we take the time to ask the questions, to make sure that we're creative, to make sure that we make us an opportunity to help all of us benefit from solar. But we have to do it right, and we do need the questions answered. We don't know how much community benefit each neighborhood is going to is going to get to build their community with agriculture, with storm water management. These are the questions that we have, because what I would like to see is for this to be successful, is for us to potentially put solar on buildings, potentially put solar on panels. Make sure that we have agriculture. Make sure that we can build housing, affordable housing. Make sure that we have our values of our properties go up and not down. But there is a process we are in it now. I welcome you all to ask the hard questions, to send your ideas, to be creative for us to get this right. Thank you, Madam President.

Unknown Speaker

01:14:18

Madam President,

President Sheffield

01:14:20

thank you. Council member Yes. Council member Calloway, thank

Speaker 11

01:14:23

you, Madam President, also, I watched the entire committee meeting yesterday from beginning to end, and I would encourage everyone under the sound of my voice to go back and watch what transpired yesterday during public health and safety. You will see the contractors who are coming in from Boston, Massachusetts. You'll hear a number of other things I think you would find interesting, before you jump on the bandwagon of solar panels farms being put in neighborhoods where people live, where people live, they're out in rural areas. This is not a rural town. This is Urban. And so I'll continue to oppose it. I'll continue to do that to the top of my voice. And I don't care what you've been offered for your property. It's not good for the city to have them in the community on the building and structures. Absolutely. Put them along Lodge, the Lodge Freeway. I mean, the grass is growing. Then how many of you seen the grass on 96 it's about four feet tall. Put the solar panels there, and that'll drive that rope down. Probably it'll kill the grass. Put them on buildings. And I'll continue to say that. Thank you, Madam Chairman, thank you. Thank

President Sheffield

01:15:31

you so much. Member, Callaway, okay, very, very Hill, oh, I'm sorry, before we move to you. Member young, yeah,

Speaker 3

01:15:38

thank you, Madam President, I would just like to respectfully disagree with my colleague. I would just like to name some of the economic benefits that this solar panel project will have for the residents of the city, Detroit. One for owner occupied homeowners in the solar area, they will receive a minimum of $90,000 and relocation assistance. Renters in the solar area will benefit from 18 months of free rent and relocation assistance. Eligible homeowners surrounding the solar neighborhoods will receive a minimum of 15,000 in energy efficiency upgrades. So what I mean by energy efficiency upgrades, new windows, upgraded furnaces and better insulation, reducing energy bills by 10 to 20% I also just wanted to say that if this does not happen, we would have to pipe in the energy from other parts of the state or part of the country. So you have to generate it, you have to transmit it, and then you have to distribute it. Those are going to be fees that are being charged for the city Detroit to be able to do that. The fees that will be opposed upon the city will come from the taxpayers. If we do not do this and we have to pipe it in, that is an increase on the taxes of the citizens of this town. And I personally believe that the taxis are too damn high. We pay the highest property taxes residentially in the country, not number 10, not number eight, not number three, number one, number one, and we're going to impose more taxes on the citizens. I think that's I think that's uncalled for and unconscionable. And the fact that 30% of the residents in this town are energy burdened, which means they spend more than 6% of their income on energy. It is a shame before God that we not do everything we can to lower people's energy bills and keep money in people's pockets. People in this city have worked too hard to get the money they got and to keep it, and they are overburdened, as is in this town, to put further taxes on the citizens that's unnecessary is wrong, and I will not stand for that. That's why I support the solar panel. Thank you, Mister Hill, hello

Speaker 15

01:18:21

Council. My name is Larry Hill. I'm here once again. I own C max scooter. I've been around for four years, and in the four years, I've done over 10,000 rides for the scooters. I am the only company that is headquartered in the city. The three companies that got the permit to operate in the city. They have nothing. They have no ties to the city. I've been a city resident for almost 63 years, and I've worked for Detroit police 28 years. I've provided service to the city, and I asked that the city council would step in and overturn the permit denial. They said, I cannot, you know, move forward because my company was too small. Well with it, with 10,000 rides, I don't think that's too small, and in the ordinance, it has nothing to do with the, you know, size of your company. But I was denied, and I'm asking that the city would step in and do something about that. Okay, I didn't catch the name of the business, C max scooter. C max C M, a, x, yes, C M, a, and I'm the only scooter company. Okay,

President Sheffield

01:19:34

yeah, okay, alright. So we will get with you, along with member Calloway office, because we both worked on the scooter ordinance to see what exactly is going on. Okay, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to come down, sir. All right. David vasella, okay, followed by Kari Frazier,

Speaker 23

01:19:57

good morning. My name is David vasla, and I'm a district five resident in the island view neighborhood. I live right next door to the burnt down house that Miss Daisy was talking about she lives across the street from, and every day I have new pieces of debris in my yard. I have pieces of roof and broken glass and rusty nails, and, you know, accumulates faster than I can pick up. And I would like something to be done about that, and I would hope that we can make this happen in the best way for the city and everybody involved. So thank you so much.

President Sheffield

01:20:28

Thank you so much for coming down. And please make sure our team gets your name, your name and number and email, so that we can follow up directly with you, sir, Mr Frazier,

Speaker 24

01:20:39

in response to the solar power presentation last week. It's a bold and admirable move by the executive branch and Office of Sustainability. The inconsistency of power through the storms heat and cold is a struggle here. It's an entrepreneur that works from home. I have anxiety every time I see a storm forecasting solar power for municipal structures is good. Solar power for residents as well would be excellent. Washington DC has a solarized DC program, and it also was instituted from a Detroiter, my brother Chris shorter, when he was the Director of Public Works, so it can be given to residents as well. So I boldly wish, and I'm optimistic, that Detroit can be a leader in energy democracy by having solar power for residents.

President Sheffield

01:21:29

That's right. Thank you so much. Mister Frazier, alright, that will conclude in person, and we will turn it over to our virtual callers. And how many do we have this morning,

Speaker 25

01:21:41

morning, Madam President, there were 41 hands raised before you would cut off public comment. And the first caller is bacon, can

Unknown Speaker

01:21:57

I have you here through the Chair?

President Sheffield

01:21:59

Yes, we can hear you, good morning. Good morning.

Speaker 26

01:22:02

I am calling once again express my support for the district two Penrose solar project over in the State Fair neighborhood, this project home values and in direct improvements of our homes that our homes need do one or now and stuff like that, that we can do agriculture with the panels together, and that we can do solar panels right in Detroit and become an example for the future of how we can do it without piping it across the country. I'd also like to throw my hat in both as someone whose kids go to Island View schools and who are resident up here about how dangerous buildings are important to move through fast. We have houses over here on Adeline where they are attracting drugs. My vice president of the Black club, Ray almost lost his house to a fire related to it. That I know that you guys are doing your due diligence, and I appreciate that, but just remember that these we are living with, these dangerous

President Sheffield

01:23:07

All right, thank you.

Unknown Speaker

01:23:10

The next caller is Bernadette atua hay.

President Sheffield

01:23:16

Good morning.

Unknown Speaker

01:23:21

Hello, Council President, can you hear me? Yes,

President Sheffield

01:23:23

we can. Yes. So

Speaker 16

01:23:25

my name is Professor Bernadette Tuan, and I'm calling in today about the contract that will be before you for the independent evaluator. We were assured. First of all, it's a shame this contract and this independent evaluator is supposed to be working in February, and we are in July, and we are coming before you with this for you all to approve this contract, I just want to make sure that when this contract is approved, there is an assessment ratio study done this year and next year, and that the Duggan administration be held to account for holding up this independent evaluator for this long. This is a it's a shame to democracy. What's happening that we passed a property tax reform ordinance in January mandating this independent evaluator who will let Detroiters know in a fair and equal way if they are still, in fact, being over assessed with the which the University of Chicago already said yes. So we need some accountability. We need this contract to pass, and we need some accountability.

Speaker 25

01:24:29

Thank you. The the next caller is big dude x2 you.

Unknown Speaker

01:24:46

Good morning.

President Sheffield

01:24:55

Good morning. Caller, good morning. Okay, we can come back. Please.

Unknown Speaker

01:25:02

The next caller is iPhone.

President Sheffield

01:25:05

IPhone, good morning.

Unknown Speaker

01:25:09

Good morning. Council President, may I be hurt?

President Sheffield

01:25:11

Yes, you can.

Speaker 27

01:25:12

Good morning everyone. I'm Jason Georgia, watermelon right now calling in about my support for the Solar Initiative, and I heard Councilwoman Callaway, you know, share her experience, and she may be privy to information that I'm not. I am a owner, occupied resident inside of a field, inside of the target area, and how it's been presented to us is that, over the last like year, is that this is a program that, yes, it could be on top of municipal buildings, but it is meant to kind of kill as many birds with as few stones. So, like he, he already addressed why they don't have it in fields up north, or something like that. But it's also to offset blight, you know, to offset and to beautify the city, and it's supposed to be beautified in the way of like bike paths and, you know, just more of a community bridge, if you

President Sheffield

01:26:18

all right, thank you.

Speaker 25

01:26:21

The next caller is Jackie domzalski,

Speaker 28

01:26:26

good morning. Can you hear me? Yes, yes. Good morning, everyone. My name is Jackie domzalski and I have been a Detroit resident for over 60 years and a homeowner in district seven for over 30 years. I've always considered my home a sanctuary. However, due to my inflated property taxes, my sanctuary has become a source of stress and uncertainty. I'm a dedicated teacher who finds my neighbors struggling to keep up with increased tax bills. To counteract this, they have cut back on essentials, postponed home repairs, and have dipped into their limited savings. This meeting must not conclude until the Detroit City Council has agreed to hire someone to independently assess property taxes in Detroit today. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to give public comment in support of the Detroit City Council's vote to approve the independent evaluator contract,

President Sheffield

01:27:24

okay, thank you.

Unknown Speaker

01:27:27

The next caller is Janice D Hazel,

President Sheffield

01:27:37

good morning. You.

President Sheffield

01:27:45

Good morning. All

President Sheffield

01:27:52

right, can we come back to this caller? Please?

Speaker 25

01:27:54

Okay, the next caller is Shoshana Shakur. I

President Sheffield

01:28:03

Right. Good morning.

Speaker 29

01:28:08

I am shishana, an advocate for the Coalition for Property Tax Justice and the Coalition. We're strongly urging the City Council today to vote to assign an independent evaluator, our honorable Coleman, young Junior. Junior, mentioned earlier that Detroiters are taxed some of the highest taxes in the country. It was also mentioned today that $600 million have been taken from property owners through their taxes, and no, compensation and justice have been done. You the dishonorable body you voted for the property tax reform ordinance, which will allow you to intervene and assign an independent evaluator. Mayor Duggan has tried to hold it up. Council, please put a stop to this and hire an independent evaluator, and thank you for listening to me today.

President Sheffield

01:29:11

Okay, thank you.

Speaker 25

01:29:14

The next caller is Tahira Ahmed, all

President Sheffield

01:29:18

right, good morning.

Speaker 11

01:29:21

Good morning Council to hear our mayor with coalition for Property Tax Justice in November of 2023 because of our consistent organizing, city council passed the property tax reform ordinance. Thank you, city council. The ordinance requires the city to hire an independent evaluator to make sure it no longer overtaxes Detroit homeowners, the Duggan administration violated this ordinance by not putting an independent evaluator contract in front of city council by February 2024, as the ordinance mandate, we're asking you to please pass the the independent ordinance contractor, valuator contract to pull council for both and member Young. Reason why we have high, the highest property taxes is because of this very thing, illegal over taxation, so we urge you to pass through.

Unknown Speaker

01:30:30

The next caller is William M Davis,

Unknown Speaker

01:30:34

uh, good morning. Can I be heard?

President Sheffield

01:30:35

Yes, you can.

Speaker 24

01:30:36

I like to start off by saying I was pleased to see that so many current city workers was honored today. You know, I think far too often, yeah, do not honor active workers. Also, I was pleased to see that y'all was honoring some retiring workers, but I would be even more encouraged if I was to see that y'all was actually doing something to help the legacy retirees that over in the past, over 10 and a half years, have not received one penny from the city Detroit. Not only that, have not received any type of incentive for us to stay in the city. Detroit. The city Detroit, in the last 10 and a half years has lost over 60,000 people, many of them, black and brown, the city Detroit, should start doing stuff to encourage us to stay and encourage some of us to move back by doing stuff with taxes, water and services. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker

01:31:35

Thank you. Next Caller, please.

Unknown Speaker

01:31:39

The next caller is Stephen Harring.

Speaker 7

01:31:41

Stephen Harring, you have one minute general public comment?

Speaker 30

01:31:47

Can I be heard? Yes, okay, thank you. So the solar panel thing, you know, I'm kind of torn about it overall, you know, I think there's some good in it. And, you know, I think for some of the areas you know that just have big, outgrown land, you know, I think it definitely is a good way, because, you know, there's noone that seems to be interested in developing on that land. You gotta be. And that's the brutal truth. So, you know, I think in some of those neighborhoods, it might work, but, you know, what I don't like is that they're putting them in the brisdale farms, you know, that's a very up and coming neighborhood, like younger people, you know, I really think they should look at, you know, The neighborhoods that are more underdeveloped, and you know, overall, you know, I just want to tell everyone, even though Biden had a bad debate, you gotta vote for him.

Unknown Speaker

01:32:55

Thank you, next caller, please.

Unknown Speaker

01:32:57

Next caller is Betty a Varma.

Speaker 31

01:33:01

Good morning to all within the sound of my voice, Betty a brown, the president of the soda Ellsworth black Association. District seven. There's a property in my area that needs to be on the demo list, 14530, Wisconsin. I'm questioning that the abandoned houses and buildings continue to be demolished. Well, the day is here for our pinker corridor. The City of Detroit invites you to attend the pinko Avenue corridor action plan community meeting, July 2, from six to 730 at the new life Family Church. 15329, liver noise, Detroit, Michigan, 48238, please, anyone within the area Finkle and liver noise, Finkle and Wyoming, or if you just want to come by and support, we're all one Detroit to see what's happening in my community, please come out. This is our day to voice to the city what we would like to have thank you for

Unknown Speaker

01:34:07

Thank you. Next Caller, please.

Unknown Speaker

01:34:09

The next caller is Thurman Ligon.

Unknown Speaker

01:34:13

Call the floor is yours. You have a minute general public comment, please.

Speaker 32

01:34:16

Can I be heard? Good morning to the honorable body. Can I be heard? Yes, thank you. I was this this calls pertaining to supporter solar, particularly in District Three. Thank you to my councilman, Councilman Benson, who's been a great supporter of not only our community, but as well as to our organization in which I serve as the president for rescue my nature now, which also be referring to as I am in RNN, has also supported green space developments in our community. And in our effort to stabilize this community in district three, we have fought illicit activity and lewd activity, specifically around vacant and dangerous structures, which we are hoping that the city of Detroit will continue to use ARPA funds to demolish these structures, particularly on Exeter Street in Detroit, as well as on Coventry and a number of other projects around green space development, where dangerous structures are a great disruptor to the quality of life for the residents these lists.

Unknown Speaker

01:35:32

Thank you. Next Caller, please

Speaker 25

01:35:39

apologies I was muted. The next caller is Gwendolyn Jones,

Unknown Speaker

01:35:45

what was yours? You have a minute? Can you hear me? Yes, ma'am.

Speaker 33

01:35:51

Okay. Thank you. I'm the president of the Hayden street block club, and on behalf of my members and residents, I wanted to bring to the attention of three homes that need to be demolished, causing blight in district seven, that is 8840, Ashton, 99225, von 8910, Hayden. Let's see. Also, I wanted to know, when will the cities be cutting too many the grass and things that's growing real high because of all the rain in district seven. Also, back to these three homes. They are extremely terrible. I mean, the grass is so high you can hardly see the windows, and one of them has a boat in the front yard. So I also want to show support for the independent evaluation contract.

Unknown Speaker

01:36:51

Thank you for letting me speak.

Unknown Speaker

01:36:53

Thank you. Next Caller, please. The next caller is Detroit. ADLs

Unknown Speaker

01:36:59

follow the floor is yours. General public health.

Speaker 34

01:37:02

Good morning, and through the Chair, may I be heard? Yes, yes. I am calling about 15.12. The funding for the solar the funding comes from public lighting who use. It's actually general funds, and I'm not sure if it's legal, Mr der Hall to give my money to people to for this Solar Initiative. If it was, if it was going to power our homes, that would be different. Or the rec centers, but not downtown. If you can't keep the lights on downtown, you need to go home. Let me pass the pass the contract for the in the for the for the audit of how we're paying taxes. 24.16, needs to be answered before we go any further with this Solar Initiative. And let me read something to you. The Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Justice announced more than a million dollars in penalties against companies for polluting local waterways. The culprits for solar farms in Illinois, Alabama and Idaho, please don't pass.

Unknown Speaker

01:38:11

Thank you. Next Caller, please.

Unknown Speaker

01:38:13

Next caller is Al Martin.

Unknown Speaker

01:38:18

Good morning. Councilman Abby heard

Unknown Speaker

01:38:20

Yes. Hi. This is Al Martin

Speaker 35

01:38:23

with AMTS and Detroit impact, representing and in the district seven, just giving support to the to the Solar Initiative. You know, as a left on Detroiter, I remember when the population was large, Detroit was built to house 2.2 point 3 million people. We've got so much making making land that's here. This Solar Initiative is an excellent opportunity for for community members to receive that community benefit, to to help their homes become a little bit more energy efficient. I'm also sitting here. I happen to be sitting here at Detroit impact with 19 phenomenal young students, ages 14 to 18 who are learning about solar power. So this gives them an opportunity to to be in the forefront of this move towards towards clean energy and and learning. And they're right here in the OSHA community, where they're also this is also an opportunity for them to to learn about solar. So we're totally in support of the solar energy project, and I thank you for your time, and I appreciate the opportunity.

Unknown Speaker

01:39:32

Thank you. Next caller.

Unknown Speaker

01:39:34

The next caller is Mikko a Williams

Speaker 7

01:39:37

Wade Williams, the floor is yours. General public comment,

Speaker 36

01:39:41

Hi, good morning. Could I be heard? Please support the independent tax assessor, Alvin horn should be fired and removed from his job immediately. He has failed the city and failed its residents. We need an independent review of the $600 million taxation and I hope that this contract be passed formally with a recommendation to approve. Also in regards to solar panels, they always want to put it into urban communities. Do you see these in the rural or it's made for rural? Why would you put him here in Detroit? You can find something else to make money off of, please. You know solar panels are going to destroy just like 5g and the radiation cost of cancer. We have a lot of older residents living in the city. There should be an environmental study and a healthcare study done before we approve this contract. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker

01:40:43

Next Caller, please.

Unknown Speaker

01:40:45

The next caller is calling. User one

Unknown Speaker

01:40:48

caller, user one, the floor is yours. General public comment.

Unknown Speaker

01:40:55

Can you hear me? Yes,

Speaker 37

01:40:59

ma'am, Madam President, I want to know why building this safety has not been out to start writing tickets. We are seeing heavy drug traffic. Elevator getting stuck with people on it, filthy carpet that I've been complaining about for well over the last year still has not been done. You have to look at animals defecating in hallways and urinating where bleach water has to be sprayed to dissipate the odors. And I would like to know, what are you going to do about it? Grass in the neighborhood is taller than someone that's five foot 11 that hasn't been cut as well, and I sent you pictures this morning, along with council member Calloway Johnson Tate Young.

President Sheffield

01:42:03

Alright. Thank you so much, Shay, Miss Shay, we will be sure to look at those pictures and respond to you. Thank you so much for calling in.

Unknown Speaker

01:42:14

The next caller is Marguerite Maddox Scarlet,

President Sheffield

01:42:18

alright, good morning, Miss Maddox,

Speaker 5

01:42:19

good morning, and don't forget that this month is Disability Pride Month. So I

Speaker 5

01:42:43

I would like to be able to imagine. Please think about the people that that live in the state of Canada, suggestion site, and people, people that travel around that community? Because

Unknown Speaker

01:43:34

totally against it. Do not make sure that they are going to be accountability if they make a mistake, people will never forget

Unknown Speaker

01:44:02

that. One

Speaker 5

01:44:08

mistake. To the people that live in that area, please listen to the community that live in the area. And Yesterday, by walking, They spoke, choice.

Unknown Speaker

01:45:41

Even cracked. Crap.

Unknown Speaker

01:45:49

Thank you. I'm good.

President Sheffield

01:45:54

Thank you. Miss medox. The next caller is Michael Thomas Hart, good. Morning. Good morning,

Unknown Speaker

01:46:03

city council. Can I be heard?

President Sheffield

01:46:05

Yes,

Speaker 4

01:46:06

excellent.

So I am here. I'm a resident of district five, and I'm speaking with the Coalition for Property Tax Justice. I wanted to start by thanking City Council today, though, for your continued service and for listening to our comments. I'm speaking for Council to pass the independent evaluator contract that a lot of other residents have also advocated for. Passing this contract is long overdue, as was mentioned by Professor to a head a the property tax reform ordinance required for this contract to be put before Council and passed earlier this year, in February, city council should pass this contract, not only because it's required by law, but also because it's the right thing for to do for Detroiters. Thank you so much again, and I hope you have a great day. All

President Sheffield

01:46:59

right, thank you.

Speaker 25

01:47:02

The next caller is Janet D, Janice D, Hazel,

President Sheffield

01:47:09

good morning.

President Sheffield

01:47:17

Good morning. Ms, Hazel, you

President Sheffield

01:47:26

Good morning, Miss Hazel, okay, if we can please come back to miss Hazel, please.

Unknown Speaker

01:47:34

The next caller is Sherry Smith,

President Sheffield

01:47:38

good morning.

Speaker 38

01:47:39

Good morning, we have you heard Yes. Thank you. Good morning, city council. My name is Sherry Smith, and I live in district seven. I wanted to call in and support of item 22.1, the 15th street block club and backpack giveaway that's held on ferry, Ferry Park Street every year. This is a phenomenal event. So we look forward to helping out with that event again this year, passing out 1000s of backpacks and just being a blessing and uplift to the community. I also wanted to comment on Item 22.3, the tireman minoc Park. I drive past this park every day, and though it is up for extension, I really would like council to look at the execution of that park. There are a lot of spots that are just uneven and kind of balding in the grass. There are no trash receptacles right now, which is ridiculous at a public park, and there are no shade trees or flowers. It's great that we have green space, but it's better to have that space beautified because there's empty lots across the street that look quite similar to the park, except for the play equipment and the exercise equipment on line item 24, point 17. All

President Sheffield

01:48:49

right, thank you.

Speaker 25

01:48:51

The next caller is Razia Gibbons,

Unknown Speaker

01:48:58

good afternoon,

Unknown Speaker

01:48:59

good morning.

Speaker 39

01:49:02

I'm calling about this solar panels. I am totally against them, because when District Two Kim Tan Kim Tandy and Sean Davis came into the community, I went to several meetings my son and I and the offers that they're giving to homeowners that live in their property is is not feasible to move with. And not only that, but Callaway, Councilwoman, Callaway, she picked me up one day when I called after one call took me in the neighborhood, saw what was wrong, repaired, had everything taken care of, which showed me that Detroit can be a viable city with people living in our neighborhoods, not solar panels, but human beings. All we have to do is put some care into the neighborhoods and put some money into them, and they'll be just fine. No solar panels.

President Sheffield

01:50:08

Okay, thank you.

Unknown Speaker

01:50:10

The next caller is Richard noto,

President Sheffield

01:50:16

Good morning.

Speaker 40

01:50:18

Hi may be heard. Yes. Good morning, council members. My name is Richard, no the Western caulk and associate president. Again, I'm here to ask your help to solve the parking inadequacy in western Corcoran talk town. There are answers, but no solutions have been executed. We need parking spots now. You just go down and see at night there's no place to park. Solutions can include opening a part of the maintenance center. Add parking at the North alley, Michigan Avenue, Michigan Central. Open the Western parking lot. Now implement a shuttle to move people through a cork town for for visitors and Corktown residents to use. Use the shuttle to move people from available parking spots to areas with minimal parking. I'm calling for the City Council to sponsor a meeting to bring all parties together to solve the problems. Now the result the solutions are there. Please push the administration to move forward. Thank you.

President Sheffield

01:51:21

Thank you.

Speaker 25

01:51:24

The next caller is Aaliyah Moore,

President Sheffield

01:51:30

good morning.

Unknown Speaker

01:51:34

Yes, good morning. Can you hear me?

President Sheffield

01:51:36

Yes, we can. Good morning, and

Speaker 33

01:51:39

thank you for the opportunity. I do apologize.

Speaker 11

01:51:42

I'm a long time citizen, and I need to come to more city council meetings, but I am calling in today in support of the independent audit looking at the property values for these homes. Like I said, I'm born and raised here, I had the opportunity to purchase a home. I almost lost my home during the period of being overtaxed. If it wasn't for the grace of God and a very close friend of mine that gave me some money to come down and start a payment plan, I would have lost my property, and I saw many others losing their properties, both old and young. I am in district seven, and I do value my home. My neighbors value their home, and it is very important, as I've heard earlier, that it is to continue the generational wealth and to keep properties and families and to hand them down so that we can continue to grow as a city. And I just want the council to vote yes.

Unknown Speaker

01:52:41

Hey, thank you.

Unknown Speaker

01:52:44

The next caller is Karen Winston, Hello, yes, good

President Sheffield

01:52:48

morning.

Speaker 41

01:52:49

Yeah, good morning. First of all, I'd like to on my opinion anybody that you know had something to do to get to this point should not be wasting opinions such as council member at large, Coleman Young. Now he was in position to make sure that public lighting and that the city got out of the power business. And the mayor, he said, we're getting out of the power business. So why now are we back, all of a sudden, back being concerned about power business to public buildings? It doesn't make any sense. So it seems to me that we don't know where this plan is. We don't know you don't know where it's going because it's you don't know what. You didn't know what phase one was, because you're still asking questions. I think we should put the brakes, stop this until we understand what's going to happen. We need to know who approved what. You know we shouldn't be approving this as we glad to see your past this madness. It's absolute madness. The Councilman should recluse himself, as should the mayor and Vincent.

President Sheffield

01:53:55

Thank you.

Unknown Speaker

01:53:58

The next caller is Lenore Copeland,

President Sheffield

01:54:02

good. Morning. Good morning.

Unknown Speaker

01:54:05

Can you hear me?

President Sheffield

01:54:06

Yes.

Unknown Speaker

01:54:07

Oh, how you doing today? My name is Lenore Copeland,

Speaker 16

01:54:11

and I live in District Four, and I've been with I've been in my home for about 30 years,

Speaker 1

01:54:20

and I want to talk about the property tax and our property taxes being overtaxed.

Unknown Speaker

01:54:31

And what we need to do is

Speaker 42

01:54:34

put in order to hire this person, the need to take control over

Speaker 1

01:54:40

controlling and giving the information for our property tax, and that's what needs to be done. Thank

President Sheffield

01:54:49

you. Thank you.

Speaker 25

01:54:58

Our next caller. Please apologies I was muted. The next caller is he's not the enemy. Period, alright,

Speaker 43

01:55:15

31344491143134449114, and on Facebook, expensive vehicle repairs. On Facebook, expensive vehicle repairs. Many people have reached out in regards to the outreach vehicle me giving out the bus tickets at the bus stops. I think TR use Lucas yesterday, who gave me 100 bus tickets to give out DDOT is only on time 70% of the time. It needs to improve, and so I bring a little joy, one bus to get at a time, at the bus stops. Getting a little irritated. People ask me, who am I voting for? What I'm voting for? That's my business, I'm not as energized as I normally am this election cycle, but our ancestors died and bled, and so I will vote no matter what, and I will be giving out free rides to those polls. Thank you.

Speaker 25

01:56:26

The next caller is election integrity. Roo,

Speaker 24

01:56:32

yeah, first things first, I want to say a special congratulations. Shout out to Sergeant Knox. Donald Richard, and of course, a special, special congratulations to the coolest, Mister Derek head. Now I want to switch right to Mary Sheffield, turning your resignation. James Tate, turning yours as well. Fred durhall is a legitimate city council representative for district seven, according to all the facts, those are the fraudulent absentee ballots in the district 720, 21 election, which is now in the federal courts. Um, what we have is a TV man, city council and all of y'all, every seat on the city council is highly suspect now because of the information that's sitting on my desk, turning that resignation Mary Sheffield and James Tate,

President Sheffield

01:57:36

right, thank you.

Speaker 25

01:57:40

The next caller is Paul Chanel neighbors from lindsdale Block club.

President Sheffield

01:57:55

Good afternoon. Hi. Am I heard? Yes, we can hear you.

Speaker 27

01:58:02

Hi. I'm Paul Chenault, resident of District Six, president of neighbors from winsdale Block club. I'm just calling in support of the demolition that's all have a good day.

President Sheffield

01:58:16

Okay, thank you.

Speaker 25

01:58:19

The next caller is Thomas Lewis,

Speaker 6

01:58:27

Good morning, Madam President and esteemed Council. Initially, I just wanted to say I'm calling in support of the independent evaluator. But after the previous call, I have to add, I'm also in support of my city council president. Also my main point, as it pertains to this evaluation, the city has been over assessed, and we don't think that as a collective body that you're if you don't want to do the right thing. But the reality is, if you take just the opposite, let's just say, if these were $500 million homes, do you think those constituents were Ida set by No, they would turn the place out. Let's look at the fact that these are ordinances, if the parking tickets or the people who put boots on our cars, which are all supporting this is if we were to say, No, we're not paying it, what would happen?

President Sheffield

01:59:34

Okay, thank you.

Unknown Speaker

01:59:39

The next caller is a native Flores,

Speaker 29

01:59:45

Hello, may I be heard? Yes, you can Okay. Hi. My name is Zenaida Flores, and I'm Vice President with rescue my nature. Now. We're a nonprofit in Detroit. We focus on revitalizing blighted parcels to educational community green space, and I'm calling in support of the solar projects, as well as the demolitions, especially demolitions that are scheduled to happen and on Exeter and Coventry Street. For many years, these areas have been blighted and plagued, and families with small children are forced to live next door. And what we're looking to do is create safer neighborhoods and community spaces. So please support the demolition contracts and continue the funding to revitalize communities and green spaces. Thank you.

President Sheffield

02:00:49

Thank you.

Speaker 25

02:00:51

The next caller is Broderick Wilkes,

President Sheffield

02:00:57

good morning. Good afternoon.

Unknown Speaker

02:01:00

Good afternoon. May I be heard?

President Sheffield

02:01:01

Yes.

Speaker 19

02:01:02

Hello. My name is Roger Wilkes. I am a resident of district three. I also have the prep, the honor and privilege of serving as the president of Crossroads Community Association. We're a community based organization with interest that span from six mile to eight mile over to Dequindre. I'm also calling in in regards to the demolition funding, specifically in the Nolan neighborhood within district three, there are still several houses here that plague the existing neighborhoods and residents that live by them. So I'm calling into an opposition of the proposal to reallocate the funding for the demolitions there in an effort to create safer neighborhoods. We've seen firsthand, witness, firsthand, the reduction in crime and violent illegal activities once these houses are demolished in a neighborhood, and again, we like to see safer green spaces in these areas which set the stage for further development coming down.

President Sheffield

02:02:08

Thank you,

Speaker 25

02:02:10

Madam President, there while there are other hands raised, that was the last of the hand people who had raised their hands before you would cut off public comment.

President Sheffield

02:02:20

All right, thank you. All right. That will conclude public comment, and we will now go to our agenda for this morning, understanding committee reports for the planning and development standing committee from the Office of contracting and procurement, and this also just actually be from budget Finance and Audit.

Speaker 33

02:02:41

Yes, that's correct. Madam President, Council Member durhall, 10 resolutions, line items, 15.1 through 15 point 10, all of which are contracts. First one is contract number 6006045, amended, 100% city funding to provide a compliance study of parcel assessments. Contractor is IAA o LLC, total contract amount 230,000 that's for Office of the Chief Financial Officer. Next contract is contract number 6006188, 100% city funding to provide payment processing platform for online Treasury payments by residents, contractors pay minutes, Corporation total contract amount zero. That's for Office of the Chief Financial Officer. Next contract, Contract Number 6006311, 100% city funding to provide managed support services for Oracle, ERP system, contract vigilant technologies, LLC, total contract amount, $2,691,679.36 cent, as for Office of the Chief Financial Officer, next contract, Contract Number 6002054, dash, A one, 100% city funding, Amendment One to provide an extension of time and an increase of funds for economic data analysis and forecasting services. Contractors, Regents of the University of Michigan, College of Literature, of science and the arts. Total contract amount, $2,514,390 that's for Office of the Chief Financial Officer. Next contract, Contract Number 6003757, dash, a one, 100% ARPA funding Amendment One, to provide an extension of time and an increase of funds for grant compliance services, contractors, U, h, y, advisors. Incorporated total contract amount 2,250,000 that's for Office of the Chief Financial Officer. Next contract is contract number 6005363, dash a one, 100% city funding. Amendment One, to provide an extension of time and an increase of funds for facility, MRO, industrial and building related supplies and equipment. Contractor WW Granger incorporated total contract amount 2,500,000 that's for the Office of the Chief Financial Officer. Contract number 6005364, dash a one, 100% city funding. Amendment One to provide an extension of time and increase of funds for facility, MRO industrial and building related supplies and equipment contractor see it to company doing business as MSC Industrial Supply Company. Total contract amount, 2,500,000 that's for Office of the Chief Financial Officer. Next contract, which is line item 15.8, Contract Number 6003001, dash a four, 100% city funding. Amendment four, to provide an extension of time and an increase of funds for managed support services, for Oracle contractor, application software technology LLC, total contract amount, $4,157,007.68 cent. That's for Office of the Chief Financial Officer. Next contract, Contract Number 6006419, 100% capital funding to provide renovations for the Office of the Auditor General Contractor, Detroit Wayne, joint building authority. Total contract amount, $546,600 that's for the Auditor General. Contract number 6006288, 100% city funding to provide citywide uniform contract per Armia cooperative agreement. Contract 222886, contractor center, slash centers, first aid and safety total. Contract amount, $3,641,067.72 cent. And that's for Citywide Council Member durhall, 10 resolutions, right? Thank

President Sheffield

02:07:04

you, Madam Clerk. Council Member durha, thank you,

Speaker 7

02:07:06

Madam President. I'll be breaking these contracts up as we vote on them. First I will move for approval for line item 15.1, and this is the contractor for IAA. Oh, regardless regarding the compliance study of parcel assessments that otherwise known as the independent assessor Move for approval for line item 15.1,

President Sheffield

02:07:27

right? Just discussion. Really quick, please. And I'm not sure, um, member door, if we want to have someone come on. I just wanted to get clear. I know it was mentioned that 2024 and 2025 will be the two years that the assessments are the independent, independent evaluator will conduct its assessment. But wanted to be clear on the years that will be used for 2024 because the teeter report mentions April 1, 2021 through March 31 2023 and I'm not sure if that's not correct, but want clarity on the actual years of data that will be used for 2024 for the independent evaluator, Mr Washington, I see that you've joined us.

Unknown Speaker

02:08:12

We do have Alvin Alvin Horne online.

President Sheffield

02:08:16

Okay, Mr Washington, thank you, and we will promote I'm sorry, who did you say was on

Unknown Speaker

02:08:22

Alvin Horne is online with us. Oh, Mr

President Sheffield

02:08:23

Horne, okay, we'll promote Mr Horne. I

President Sheffield

02:08:41

Mr horn, good morning. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Madam

Unknown Speaker

02:08:47

President, members of choice City Council.

President Sheffield

02:08:50

Thank you so much for being here and thank you for finally working to get this before Council. Just wanted to be clear on the years that will be actually be reviewed for the assessment racial study for 2024 the teeter report goes back to 2021 through 2023 and I just want to get clarity on the actual years that will be reviewed for the actual assessment study for 2024

Speaker 44

02:09:13

through the Chair. Thank you for the question, ma'am. Under Michigan law, the 2024 assessment, which is the year it will be reviewed, is comply, comprised of sales from April 1 2021 through March 31 2023, so Detroit, like every other jurisdiction, the state, uses a 24 month sales study. So they'll be reviewing the sales in that sales study to produce a racial, racial study for 2024

President Sheffield

02:09:40

perfect and then just getting clarity on Phase Two for 2025 with an actual amendment need to come before council for that second phase to go into place.

Speaker 44

02:09:51

No, ma'am, I've spoken to the chief procurement officer and both and the CFO, they both feel that they have the authority, and we've, we've discussed it with the Iao, and they've agreed to it that they have the authority to extend the contract to cover both years.

President Sheffield

02:10:07

Okay, all right. Thank you. Thank you so much. And member duerha has already moved this for approval, and if there any objections to 15.1 Hearing no objections, that contract will be approved. And thank you again. Mr horn, you, Madam President, request a waiver for 15.1

Speaker 7

02:10:30

Madam President, I'm just to a waiver just in case. Relative to this,

President Sheffield

02:10:34

okay, I remember duha did object, so that motion does fail. Well, actually, I can't make a motion, but to request one does Okay? Member Durham, thank

Speaker 7

02:10:43

you, Madam President, Move for approval for line items, 15.2 to 15.4 discussion,

President Sheffield

02:10:52

okay. Council member Benson

Speaker 13

02:10:54

to yourself, the administration alignment, 15.3 the oracle system that all of our employees throughout the city use there's a question on improving the quality. We often see the system go down. Just what are we doing to improve that quality?

Unknown Speaker

02:11:11

Through the Chair Washington,

Unknown Speaker

02:11:13

yes, if we can promote Nadine Zaid, did you catch the

President Sheffield

02:11:20

name? I catch the name? Can you repeat the name? Mr Washington, please, Nadine

Unknown Speaker

02:11:29

Zadie,

Unknown Speaker

02:11:30

if Nadine can also raise your hand.

President Sheffield

02:11:35

Okay, we will promote Nadine Zadie. I

Speaker 45

02:11:43

Good afternoon. Matt, Madam, Madam President and the council members. All

President Sheffield

02:11:49

right. Good afternoon. Member Benson, the floor is yours. All right. Thank

Speaker 13

02:11:52

you. Just numerous complaints regarding Oracle systems reliability. What are we doing to ensure that we are improving its reliability as a system.

Speaker 45

02:12:05

We have been working with Oracle, who is the current soft software a provider, and they have been assuring us regarding the stability of a system. The the new contractor is an Oracle is, is a certified, a certified Oracle Service Partner. They have a lot of experience in supporting and implementing Oracle systems. They have just implemented Oracle Cloud at the Wayne County Airport. And they are, they are currently supporting the system. So we have, we have capable resources available to to ensure our business continuity stays and we are not impacted by by any of the outages,

Unknown Speaker

02:12:52

right? Thank you.

President Sheffield

02:12:55

Thank you. Council member Benson, any additional questions? Discussion? Yes. Council member Johnson, thank

Speaker 12

02:13:02

you, Madam President. In regards to line item 15.2 I am just wondering if we've compared the fees for this particular provider in comparison to the fees that did that charges. And if we're looking to no longer utilize div debt,

President Sheffield

02:13:29

Mr Washington, I think member door Hall wants to respond, and then I'll come back to you, Council Member durha,

Speaker 7

02:13:35

thank you, Madam President, or treasurer Patel is here as well, but as discussed in committee, div, that is will remain, and there is no current fee for this particular contract. But if Mr treasurer Patel would like to just shed a little bit light, in case member Johnson has further questions on that, that was a question that we had specifically about div that remaining and the option for residents to still use it. And from our understanding, this just gives us more tools in the toolbox, so residents to be able to pay online. So Through you, madam president, to

President Sheffield

02:14:13

treasurer, make sure your microphone is on.

Speaker 46

02:14:16

Good afternoon Council through the Chair. Good afternoon Council through the chair, the fee, as council member durhall mentioned, for the actual implementation, is $0 for the city, the vendor that we brought on or would like to bring on payments, makes it their revenue from the transaction fee that they take from each payment. So similar to what divad does today. Div dad actually has a upfront fee for developing certain features and capabilities when it comes to the fee that the residents will face, it is as good as or better than div dad's current fee structure. In fact, there's probably about 10 to 20 basis points on the credit card transaction fee that paymentous would be a little bit lower on credit card transaction fees, similar to divdat, if you go to a kiosk, you can make a free ACH payment. Payments would allow free ACH assuming someone signs up for an account, whether via email or a cell phone number,

Speaker 12

02:15:16

okay, thank you. So the reason for my question is because I get a lot of complaints about did that and the fees that they charge. I do understand that the fee, there is no fee to the city, but that residents will pay a fee. And so I wanted to understand the difference between the two. So thank you for that. Thank you, Madam President. Member Doha, thank

President Sheffield

02:15:39

you, Madam

Speaker 7

02:15:40

President. We can go a little bit further, I know, just to member Johnson's point, and committee folks wanted to know what the exact fee is. When we just go deeper and explain that how that will vary based on that trans on those transactions.

Speaker 46

02:15:54

Absolutely. So the fee for credit card transactions. So if you were to pay your fee via credit card, is 2.35% and then if you were to use ACH without setting up an account or via your email or your phone number, it's $2.50 it becomes $0 if you either provide your email or your cellphone Number, the reason why we really want that is it allows us to do proactive communication with residents, Hey, your bills due, or hey, your bills passed due, or there's a change in our office hours or customer service. It allows us to communicate. It also allows them to save their payment methods so everything's online if they want to now, if they're paying utility bills, it's a $2.50 cent fee. And the reason why that's different is federal regulation just makes it so that you cannot charge a percentage fee for utility bills. It's a flat rate. And there's thresholds upon which, if a commercial entity is paying a utility bill, they'll have to split that payment up into multiple bills. So if it's above certain threshold for a large utility company, they can't just put that all on one bill. There is also an option in the future, if the city wants to consider making this a completely free option for ACH or electronic payment, that the city could look into. The downside there is it's a direct cost of hundreds of 1000s of dollars to the city to take on that fee, but also something that we can explore. And I know this wasn't part of the question, but a really important thing that I want to emphasize is we know that there's a large unbanked population in the city of Detroit. Paying with cash downstairs isn't an option today. You can at the kiosk. What this allows an individual to do. What would allow an individual to do is take their at least. We're going to start with property tax bills to a CVS, a WalMart. We don't have Rite Aids anymore, but used to be Rite Aids. They're working on getting Meyer in so you can take that bill while you're doing groceries and pay your bills there. Now there's a transaction fee there too that's similar to this. The retailers control that, but we wanted to allow people to pay with cash in their normal routine activities in the community. Thank you,

President Sheffield

02:18:08

Madam President, thank you. All right, I'm sure yes. Council member Callaway,

Speaker 11

02:18:13

thank you. Thank you for the clarification. So you're saying that when a person pays their property tax bill, to use this service, or if we contract this service, is going to be a 2.35% fee to use my credit card on top of the other fees that I have to you pay to use the credit card.

Speaker 46

02:18:36

So the only fee for making the payment, let's say your bill is $100 sorry, through the chair. Let's say your fee is $100 there would be an incremental $2.35 the 2.35% on that $100 bill to use your credit card that would get charged to the taxpayer. It's very similar to what did that. I don't know the exact decimal point percentage for div debt, but it's off by maybe like 10 basis points, and so it's very similar to what divad does today. Well, you can go to kiosk and pay via check or ACH on divdad or divdat online as potential free options.

Speaker 11

02:19:16

Okay, I'm just trying to I'm just trying to understand, so what's the process now, for if person would were to go in with their credit card downstairs and pay their property tax bill, yep, what's the process? Now

Speaker 46

02:19:28

the process is they would go to the kiosk downstairs on the first floor, put in their information. They could even scan it, and then when they swipe their credit card, it will ask them, Are you okay with this transaction fee? So it's a similar structure, the percentage is slightly off. But they also get charged a convenience fee for using credit card bill. What's

Unknown Speaker

02:19:45

the convenience what is the current convenience fee? I

Speaker 46

02:19:48

believe the current convenience fee is 2.4 something, but I can get you that exact number right now. It's like 2.35 from this.

Unknown Speaker

02:19:56

Well, you rounded off. That's 2.4 right? Thank you, Madam Chair.

President Sheffield

02:20:01

Thank you. Member Calloway, yes. Council member Johnson,

Speaker 12

02:20:04

thank you, Madam President. Just briefly to that point, are there ways to pay, let's say, property tax bills, in particular, outside of pimentos.

Speaker 46

02:20:21

So the current option that we have is div debt, or you can mail a check to the city. So part of the genesis of this was to address a lot of the customers pain points that we routinely hear. We do not have a good ability to refund people's payments if there's a need to refund in a timely manner. We cannot provide residents today the option of going somewhere online to see their payment history. We cannot allow them to make payments using the same system, same payment methods on other bills across the city. It's just full of friction. And so what we wanted to do is bring on this new payment platform that has technology capabilities meant for 2024 that can develop over time, be expanded across the city. And so your question was, how else? How can people pay today? It's div debt. Or you can go on mobile, Div debt. Or you can go on the web, Div debt. Or you can mail a check to the city of Detroit. Or you can take cash to the kiosk itself. You can go downstairs and put cash in the system as well.

Speaker 12

02:21:27

Thank you for that, and thank you for your assistance in getting a district four residents payment refunded to him, because I know that has been very difficult in the past, and sometimes people felt that if they paid twice, that they just wouldn't see that money again, that it may be credited to a future bill. And you know, sometimes you need your cash when you need it, right? Are there opportunities to pay in a bank any longer?

Speaker 46

02:22:01

So through the Chair, I believe you might be referring to the plan ahead program. Potentially, there's right now, we don't have an option where you can directly pay the bank for a property tax bill. And there's a bit of a nuance there, right? We have a program called plan ahead. So the purpose of Plan Ahead is before your tax bills come out on July 1. Some people don't have a mortgage company on the home that they own, and so it's hard to plan on a monthly basis that I need to save, put aside $200 a month to pay this huge amount that comes due in July and then later in December. So what we've developed past leadership is developed as a program that would allow you to pay starting February 1 into the plan ahead program, and as soon as the bill comes out, July one, whatever that individual put in that plan ahead program will get swept into their account or their parcel for their property. And if there's a balance and they still owe that balance, that's another problem that we're trying to solve. That's a for lack of better word, clunky process, right? If we have better software systems, we can make that user interface better, drive more clarity, and we are trying to make that user experience better for the customers. Thank

Unknown Speaker

02:23:18

you. Appreciate it. Thank you, Madam President.

President Sheffield

02:23:23

All right, thank you. Member Johnson, and if there are no additional questions, member durha did move these for approval. Are there any objections, up to 15.4 All right, Hearing no objections. Those resolutions will be approved. Thank you for being here, sir. Thank

Speaker 7

02:23:44

you, Madam President. Request a waiver for line items 15.2 through 15.4

President Sheffield

02:23:51

any objections to a waiver hearing, none that action will be taken. Council member durha, thank

Speaker 7

02:23:56

you, Madam President, line item 15.5 this is the resolution of authorization for an extension of time and increase for grant compliance services Move for approval of line item 15.5

President Sheffield

02:24:09

any objections, Hearing no objections, the one resolution will be approved

Unknown Speaker

02:24:15

request waiver. Line out of 15.5

President Sheffield

02:24:20

Hearing no objections, a waiver will be attached to 15.5 member. Durha, thank you,

Speaker 7

02:24:24

Madam President, Move approval for line items, 15.6 and 15.7 these both are contracts that provide an extension and time and increase for funds for facility, MRO industrial and building relating related supplies and equipment.

President Sheffield

02:24:41

Right any objections, Hearing no objections, the two resolutions will be approved

Speaker 7

02:24:47

request a waiver for both line items. Madam President,

President Sheffield

02:24:50

Hearing no objections, a waiver will be attached to both items. Member durha, Move

Speaker 7

02:24:55

approval for line items 15.8 through 15 point 10. I Okay,

President Sheffield

02:25:02

all right. Motion has been made for approval. Are there any objections? Hearing? No objections. The three resolutions will be approved. Request

Speaker 7

02:25:13

the waiver for line items, 15.8 through 15 point 10.

President Sheffield

02:25:17

Any objections? Hearing, none and did you say eight? 15.9 as well,

Unknown Speaker

02:25:24

15.8

Unknown Speaker

02:25:25

through 15.

President Sheffield

02:25:26

Thank you. All right, Hearing no objections. The a waiver will be attached to the resolutions. All right, moving along from the Board of Review Council

Speaker 33

02:25:39

Member durha, a resolution line item 15 point 11.

President Sheffield

02:25:44

Council Member durha, thank

Speaker 7

02:25:45

you, Madam President. Line item 15 point 11 is a resolution of authorization for the 2023 homeowners property exemption amended. This is again an amendment to the homeowners property tax Move for approval for line item 15 point 11.

President Sheffield

02:26:06

Right? Any objections, hearing, none. The one resolution will

Speaker 7

02:26:12

be approved. Request a waiver for line item 15 point 11. Hearing, no objections,

President Sheffield

02:26:16

a waiver will be attached to 15 point 11 from the Office of the Chief Financial Office.

Speaker 33

02:26:24

Council Member durhall, a resolution line item 15 point 12.

President Sheffield

02:26:28

Council Member durhall, thank you, Madam

Speaker 7

02:26:30

President. Line Out of 15 point 12 is a resolution of authorization to create and fund the solar equity fund. Move for a brief discussion.

President Sheffield

02:26:37

Yes discussion, thank you, Madam

Speaker 7

02:26:39

President, we had opportunity to speak with the administration as well, noting that other council members had questions regarding this, and there are subsequent bills that are in public health and safety. Therefore, we will be asking for a one week postponement for line item 15, point 12.

President Sheffield

02:26:58

Any objections. Hearing, none we will postpone 15 point 12 from the office of the city clerk, City Planning Commission.

Speaker 33

02:27:09

Council Member durhall, a resolution. Line item 15 point 13.

President Sheffield

02:27:14

Council Member durha, thank you, Madam

Speaker 7

02:27:16

President. Line item 15 point 13 is resolution of authorization for a neighborhood enterprise zone certificate, application for the construction of 20 condominium units, generally located on the south side of palester Avenue near Churchill and Woodrow Wilson streets, has been recommended for approval by the CPC, as well as the committee Move for approval for line item 15, point 13,

President Sheffield

02:27:37

any objections, hearing, no objections, the one resolution will be approved

Unknown Speaker

02:27:44

request a waiver for line item 15 point 13, Madam

Unknown Speaker

02:27:47

President,

President Sheffield

02:27:47

Hearing no objections, a waiver will be attached to 15 point 13 for the internal operations Standing Committee under unfinished business.

Speaker 33

02:27:58

Council member Johnson, an ordinance noting a roll call line item 16.1,

President Sheffield

02:28:06

Council Member Johnson,

Speaker 12

02:28:07

thank you, Madam President, I move to take from the table an ordinance to amend chapter one of the 2019 Detroit city code General Provisions by amending section One, dash one, dash 11, severability of parts of code in order to ensure clarity in the 2019 Detroit city code and avoid terms that unintentionally conflict with legislative intent laid on the table May 7 to May 7, 2024

President Sheffield

02:28:42

No That's great. Yeah, that would sometimes the dates are

Speaker 33

02:28:45

dated. So you know Through you, madam president, delayed on the table date is the date that it was approved through Council as it introduced.

President Sheffield

02:28:56

Okay, all right, so Hearing no objections that action will be taken. Council member Johnson,

Speaker 12

02:29:01

thank you, Madam President, I move the ordinance be placed on the order of third reading and considered read,

President Sheffield

02:29:07

Hearing no objections, that action will be taken. Council member Johnson,

Speaker 12

02:29:12

thank you, Madam President, I move the ordinance be passed as submitted. There

President Sheffield

02:29:15

being a roll call required. Would the clerk please call the roll?

Unknown Speaker

02:29:18

Council member Mary waters,

Unknown Speaker

02:29:22

yes,

Speaker 33

02:29:23

Council Member Angela Whitfield, Callaway, Council Member Pullman here on the second yes Council President, Mary Sheffield, yes. Council member Scott Benson, yes. Council member Fred durha The third Yes. Council member Letitia Johnson, yes. Council member Gabriella Santiago Romero, yes. Council President Pro Tem James Tate, yes. Nine yeas, That motion passes. Madam President,

President Sheffield

02:29:48

the ordinance is approved. Council member Johnson,

Speaker 12

02:29:51

I move that the title to the ordinance be confirmed, Hearing no

President Sheffield

02:29:55

objections that action will be taken from the mayor's office. Council

Speaker 33

02:30:01

member Johnson to resolutions. Line item 16.2 and 16.3

President Sheffield

02:30:08

council member Johnson, thank

Speaker 12

02:30:10

you, Madam President, Move for approval on line item 16.2 and 16.3 line item 16.2 is the joint reappointment of Dr Jim Dr Jamil. Smith to the board of ethics, effective immediately with the term ending on june 30, 2029 and line item 16.3 is the joint reappointment of Judge Edward Thomas to the Detroit building authority, effective immediately with the term ending January, 28 2028

President Sheffield

02:30:49

Hearing no objections, that action will be taken you.

President Sheffield

02:31:08

Madam Clerk moving along to our office of contracting and procurement council

Speaker 33

02:31:12

member Johnson, seven resolutions, line item 16.4, through 16 point 10. First contract is contract number 6001710, dash, a two, 100% city funding amendment two, to provide an extension of time for workers comp and auto no fault insurance. Contractor comp one, administrators incorporated total contract amount, $6,956,644 and that's for law. Next contract, Contract Number 6006182, 100% city funding to provide GIS Geo, location mapping software and services. Contractor, Environmental Systems Research Institute incorporated total contract amount 1,830,000 that's for do it next contract, Contract Number 6006270, 100% ARPA funding to install 200 KW generator for lending garage. Contractor, Motor City Electric Company. Total contract, amount, $365,932 that's for do it next. Contract line item, 16.7 contract number 6006393, amended, 100% city funding to provide policy and consulting services for the regulation of cannabis licenses. Contractor Plunkett Cooney, PC, total contract amount, 250,000 that's for creo. Next contract is contract number 6001653, dash, a, six, 100% risk management funding amendment six, to provide an extension of time and an increase of funds for litigation and appeal support services, contractors Plunkett and Cooney PC total, contract amount 1,500,000 that's for law. Next contract is contract number 3075735, 100% city funding to provide carpet and painting for City Clerk's Office contractor Detroit Wayne joint building authority. Total contract amount, $33,025 that's for the office of the city clerk. Last contract is contract number 6003718, dash, a two, 100% ARPA funding amendment two, to provide an extension of time for attempt to hire services. Contractor I managed group incorporated total contract amount 945,000 that's for human resources. Council member Johnson, several resolutions.

President Sheffield

02:33:50

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Council member Johnson, thank

Speaker 12

02:33:53

you, Madam President. Move for approval on line item 16.4 through 16 point 10.

President Sheffield

02:34:01

Right? Any discussion? Discussion,

Unknown Speaker

02:34:02

Madam Chair,

President Sheffield

02:34:03

discussion, yes. Council member Callaway, yeah,

Speaker 11

02:34:05

thank you, Madam Chair, is there anyone on for Human Services? Line item, 16 point 10? Just have a couple questions.

President Sheffield

02:34:14

All right, Mr Washington, do we have anyone on for 16 point 10?

Speaker 6

02:34:21

Sure. I do see Sonia Clifton from procurement online. I'll reach out to HR team

Unknown Speaker

02:34:26

as well. Okay, so

President Sheffield

02:34:32

no one is on. He's going to reach out so we can, you want us to we can postpone this to the end of the agenda to allow someone to come on. I do see Miss Clifton has joined us. Good afternoon. Miss Clifton,

Speaker 11

02:34:47

good afternoon. Honorable body. Clifton, Office of contracting and procurement,

President Sheffield

02:34:52

okay. Are you able to address line item 16, point 10?

Speaker 11

02:34:55

I can only address the time only extension. I cannot answer questions regarding the rationale I would have to defer to the department the human, excuse me, Human Resources defer to them. Member Callaway,

President Sheffield

02:35:10

I'm not sure what which your question. Is it procurement? Or you want to speak to Human Services? Okay, all right, so we will postpone this towards the end of the agenda to allow the HR department to come on. If there are no objections, it will postpone six not we'll move it to the end of our agenda, line item 16 point 10. Any further discussion on the remaining items? Hearing none member Johnson has moved these for approval, excluding 16 point 10. Are there any objections?

Speaker 13

02:35:44

Objection, show me as injections. Line item 16.7 Councilman Scott

Unknown Speaker

02:35:51

Benson, clerk will So note Madam President,

President Sheffield

02:35:53

the clerk would know Madam Chair, yes,

Speaker 11

02:35:56

if you can show council member Callaway as a no on line item 16.7 and 16.8

President Sheffield

02:36:12

the clerk would note, clerk will still note, Madam

Unknown Speaker

02:36:14

President,

President Sheffield

02:36:17

Any additional objections? Right, hearing none those resolutions will be approved. Madam

Unknown Speaker

02:36:24

President,

President Sheffield

02:36:25

yes, I'd

Unknown Speaker

02:36:27

like to request a waiver online item, 16.2 through 16.6 and 16.9

President Sheffield

02:36:41

any objections to a waiver. All right, hearing none a waiver will be attached to those items. Yes. Mr Washington, do you have something?

Unknown Speaker

02:36:55

Yes, Madam Chair,

Speaker 6

02:36:56

we have been joined by HR. Daryl Conrad is online.

President Sheffield

02:37:01

All right, we will move Darrell Conrad over

Unknown Speaker

02:37:04

and through the chair. He is under the name Conrad.

President Sheffield

02:37:11

Hey, he has been promoted, and we'll go back up to the item that we postponed since he's on now for member Calloway, Thank you. Member Pro Temp Tate. He has moved that for discussion. Member Callaway, the floor is yours? Yeah. Thank

Speaker 11

02:37:26

you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just interested in knowing who, where are the temps located throughout the city, because it says time for temp to hire services. I didn't, I didn't know that we were hiring temporary employees through a temp service.

Unknown Speaker

02:37:45

Shouldn't speak through, through the chair.

President Sheffield

02:37:49

Go right ahead, sir. Okay. These

Speaker 47

02:37:51

are actually not temporary employees. These are full time ARPA employees working on the ARPA projects back a few years ago, when we knew that we were going to be doubling our our increase of hires, we decided to reach out to a staffing company. Advantage is one of our staffing companies that we use. It's actually the solo company that we are using to fill some of the hard to fill positions, such as CDL, vehicle operators, mechanics. They've also placed some civil engineers. They charge us a fee for finding these people, and they've been able to augment my team in finding people. And so they work in in Detroit, and they work on ARPA projects,

Speaker 11

02:38:42

so after the through the chair, so after the ARPA dollars are no longer available. This contract goes away because this is a, I guess, a service, temporary agency out in Brighton, Michigan.

Speaker 47

02:38:58

Chair. Yes, they would be ARPA employees have a time limit on their employment. So generally, they work as passes. Some of the more critical ones, like the engineers, the vehicle operators, mechanics that I did mention, they will continue to work with the city. They are actually in the general fund, but since there's a huge shortage and across the nation in these types of positions, we knew that we were going to need some additional help. So they will continue to work. Many of them live in Detroit. We have about a 65% ratio as far as hiring Detroiters. So they will not only work in Detroit. Many of them will be living in Detroit, and they will some of them will carry on beyond ARPA,

Speaker 11

02:39:58

okay, and through the chair. It's real interesting to me that we have to go to Brighton to hire folks who live in Detroit to work for us. I find that very interesting. Thank you, Madam Chair.

President Sheffield

02:40:08

Thank you so much. Council member Callaway and member Johnson would move it for approval again. Move for

Unknown Speaker

02:40:16

approval on line item 16, point 10. Motion

President Sheffield

02:40:20

has been made. Are there any objections? Objects? Objection? Objection?

Unknown Speaker

02:40:22

Madam Chair, if you can show

Unknown Speaker

02:40:26

me as a no, the clerk will please, no 10,

President Sheffield

02:40:27

and if you can also show me as a note on 16 point 10 as well,

Unknown Speaker

02:40:32

please, clerk will So note. Madam President,

President Sheffield

02:40:34

right, hearing no further objections, the one resolution will be approved from the law department. Council

Speaker 33

02:40:44

member John sent nine resolutions, nine items 16 point 11 through 16 point 19.

President Sheffield

02:40:51

Council member Johnson,

Speaker 12

02:40:52

thank you, Madam President, Move for approval online item 16 point 11 through 16 point 19. These are various lawsuit settlement requests,

President Sheffield

02:41:04

any objections, hearing, no objections. The nine resolutions will be approved from the Human Resources, Labor Relations Division

Speaker 33

02:41:18

council member Johnson, a resolution. Line item 16, point 20

President Sheffield

02:41:24

council member Johnson, thank

Speaker 12

02:41:25

you, Madam President, Move for approval. This is the implementation of a 4% wage increase for non union uniform police executives, amended to only include the deputy chiefs.

President Sheffield

02:41:41

Right any objections, Hearing no objections, the one resolution will be approved. Madam

Speaker 12

02:41:50

President, yes, I'd like to request a waiver on line item 16 point 20. All

President Sheffield

02:41:56

right, and Hearing no objections, a waiver will be attached to line item 16 point 20 under resolutions,

Speaker 33

02:42:05

Council Member Johnson to resolution. I mean, sorry, madam president, you want to go first. They are recommendations for appointment to the board of ethics, right? Thank

President Sheffield

02:42:19

you. And as we move forward, I see attorney Barclay has joined us. Good afternoon. Good

Speaker 11

02:42:30

afternoon. What you have before you, what you have before you is a ballot for appointment to the board of ethics, there are three candidates, Quran pinkens, LaTonya Richardson and Lavon Turner. You may choose one individual from this list. Okay,

President Sheffield

02:42:55

all right. Everyone has received a ballot. We are to choose one individual, yes, okay, so we are to select one person, only, one person from the three that are listed, and everyone should have their ballot.

Speaker 11

02:43:13

Sorry, Madam Chair, may I ask you go right ahead. Which one is an attorney, but Tanya or Lavon, which did you say one of them was an attorney? I did not. You did not, and I am not sure, okay,

President Sheffield

02:43:33

yes, yes, I will. Thank you. I will do that. I

Unknown Speaker

02:43:51

You want to give it?

Unknown Speaker

02:43:53

Let me Just get there.

Speaker 33

02:45:38

Madam President, yes, thank you. We have to vote for Quran pinkens, Council Member Benson for LaTonya Richardson council member, durhall orders, Johnson, Santiago Romero, young Council President, Sheffield for Lavon Turner, Council Member Oh Tim Tate and council member Calloway, and we make LaTonya Richardson have six votes.

President Sheffield

02:46:14

All right, thank you, Attorney Barclay, anything additional? No,

Speaker 42

02:46:18

there. There is not. So you can go back to 1622 which will make

Unknown Speaker

02:46:27

LaTonya Richardson your next appointee to the board of

President Sheffield

02:46:29

Okay. Thank you so much. Council member Johnson,

Speaker 12

02:46:34

thank you, Madam President. Move for approval online. Item 16 point 22 to appoint LaTonya Richardson to the board of ethics for a term, beginning July 1, 2024 and ending June 30, 2029

President Sheffield

02:46:51

Hearing no objections, the resolution will be approved under resolutions,

Speaker 33

02:46:58

Council Member Johnson a resolution line item 16 point 23

President Sheffield

02:47:03

council member Johnson, thank

Speaker 12

02:47:04

you, Madam President, Move for approval on line item 16 point 23 to appoint Peggy Goodwin to the tow rate commission.

President Sheffield

02:47:12

Are there any objections? Your discussion? Discussion, yes. Council member Calloway, thank

Speaker 11

02:47:17

you, Madam Chair. Um, I remember a week or so ago when this came before the internal operations committee. And I think one of my colleagues asked a question, and I did not attend the session last week, so I don't know through you to through the chair to the chair of that committee, Chair Johnson. I had never heard of the toll rate commission didn't know there were any vacancies or appointments to be made. Did we get clarification or answers to those questions?

Speaker 12

02:47:53

Thank you Through you, madam president, to the Auditor General. MS, Goodspeed, I will defer to her, because I did have a conversation with her subsequent to the iOS meeting two weeks ago,

President Sheffield

02:48:13

auditor general through the

Speaker 1

02:48:15

chair, Laura Goodspeed, Auditor General, the city charter allows for five persons on the toll rate commission. I am the chair of the toll rate Commission. It calls for an appointee from the Detroit Police Department, from the building safety engineering and environmental department, one appointee from the mayor's office, representing the public, and one appointee from City Council representing the toll the towing industry. The toll rate commission is specifically dealing with police authorized tolls, and we want to make that clear, it is to establish the rates for the police authorized tolls. The charter requires that the commission be convened every two years to review the weight the rates and make a recommendation before City Council. The commission was has not been convened since 2012 when my predecessor, former auditor general, Mark Lockridge, convening that commission, and through the public health and safety committee, we were requested to convene to provide this honorable body with the recommendation before October 1 of this year,

Speaker 11

02:49:38

through The chair. One more question. So it's in the charter, when, when was the toll commission supposed to meet? You said they haven't met since 2012

Speaker 1

02:49:50

22,012 according to the charter, it's supposed to meet every two years to review the rates in 2022 the representatives of the toll rate commission, went before the public health and safety committee and presented a made a president, made a presentation requesting an increase to the toll rates and provided documentation and requested that the toll rate commission be convened. Yeah. And

Speaker 11

02:50:22

just one more question. I don't know if you can answer this or through the chair, to my colleague, Santiago Romero, does Peggy Goodwin have any ties to the tax I'm sorry, to the toll towing industry?

Speaker 1

02:50:35

Yes, if I may, through the chair, Miss Goodwin is currently the Public Affairs representative for the Detroit towards Association. She has been with that organization for 21 years, I believe, and has received the blessings of the Detroit tours to represent them as their as your appointee on the commission, very knowledgeable of the industry. She has emerged as the out My second recommendation to city council, given that some of the current tours are involved with a lawsuit against the city and so Miss Goodwin did emerge as a fair and reasonable represent, representative for the toll rate commission. I also want to point out that the corporation Council Mallory did weigh in on the situation and has also approved her appointment to the Commission. Thank

Speaker 11

02:51:43

not that that matters. I'm sorry through the chair, not that matters that he approves. But thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Thank

President Sheffield

02:51:48

you so much. Member Callaway Council. Member Santiago Romero, thank you, Madam President. And just want to share that we did reach out to every council office on april 11 and june 13, about this appointment, asking for any recommended, any recommended nominees. Frankly, I don't know people in the tow industry. Was pretty hard to get to this place, but it's, it's what we have to do, is what's being asked of us right now. Just want to thank our ag for what you've done, and this was really hard to do. And want to thank you for going through the process right now. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. All right, thank you. Council member, hearing, no additional questions, concerns. Member Johnson has moved this appointment for approval. Are there any objections? Hearing, no objections. The one resolution will be approved. Thank you so much. Miss good speech for the Planning and Development Committee under unfinished business council.

Speaker 33

02:52:44

President Pro Tem James Tate, an ordinance noting a roll call nine, item 17.1,

President Sheffield

02:52:50

President Pro Temp Tate, Madam

Speaker 7

02:52:51

President, I move to take from the table and ordinance to amend chapter 50 of the 2019 Detroit city code zoning by amending article 17, zoning district maps section 50, 1711 district map 10 to revise the zoning classification for certain properties generally bounded by the first alley east of Oakland Avenue, Westminster Avenue, the first alley east of Goodwin Street and Owen street from the existing r2, two family residential district to the d4 general business district, zoning classifications to the SD, one, special development district, small scale mixed use zoning classification laid on the table. May 14, 2024

President Sheffield

02:53:42

so four, hearing, no objections that action will be taken. President Pro Temp Tate and President,

Speaker 7

02:53:47

I move that the ordinance be placed on the order of third reading and considered read,

President Sheffield

02:53:52

hearing, no objections that action will be taken. President Pro Temp Tate,

Unknown Speaker

02:53:56

I move that the ordinance be passed as submitted.

President Sheffield

02:53:59

There being a roll call required. Would the clerk please call the roll council member Angela

Speaker 33

02:54:03

Whitfield, Callaway. Council member call me on a second Yes. Council President, Mary Sheffield,

President Sheffield

02:54:11

yes.

Speaker 33

02:54:11

Council member Scott Vincent, yes. Council member Fred durhall, the third Yes. Council member Leticia Johnson, yes. Council member Gabriella Santiago Romero, yes. Council President, pro temp James Tate, yes. Council member, Mary waters, yes. Nine yeas, That motion passes. Madam President,

President Sheffield

02:54:29

the ordinance is approved. Pro Temp. Tate

Unknown Speaker

02:54:33

President, I move that the title of the ordinance be confirmed,

President Sheffield

02:54:36

Hearing no objections that action will be taken under unfinished business. Council

Speaker 33

02:54:43

President Pro Tem James, take an ordinance note in a roll call line item 17.2

President Sheffield

02:54:49

President Pro Tem Tate.

Speaker 7

02:54:50

President I move to take from the table an ordinance to amend chapter 50 of the 2019 Detroit city code zoning by amending article 17 zoning district maps, Section 5017, 69 district map number 67 to modify an existing PD Plan Development District established by ordinance six, dash nine, zero, located on the northern most 35 feet of property, generally bounded by the Southfield freeway, rail line, artesian Street and the residential area south of west Davidson street laid on the table. May 28 2024

President Sheffield

02:55:34

Hearing no objections that action will be taken. President Pro Temp Tate,

Speaker 7

02:55:38

I move that the ordinance be placed on the order of third reading and considered read,

President Sheffield

02:55:42

Hearing no objections that action will be taken. President Pro Temp Tate,

Speaker 7

02:55:47

President, move, let the ordinance be passed as submitted. There being a

President Sheffield

02:55:51

roll call, please call the roll. Madam Clerk.

Speaker 33

02:55:53

Council member Colby, you on a second Yes? Council President Mary Sheffield, yes. Council member Scott Benson, yes. Council member Frederick Hall, the third Yes. Council member Leticia Johnson, yes. Council member Gabriella Santiago Romero Yes. Council President, pro tem James Tate Yes. Council member Mary waters Yes. Council member Angela Whitfield Callaway, nine yeas. That motion passes, Madam President,

President Sheffield

02:56:20

the ordinance is approved. Pro Temp Tate.

Speaker 7

02:56:23

Madam President, I move that the title of the ordinance be confirmed, Hearing no

President Sheffield

02:56:27

objections that action will be taken under unfinished business. Council

Speaker 33

02:56:33

President, pro tem James Tate, an ordinance known in a roll call line item 17.3,

President Sheffield

02:56:39

pro temp Tate. Madam

Speaker 7

02:56:40

President, I moved to take from the table an ordinance to amend chapter 50 of the 2019 Detroit city code zoning by amending article 17 zoning district maps, Section 50. Dash, 17. Dash, 44 district map number 42 to revise the zoning classification for certain properties, commonly known as 200 1/15 Street and 209 1/15 Street. From the existing m4, zoning classification to the b5, zoning classification laid on the table. May 28 2024

President Sheffield

02:57:16

Hearing no objections that action will be taken. President Pro Temp Tate,

Speaker 7

02:57:20

I move that the ordinance be placed on the order of third reading and considered read Hearing

President Sheffield

02:57:25

no objections that action will be taken. President Pro Temp Tate,

Unknown Speaker

02:57:29

I move the ordinance be passed as submitted.

President Sheffield

02:57:32

Madam Clerk, please

Speaker 33

02:57:32

call the roll. Council President Mary Sheffield, yes. Council member Scott Benson, Council Member Frederick third Yes. Council member Letitia Johnson, yes. Council member Gabriella Santiago Romero Yes. Council President Pro Tem James Tate, yes. Council member Mary waters, yes. Council member Angela Whitfield Callaway Yes. Council member call me on a second Yes, nine yeas, That motion passes. Madam President,

President Sheffield

02:57:59

the ordinance is approved. President Pro Temp Tate, madam,

Speaker 7

02:58:02

President, I move that the title of the ordinance be confirmed and Hearing

President Sheffield

02:58:07

no objections that action will be taken. Thank you. The Office of contracting and procurement Council.

Speaker 33

02:58:14

President Pro Tem James Tate, a resolution line item 17.4, is contract number 6006296, amended, 100% CDBG dash Dr funding to provide internal auditing services of CDBG funds. Contractor, title, basic government consulting, LLC, total contract amount, $74,850 and that's for the Office of the Chief Financial Officer. Council, President, pro temp Tate, a resolution.

President Sheffield

02:58:47

President, pro temp Tate.

Unknown Speaker

02:58:48

President, I move approval of line item 17.4

President Sheffield

02:58:53

All right. Any discussion? Hearing, none. Any objections to the item 17.4 Hearing no objections. The one resolution will be approved from the City Planning Commission. Council,

Speaker 33

02:59:12

President Pro Tem James Tate, an introduction of an ordinance line item 17.5

President Sheffield

02:59:18

President Pro Tem Tate, madam, President,

Speaker 7

02:59:19

I move that the ordinance be read twice by title, ordered printed and laid on the table.

President Sheffield

02:59:27

Any objections? Hearing? No objections. The one resolution will be approved from the City Planning Commission council

Speaker 33

02:59:38

president pro tem James Tate, a resolution set in a public hearing, line item 17.6

President Sheffield

02:59:45

President Pro Temp Tate.

Speaker 7

02:59:46

President, I move approval. Line item 17.6 for day to be determined.

President Sheffield

02:59:51

Right motion has been made for the scheduling of a public hearing, and this is for MHT housing regarding the Jay zoo Catholic Church rezoning, any objections to scheduling a public hearing? Hearing, no objections. The one resolution will be approved from the city, City Planning Commission, council president

Speaker 33

03:00:14

pro tem James Tate, an introduction of an ordinance line item 17.7

President Sheffield

03:00:20

President Pro Tem Tate, Madam

Speaker 7

03:00:21

President, I move that the ordinance be read twice by title, ordered printed and laid on the tape.

President Sheffield

03:00:29

Hearing no objections that action will be taken from the City Planning Commission,

Speaker 33

03:00:36

Council, President Pro Tem James Tate, a resolution set in the public hearing line item 17.8

President Sheffield

03:00:43

President Pro Tem Tate, Madam

Speaker 7

03:00:44

President, I move approval of line item 17.8 for date to be determined,

President Sheffield

03:00:50

Hearing no objections. The resolution will be approved for the scheduling of a public hearing for the from the City Planning Commission

Speaker 33

03:00:59

council president pro tem James Tate, a resolution line item 17.9

President Sheffield

03:01:06

President Pro Tem Tate, President,

Unknown Speaker

03:01:07

move approval of line item 17.9

President Sheffield

03:01:11

motion has been made for approval in 17.9 is a special district review for the roasting plant at 660, Woodward Avenue. Are there any objections? Hearing no objections. The one resolution will be approved from the housing and revitalization department council

Speaker 33

03:01:35

president pro tem James Tate. Two resolutions, line item, 1710 and 1711

President Sheffield

03:01:43

president, pro tem Tate

Speaker 7

03:01:44

president, move approval of line items, 17 point 10 and 17 point 11, please.

President Sheffield

03:01:52

Right motion has been made for approval. Are there any objections? Hearing? No objections. The two resolutions will be approved and from the planning and development department

Speaker 33

03:02:15

council president pro tem James Tate, nine resolutions. Line item 1712, through 17 point 20.

President Sheffield

03:02:24

President, pro temp Tate,

Speaker 7

03:02:25

Madam President, move approval of line items, 17 point 12 through 17 point 20, please.

President Sheffield

03:02:32

Right motion has been made for approval. And these are various property sales, along with various easements. Are there any objections? Hearing no objections. The nine resolutions will be approved. President

Speaker 7

03:02:51

Yes, as a request for a waiver online item 17, point 12, that is regarding the seniors.

President Sheffield

03:03:01

Yes, this is the city acquisition of 6547, 10 and 716, Mount Elliot. Any objections to a waiver for 17 point 12, hearing none a waiver will be attached to that item.

Unknown Speaker

03:03:19

Question, waiver line, 17 point 18.

President Sheffield

03:03:23

Okay. Waiver has been requested for 17 point 18, and Hearing no objections. This is regarding acquisition of property around the city airport. Chair, yes.

Speaker 11

03:03:36

Request waiver online item, 17 point 17,

President Sheffield

03:03:40

one second, just let me finish the vote for 17 point 18. Hearing, no objections, a waiver will be attached to 17 point 18. And then member Callaway line item, 17

Unknown Speaker

03:03:50

point 17, requesting

President Sheffield

03:03:51

a waiver. Right. Hearing, no objections, a waiver will be attached to 17 point 17. All right, moving along to the public health and safety, safety standing committee from the Office of contracting and procurement. Council

Speaker 33

03:04:09

Member Santiago Romero, three resolutions. Lines items, 18.1 through 18.3 noting that all three items were postponed from last week formal session. First up is 18.1 which is contract number 6006319, 100% proposal and bond funding to provide CD D demolition release group are eight contractor DMC consultants incorporated total contract amount $2,144,682.22 that's for construction and demolition. Next contract, Contract Number 6006320, 100% proposal and bond funding to provide CDD demolition release. Group r9 contractor, DMC consultants incorporated total contract amount $2,720,855 million, $720,855.55 cent that's for construction and demolition. Last contractors, Contract Number 6006317, 100% proposal and bond funding to provide CDD demolition release. Group r6 contractor DMC consultants incorporated total contract amount, $1,990,666.65 cent that's for construction and demolition. Council member, Santiago Romero, three resolutions,

President Sheffield

03:05:34

thank you, Madam Clerk. Member, Santiago Romero, thank you, Madam President. Request, not requesting to apologize. Motion for discussion. If there is any discussion for these items, discussion, all right, we'll start with you. Member Pro Temp Tate,

Speaker 7

03:05:49

thank you, Madam President. Request, I know I did ask for a postponement for one week online item 18.3 to allow my team to go out and verify some of the all of the locations which they did, submitted a memo to Director counts, who this morning, sent back information as well. My team did send them late, I will, I must say that, so I still need some time to have a further discussion with the director to ensure that any and all issues have been addressed. So I would request for a post one week postponement, and this should be the last one. Colleagues 18.3 please.

President Sheffield

03:06:32

Any objections to postponing line item 18.3 Hearing no objections. We will postpone line item 18.3 and for the remaining two items, I did have the opportunity to talk to Director counts. We started to kind of Google some of the properties that are listed within these groups categories. And when we found some of the properties listed, we thought that they looked salvageable. Some of them were brick structures, and we were a bit concerned about some of these properties actually listed as demolition. And so I did have a conversation with Director counts, who mentioned that some of those pictures may be outdated. And so she did commit to moving forward providing actual, up to date pictures of each property that is being listed here for demolition moving forward so that we can have a better sense of the condition of the properties as we are moving forward with approval for demolition. So director counts, if you are on, if you could just please briefly Come on, because that was my concern. As these groups are getting bigger and bigger, we're talking 6070 properties is kind of, you know, challenging for from an oversight standpoint, to make sure we have accurate, up to date information on the condition and status of each property within these groups of properties. We also talked about the survey to possibly being attached as well. So director counsel, if you can just speak to that please

Speaker 42

03:08:02

through the chair this lawn counts director of the construction and demolition department. And yes, the packages are actually getting smaller. And right now, these groups, before you are about 80. Historically, we submitted packages of about 120 properties, and that was by design, in order to ensure that the contractors who actually receive that work were able to keep a crew working for an entire year. So we're getting towards the bottom of our inventory of properties that need to be demolished, and so those packages are getting smaller. We do anticipate we're probably about the last 500 600 or so properties that'll be coming before you outside of these groups that would require approval for us to complete our inventory, and we definitely can provide you with those photos for all of the properties that are coming in the future groups, so that you can see the most current information. We take a survey of every property that we submit for for contract approval, and we take a current photo, both inside and throughout the properties. That's that's just a part of the process for survey. We can also provide the survey information, I would, however, tell you that that's going to be quite a bit of information. So if there are particular properties in particular that the council is interested in reviewing, we can definitely share those directly. Each survey, roughly, has anywhere from 15 to 20 pages, depending on the materials that are found inside of each property, but that information is definitely available for your use and review whenever you whenever you requested or needed or wanted, whatever the case may be, and we can make sure that that information is available to you. And the one thing I did want to mention about the Vogue the Google images is that you have to be certain that the Google image that you're looking at is a current is a current photo. A lot of time the images from from Google, and even some of the images that we have in Salesforce will be old photos. They could be from 510, years ago, and that it does not accurately reflect what the current conditions are of those particular properties. And so that's why we could definitely provide you what with those photos at the time that we submit the property addresses. All

President Sheffield

03:10:21

right, thank you. And I know we spoke offline about this, and at minimum, at least, requesting the photos, I understand the survey could be pages and pages long, and I think based on the review of the initial information, as well as the photos, council members can request on their own, additional survey information for properties as needed. So thank you for that information. And I did also want to mention, before I turn it over to pro temp Tate, that our office is also submitting a memo regarding several of the contractors that have been doing business in Detroit. And I was a little bit surprised to see their number of employees that are Detroiters, very low. Sala bean has 83 overall employees, only two are Detroiters. Adamo has 75 employees, only three are Detroiters. Comrich has 85 employees, and only four are Detroiters. And all of these are companies that, since I've been here, have been doing work in the city, and I know that procurement in Creo should be working with these contractors on how they increase that percentage of Detroiters. So we will submit a follow up memo. I know I talked with you, and you mentioned that that was more procurement in creo, and that the makeup of the contract, contractors, employees may be a little bit different, so interested to hearing more about it and how they're working to increase those percentage of Detroit workers through the chair Yes, Director Collins, I

Speaker 42

03:11:53

just would like to comment on that really quickly. I actually did reach out to the contractors directly after our conversation and the numbers that are being reported, that's there, though, that's those are those numbers for their entire company. So while Salome hamridge and Adamo all do work that support the city, they also do work outside of the city as well. And so those numbers capture all of their employees. I did speak to each one and was able to confirm how many employees they have that are identified for their Detroit work, because that is a part of their capacity as a as a part of their ability to be able to win contracts with us as well. And so Salam bean currently has six employees that are performing Detroit work, and of those six, three are Detroiters. Homage has 11 employees who are performing Detroit work, and they currently have three Detroit residents who work for them. Adamo has 18 employees who they have assigned to Detroit work, and they have five that are currently performing, that are currently Detroit residents. So we can definitely make sure that we, you know, provide that that that information for you formally as well.

President Sheffield

03:13:05

Thank you. Because the the amount of work that they receive in Detroit, you say only three, I just the numbers are a bit low to me to handle the the the volume of contracts that they're getting that you see in our are based here in Detroit, that seems a little bit off. So we we will still submit our memo and just get that breakdown and see over the years how those number had, numbers have changed and or grown as relates to Detroit jobs. These are low barrier to access or to entry jobs. You want to make sure that Detroiters are prioritized. So I appreciate that that information, we will still submit our memorandum director counts. Thank you, President Pro Tem Tate, thank

Speaker 7

03:13:45

you, Madam, President, it's actually turning something that you indicated, just to make sure, were you saying that from here on out, we'll, we'll receive the batches in advance to allow for our teams to do the due diligence ahead of time, because when we get them, we're often asked to approve them, literally that weekend, you know, we want to go back and take a look as well. So based on your conversations with the director, you saying that we shall now receive the upcoming batches well in advance to allow for us to do our due diligence. Yep,

President Sheffield

03:14:15

and I will let Director counts just respond to our conversation and what your thinking was around it, but it was definitely to ensure that we had the appropriate amount of time to review the updated pictures with the contracts that are coming before Council moving forward. So if you can just respond to that, Director counts,

Speaker 42

03:14:32

so through the chair I, I initially we were just, I was just providing the photos. I'm not opposed to providing the information that we submit to Office of contracting and procurement to the council members at the same time that would give you the opportunity to see the properties while it's going through the bid process. I don't have a problem with providing that information in advance.

Speaker 7

03:14:57

Thank you, and to you through you, Madam President, to director comes how, what does that time frame look like by the time from the time you submit the photos to OCP to the time that it actually comes to this table. So we know we postpone the vote on these three particular batches last week, when were they first submitted to OCP, just to get an understanding of what our our timeline looks like, because I actually want my team to go out and physically look at the properties

Speaker 42

03:15:27

through the cheer. I don't know the exact date in which we submitted this last group, but it was, it was earlier this year, so maybe 223, months ago. That information was submitted to OCP. I want to say it's more on the two month side though. Okay, so

Speaker 7

03:15:42

I can slide that actual date though, that will certainly give us enough time to actually,

Speaker 42

03:15:46

I'm sorry, March 27 was the date. Alright, that

Unknown Speaker

03:15:49

helps. Thank you.

President Sheffield

03:15:51

Thank you pro tem council member Callaway. Thank

Speaker 11

03:15:53

you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to you. And pro Tim's questions, I have a question about major? Can you share the statistics? I'm not just statistics, but the numbers that you just shared with us early regarding Adamos, Abian and Hamrick. Can you regard the can you share those same numbers for major? Because right now, major is in my neighborhood where I live, and doing some street designs, and I've gone out there four times and taking pictures. I've not seen one African American worker during doing any of the work. And then Mr Brundage send out one of his assistants to come and see what I was talking about. And he saw what I saw. The only African American on the job was someone from DPW. I think they were a project manager. So I would want to know the same numbers for major, because they get quite a bit of work. I think they're experts in all fields, sidewalks, construction, you name it, they can do it. Building, demolition, you name it major. Can do it, for sure. They can do it. And we're helping them doing it. Help them to do it. So I'd like to know the same numbers that you just shared with council president regarding the number of African Americans that they have working on any given day, because for the last week, I've seen zero in a African American community. Madam Chair through Yes, Director brown counts

Speaker 42

03:17:20

through the Chair. I'm not aware that the construction and demolition department has any contracts with major at this time, and we can request um, that information from DPW for you.

Speaker 11

03:17:31

Yeah, no, I can request it on my own, so you don't have any open contracts with major through demolition and construction at this time

Speaker 42

03:17:39

through the chair, not that I'm aware of what through the

Unknown Speaker

03:17:43

chair. When was the most recent contract you've had with major

Speaker 42

03:17:48

through the chair? I remember them submitting a bid proposal on a project. I don't believe that they were the winning contractor on the one that they submitted. I do know that major has a tendency to have subcontract work with demolition contractors, but I'm not, I just don't recall them having a direct contract with the construction and demolition department at this time. Okay?

Speaker 11

03:18:11

And then Madam Chair, I'll ask my question regarding major in my neighborhood of I'll ask that question of DPW, but through the chair to miss counts, I would certainly want to know when was the last time directly we had your department had a contract? You don't have to answer it today, and we'll put it in writing with major.

Unknown Speaker

03:18:34

Through the Chair, I will investigate.

Speaker 11

03:18:35

Thank you for investigating. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. Thank

President Sheffield

03:18:39

you member Callaway, Council Member Johnson,

Speaker 12

03:18:42

thank you, Madam President, I had an opportunity to have a very similar conversation with Director counts relative to the properties that were presented to us for demolition in District Four. My team and I drove through to see many of the properties and direct accounts I know I sent over a particular property to you that I had some concerns about moving forward within this bundle. So can you speak to how we can address that

Speaker 42

03:19:18

through the chair? This the situation that council member Johnson is referring to is what happens to us frequently while we're out in the community. What happens is owners will transition ownership of properties and not properly follow through on the correct way in order to one remove the property from the demo list through buildings and safety. Or two, properly, you know, just notify that they have work that's taking place. So while at the time of the survey, when we are on site and we have inspected that particular location and identify the work that needs to take place, we leave and in that block of time from the time that we're gone, and we actually come back to begin abatement. Sometimes properties end up in, you know, possession of other people, and they begin to do work, and when we return at the time of abatement, oftentimes we will stop, because the first thing is, we've noticed that there's been some renovations at that location. And so we don't necessarily just barrel through with demo. We allow those owners the opportunity to apply for an application for deferral, which would basically cease demolition activities and allow them the time to restore the property and have it removed from have the order of demolition removed from the particular property. The property on Marlboro is no different from that. I've already had a conversation with council member Johnson stating that, basically, we will work with the owner to get them to go the correct route if they need to submit for their application of deferral. We will assist them in directing them to be seed and making sure that those individuals and buildings and safety are aware that this is a potential, that it could come off, and once they're given that approval, they have a certain timeline in which they have to bring the property into compliance. Now I can't, I won't say that. We won't come back, because they still have to do what they're supposed to do in the timeline, and at that time, BC could make a decision to extend their deferral, or they can make the decision that the order of demo stays. That's a part of the process, but I can tell you that once we're given that approved letter of deferral, the demolition activity cease until we're given additional notice. We do that with each property that we encounter where there's obviously some additional renovation work and the owner has positive intentions of restoring the property, but we do continue to move towards demo until that actually happens. I mean, these packages or these, these properties that been have been submitted at the time that we submitted them, the properties were where they said they were. If we encountered a property that potentially could have been pulled at the time of survey, we do it then too. We always make that that option available to pull properties throughout the demo process, because we don't want to demolish everything. We would much rather owners take full responsibility for their properties and restore them, but we also can't continue to have the safety consist safety concerns or issues that exist with these vacant and open properties

Unknown Speaker

03:22:31

across the city.

Speaker 12

03:22:34

Thank you. Director counts, I just wanted to put that on public record because I did drive past the property this morning. I'm very familiar with it in the Jefferson Chalmers community, so I did see lights on. I am going to go back to the property just to determine whether or not someone actually lives there, because I did see rehabilitation work taking place. But I will certainly follow up with you on the actual process so that I can share that information with the owner of the property. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President,

President Sheffield

03:23:08

thank you so much. Member. Johnson, all right, hearing no additional questions or comments. There's a motion to approve 18.1 and 18.2 i Two. Are there any objections? Objection members, Santiago Romero to 18.1 and 18.2 The clerk will note, clerk will So note. Madam

Unknown Speaker

03:23:33

President,

Unknown Speaker

03:23:34

Madam Chair.

President Sheffield

03:23:35

Member, Callaway, if

Speaker 11

03:23:36

you can also show me as a no on 18.1 and 18.2

Unknown Speaker

03:23:41

The clerk will note. Clerk will So note. Madam President,

President Sheffield

03:23:45

all right, hearing no further objections. The two resolutions will be approved. The Office of contracting and procurement.

Speaker 33

03:23:59

Council member Benson, 19 resolutions, nine items, 18.4 through 18 point 22 madam president, if you would like, because it's done nothing contracts, I will just read the numbers in the contract amounts

Unknown Speaker

03:24:14

discussion before we start.

President Sheffield

03:24:16

Yes. Member Benson, point of information

Speaker 13

03:24:18

online, I'm 18.4 is that correctly before this body today? Or should that be before this body next week?

President Sheffield

03:24:27

Mr Washington, I haven't heard anything. I believe

Speaker 13

03:24:29

that would be a clerk's question, because I'm not mistaken. This was submitted to formal, not new business,

President Sheffield

03:24:38

admitted by who body so

Speaker 13

03:24:41

would have been from committee to go to this body, formal, regular business. Oh, you are without a regular versus new business. Okay,

President Sheffield

03:24:49

correct, Madam President, yes, through you to member Benson, that's the note that I have as well. So this item should be removed, and we will see it informal next week. Their motion to remove this from our agenda. Motion carry no objections. That action will be taken. Madam Clerk, you can proceed,

Speaker 33

03:25:08

sure. Madam President, so that would be 19 resolutions. Line item, 18.5, through 18, point 22 so I will read the contract number and the amount. Madam President, if that's okay with you, okay. First up is contract number 3070919, dash a one. Total contract amount is $31,009, that's construction and demolition. Contract Number 3075096, total contract amount, $43,680 construction and demolition. Contract number 3075097, total contract amount, $25,711.84 cent that's for construction and demolition. Contract Number 3075362, total contract amount, $25,650 that's for construction and demolition. Contract Number 3075275, total contract amount, 27,009 69 that's for construction and demolition. Next contract, which is 18 point 10. Contract Number 3075272, total contract amount $31,104, that's for construction and demolition. Contract number 3075249, total contract amount 19,800, that's for construction and demolition. Contract Number 3075622, total contract amount, $35,130 that's for contract, construction and demolition. Next contract was, which is my item, 18 point 13. Contract number 3075623, total contract amount, $31,499 that's for construction and demolition. Contract number 30775624, total contract amount, $38,949.12, Cent that's for construction and demolition. Contract Number 3075391, total contract amount, $20,124 that's for construction and demolition. Next contract is contract number 3075621, total contract amount, $24,140 that's for construction and demolition. Next contract is contract number 3075627, total contract amount $119,499 that's for construction and demolition. Contract number 3075386, total contract amount $26,200, that's for construction and demolition. Next contract is contract number 3075242, that's for $21,546 that's for construction and demolition. Next contract, which is contract number 3075240, total contract amount, 26,000 construction and demolition. Next contract, contract number 3075235, total contract amount, $290,784.96 cent that's for construction and demolition. And last contract line item, 18 point 22 is contract number 6004341. Total contract amount, $335,334 and that's for police. Councilmember Benson, 18 resolutions. Councilmember

President Sheffield

03:28:50

Benson,

Unknown Speaker

03:28:53

Move for approval.

President Sheffield

03:28:57

We go to discussion. President Pro Tem Tate, thank

Speaker 7

03:28:59

you, Madam President, line item 18.5 I'm in support of the contract. I'm just curious if there was a discussion on the huge delta between inner city and the other two contractors. The inner city came in at 23 little over 23 23,000 plus. The other two bids were 68,000 plus the other 96,000 plus. Now this request to increase those numbers for inner city to about 31,000 so still very, very much more affordable, if you will, for us. But was there any discussion about why there was such a disparity between the the bids? It's very, very rare we get something this such, such a wide Delta in between two, wide gap through

Speaker 13

03:29:54

yourself, Madam Chair, to my colleague, this is just from our own experiences. And on this one, we did not ask. We do have experience of asking about large deltas on other contracts and never resulted in much of a difference. It's just how people have submitted, and we've, we've seen that before as well. It's a pretty big sparity. Why so much just enforcing how they submitted? We haven't seen any response that would lend me to say, to keep asking, there's nothing been it's been like a gotcha or just something. It will argue, making sure that people understand. And we usually the same back. Yes, we do make sure everybody's cognizant. So we did not ask it on this one. Yes. Mike, my point. Thank you.

Speaker 7

03:30:32

Through you, madam president, and I can certainly receive that, because when I look at some of the other contracts, inner city is higher than some of the other. So just rhyme and reason just didn't make sense to me on that one. So thank you. Thank you.

President Sheffield

03:30:46

Thank you pro temp Tate and you're good. You okay? All right, yes. Council Member Santiago Romero, thank you, Madam President, for 18.7 if we couldn't get a confirmation that this property has been demolished. It seems that it has not been and if that's the case, I would rather hold this for a week or some back to committee until it has been demolished. Director counts

Speaker 42

03:31:14

through the chair to Council Member Santiago Romero, this property has not been demolished as of yet. There is a known power line in the backyard that we are awaiting DTE assistance with the removal of that power line, but the adjacent property does have debris that's blocking their driveway. And while I understand the the desire to want to hold the contract, we're going to move immediately, once we have the okay from the utility to be in the property. So it's going to happen one way or the other, to make sure that we are providing that access to the neighbor.

President Sheffield

03:31:50

Madam President, through you to Director, comes understood. And I simply ask, because of process, when we see emergency demolitions in front of us, they are more of a notice that it has been done. So we just always double check to make sure that those have been completed, understanding your commitment to making sure that this gets demolished. I just wanted to get confirmation on whether or not it has been but I do understand the DTE issue, but just want to get that confirmation. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you council member. Any additional questions? Madam President, what number that means? Stop at 1822, thank you. All right, seeing no additional questions a motion? Madam President, yes, ma'am. Before you

Speaker 33

03:32:37

for point of clarity, line item 18.4, was in public health and safety on June the 24th if it did not go to new business on the 25th of June, then it would be considered an item for today, July the first. This item was not in PHS yesterday, so it wouldn't have been moved for a formal session for next week, on the ninth, according to the minutes that are read, this item was moved to formal session from the 24th of June. So it will be today.

President Sheffield

03:33:14

So there's OCP on the line that I also have some notes, Madam President. So this seems to be a duplicate item, because this was,

President Sheffield

03:33:32

this seems to be a duplicate so it was on the agenda for the 24 and it was sent to new business. So I still believe that this would need to be removed.

Unknown Speaker

03:33:50

Discussion. All right,

President Sheffield

03:33:51

Mr Washington, I see you on as well.

Speaker 6

03:33:55

Yes, Madam Chair, we do have procurement online to hear from them.

President Sheffield

03:33:59

Okay, we'll promote procurement. Yes. Member, Benson,

Speaker 13

03:34:02

I'm just looking at this was a line. I'm not mistaken line I was seven point 11 on yesterday's agenda. And I don't, I can't make the comparison based on this how the computer works. But it was a, there was a correction letter yesterday, Vance outdoors for ammunition. Correct numbers amendment yesterday.

President Sheffield

03:34:29

Correct, Madam President, this was in committee yesterday. It was seven point 11, and it was moved out to formal, but not new business, so it should show next week. Correct. Madam Clerk, you you all maybe have Yes Since Madam

Speaker 33

03:34:46

President, it was line item 7.8 also on the 24 in PHS,

President Sheffield

03:34:52

I believe we removed that one because it was a duplicates. So this should just be moved to formal.

Speaker 13

03:34:58

Wonderful is bring this, that line item back until we can get a correction. It seems like maybe there's some accounting issues here with what's where this item should be, but I think we can probably get it done by the end of session today.

President Sheffield

03:35:11

We've already removed it from the agenda. We already back next week. So okay, we'll just leave it how it is, and it should come next Tuesday, if it was moved out for regular business or without the new business. All right. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Thank you council members. And again, we are moving 18.5 through 18 point 22 for approval. Are there any objections on these items. All right, Hearing no objections. These resolutions will be approved, plus

Unknown Speaker

03:35:50

the waiver line of 18 point 22

President Sheffield

03:35:57

waiver has been requested for 18 point 22

Unknown Speaker

03:35:59

Madam Chair,

President Sheffield

03:36:01

any objections, hearing none that will pass member caliber,

Speaker 11

03:36:06

thank you. Madam Chair, request a waiver on line item 18.6, I

President Sheffield

03:36:24

right, and this is just emergency demolition. 15, 326, Princeton. Any objections? Hearing, none that action will be taken.

Unknown Speaker

03:36:35

Request. Aware of line item 18, point 15 and 18. Point 18. I point

Unknown Speaker

03:36:42

of order that was just difficult to hear because repent that 18

President Sheffield

03:36:46

point 15 and 18 point 18. And these are both demolition contracts, one at 660-760-6760, St Mary's, and the other one is at 9960, Manor, and Hearing no objections, a waiver will be attached to both of those items. All right, any additional waivers? All right? Hearing none. We will move along to the Department of Public Works, city engineering division,

Speaker 33

03:37:19

Council Member Vincent, nine resolutions, line items, 18 point 23 through 18 point 31

President Sheffield

03:37:28

council member Benton, Move for approval. Right motion has been made to approve, and these are various encroachments. Any objections? Hearing no objections. The nine resolutions will be approved.

Unknown Speaker

03:37:47

Request to waiver in line of 18.27

President Sheffield

03:37:51

waiver has been requested for 18 point 27 are there? Are there any objections? This is the arts and culture alleys program, Hearing no objections. A waiver will be attached. We will now move to the new business portion of the agenda from the Office of contracting and procurement council

Speaker 33

03:38:18

member Benson, six resolutions, noting that all six line items were postponed from last week's formal session. First up is contract number 6006201, 40% ARPA and 60% blight funding to provide abatement and alteration of commercial structures. Route 246, contractor Saladin, trucking and excavating incorporated total contract amount, $2,112,011.55 cent. Next contract is contract number 6006204, 40% ARPA and 60% blight funding to provide abatement and alteration of commercial structures of group 247, contractor, harm, rich, wrecking Incorporated, doing business as Heinrich. Total contract amount, $2,262,865 that's for construction and demolition. Next contract, Contract Number 6006212, 40% ARPA and 60% blight, funding to provide abatement and alteration of commercial structures. Route 248, contractor, Adamo demolition company, total. Contract amount, $3,579,175.60 cent. That's for construction and demolition. Contract number 6006285, 23% opera, 77% blight funding to provide abatement and alteration of commercial structures for group 242, contractor, hemorrhage, wrecking incorporated doing business of hemorrhage. Total contract amount $2,345,310 that's for construction and demolition. Contract Number 6006287, 38% offer. 62% black funding to provide abatement and alteration of commercial structures. Group 244, contractor, Adamo demolition company, total contract amount, $4,128,208.70 cent. Last contract line item, 19.6 it's contract number 6006309, 32% ARPA, 68% blight funding to provide abatement and alteration of commercial structures. Route 245, contractors, inner city contracting, LLC, total contract amount, $2,112,431.27 $1,431.20 cent. Council member Vincent, six resolutions,

President Sheffield

03:40:47

thank you, Madam Clerk. Council member Benson, motion to approve discussion. Discussion, yes,

Unknown Speaker

03:40:53

opening up for colleagues. Callaway,

President Sheffield

03:40:55

absolutely.

Speaker 11

03:40:57

Thank you, Madam Chair. Line item 19.1, this is very problematic for me. Madam Chair, we're using 40% ARPA dollar, 60% black funding for an individual that we have lawsuits against, I think, pending. Dennis, I can't pronounce his last name, I'll try carefuls. He owns several properties. He's a land speculator, and I don't think we should be tearing down his buildings. I'm going to ask that we bring this back. Um, he is a property owner, land speculator that has had multiple suits against him for unpaid black tickets. We still sell them properties. I think Wayne County does. We need to have a better working relationship with the Wayne County office, because we shouldn't be selling him properties, but that might be a constitutional right, blight, tickets, property taxes and housing discrimination. These are all lawsuits against this individual. The city has also sued him, and have those cases been concluded? So if someone from the law department can let us know whether or not we have pending case lawsuits against this individual, as I'm certainly going to ask that we bring it back until we can get, um, some answers to some questions. Um, is he current with his city taxes on all the properties that he owns? If not, why is he allowed to continue to buy properties if you're not paying a property taxes, and then we're turning around and demolishing and we're paying for it, so no, he owes us. So I know that's multiple questions, Madam Chair, but the chair,

Speaker 4

03:42:32

Graham Anderson, law department, Councilman Callaway, I don't have those answers at this time, but I will speak to the Blight department after this formal session, and I'll communicate those questions, and hopefully we can have a response to all those questions for next week.

Speaker 11

03:42:46

Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Attorney Anderson, Madam Chair, I like to make a motion to bring this back in a week. Line item, 19.1

President Sheffield

03:42:56

right? Is there any objection to postpone 19.1 for one week. All right, Hearing no objections that action will be taken and any further discussion on the remaining items. Member Callaway, back to

Speaker 11

03:43:13

line item 19.1, Madam Chair, I don't know if Mr attorney Anderson can get us the information, but I like a list of all the properties that this individual owns, what he holds the city, because I can't I can't believe we would sit here and approve to demolish properties that he's buying from us, then we're going back and demolishing, spending money, ARPA dollars, to demolish properties that he's bought from Wayne County and the city. So I want a complete list of the properties that this gentleman owns. He has several LLCs listed in Bloomfield Hills, Farmington Hills, California. So hopefully this is the inner role for this speculator. But I like that complete list, and I suggest that we not approve any demolitions of any of the properties that he owned, he should be paying for the demolition he bought them, right? Okay, thank you. Madam Chair,

Unknown Speaker

03:44:06

thank you.

President Sheffield

03:44:07

Thank you so much. Any additional questions or concerns with the remaining contracts? Yes, yes. Member Callaway,

Unknown Speaker

03:44:18

Madam Chair, we can bring back line item 19.4 have quite a few questions. We're using ARPA dollars to

Speaker 11

03:44:34

tear down buildings for Michael Kelly, he's been in the newspaper several, several times over the years, so the same questions that I have for line item 19.1 I have for line item 19.4 and 19.5 this individual, and then 19.6 Madam Chair, the same two individuals. We know who they are, buying properties, and we're having to demolish them at our expense. So same questions. Madam Chair, for line item, 19.1 19.4 19.5 and 19.6 we can bring these back in a week. Madam Chair, okay,

President Sheffield

03:45:18

and before we do that, did you want me to have director counts? Come on, yes, ma'am, to speak. Director counts, I'm not sure if you're still on. If we can have you come on. You have any information regarding the concerns by my colleague, member Calloway,

Speaker 42

03:45:31

through the chair for two. Member Calloway, we share the same sentiments and concerns about these particular offenders. The ultimate problem, however, is that the structure still exists. It continues to be a safety issue and concern for the community, so we intend on submitting these same properties through the cost recovery process. And in my opinion, it is additional leverage that the law department can continue to use with these particular individuals in order to push them on the properties that are not that they own, that are currently not on the demo list. Outside of that, I don't really have any information as far as the response for the private owners themselves. I just know that the property exists as a safety hazard that I have to actually contend with, and my efforts are to ensure that those properties are no longer an issue for the community

Speaker 11

03:46:26

member Callaway, Yes, Madam Chair, these properties are privately owned. So I would ask through the chair to ask Mr Whitaker, if this property is privately owned and someone is injured, is that a city's responsibility or the property owner? Because I'm looking at the properties. Now, these commercial properties, according to my reports, and according to what I'm reading, they're privately owned. So how would that responsibility, that liability, fall upon the city if they're privately owned?

Speaker 10

03:46:54

Madam President, I guess it depends on how you describe liability. City has a general responsibility to protect citizens. If this is proposed, if this these homes that she's indicating present a safety hazard, generally to the public, the city would want to respond to alleviate that your point is to who would be directly responsible or liable for a tort action that would be the owner, that would

Speaker 11

03:47:25

be the owner through the chair to mister Whitaker, these are not, these are commercial properties, sir, they're not, you said residential. But

Speaker 10

03:47:34

Madam President, it wouldn't matter. It wouldn't matter that it would liability for something that the owner has a responsibility for. The city would not be able to be sued for that. But I think what, what the director is saying there's a general responsibility to the public if this is if, if these buildings or structures holds a general safety habit for the people who have to traverse in front of them, then the city would have sort of a moral responsibility, or I don't think it would be legal, necessarily, but it would be a moral responsibility to get rid of that hazard. So it would be Havard hazard avoidance that the city would be undertaking, not necessarily something that they would be driven to from a liability standard, at least that's my off the cuff analysis.

Speaker 11

03:48:30

Thank you, Mr Whitaker, you might want to stand there through the chair. So my question is, can we take this to court under emergency basis? Madam Chair and Mr Whitaker, since these properties are in a state of needing emergency demolition, I would ask that we take these individuals to court, maybe tomorrow, maybe maybe next week, instead of us incurring this responsibility and using ARPA dollars to do so. This is not what we should be using our dollars for to demolish these gentlemen's properties that they speculate on, sit on, don't do anything with. They come back into the city, then we're responsible for tearing them down. Understand what you're what you're saying in terms of responsibility. Generally speaking, it is the city's responsibility to keep the residents safe, but it's also our responsibility to take care of the taxpayers dollars. We should not be using our dollars to tear down these buildings that these gentlemen speculated, bought and sat on and did nothing and then sat there, watched them there. Well, I don't I think one of them lives in California, so why is it on us? I think we should take them to court Madam Chair, as soon as possible. And I don't know what that process looks like, but I think we need to take these two individuals to court and not demolish these buildings, because it is directly their responsibility, generally the cities, but directly the property owners, if I'm not mistaken, Madam

Speaker 10

03:49:55

President, that would be a question most appropriately addressed by the law department, who have a responsibility to bring lawsuits that would be a nuisance abatement action or something akin to that. And the problem with that route is it generally takes a lot of time to matriculate. They would probably fight it, and it would not be something you could turn around quickly. This is an action that can be done quickly. And I think that might be why the director is saying, take this action and then go to to, you know, cost recovery to get your cost back on the back end. But the question as to whether or not you want to bring an action on the front end is really most appropriately addressed by law. Certainly, you could do it. There's a legal you know, it would be a legally cottonizable case, but it's one that should be addressed, really by law.

Speaker 11

03:50:55

Madam Chair, to Mr Whitaker and to Mr Anderson. So I'm requesting that we do both at the same time. We can run on both tracks at the same time. We can, if we have to, I'm going to be a no vote demolish these because they're in such dangerous condition. Then at the same time on that other track, I would ask that the law department look at bringing a lawsuit against these gentlemen, because they have a several LLCs listed with the same agents, right? So I'm hoping that we can do both at the same time, sending a message to the same two individuals that the newspaper knows about, and every resident probably knows their names. We keep kicking this can down the road. I think it needs to stop right here and now, and send a hard message to these individuals who keep speculating, buying property, sitting on them, watching them deteriorate, and then it comes back to the city. It doesn't make sense to me that we have the responsibility now tear them down because of the unsafe condition, when it really is the property's owner responsibility to keep their property safe. I have to keep mine safe. Everybody in here has to keep their property. Why are we giving them a pass? Why not? Well, my parents, when their house had caught on fire. We called a diamond. We had to pay for that out of pocket because it was not savable. So we had to get that property demolished. We had to do that. I didn't come to the city for help. So they should not be. They're getting help. They're getting assistance with and they're laughing at us

Speaker 4

03:52:21

through the chair to Councilwoman Callaway, you're absolutely right. They are abusing the system. And to echo the points that attorney Whitaker made, it is a delicate balancing act of the time, and actually, because litigation does move slow, we know that litigation does move slow, and we have discussed more aggressive practices to speed up that process. However, there are still things that are even at the most aggressive. Are litigators could be there are things out of their control, whether it's the judge, whether it's opposing counsel. However, also, I do want to highlight his point to that or to direct accounts. Point that getting this out of the community, is the benefit for the community, of course, but then we're stuck with the bill, so it is a little bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don't, situation, and I absolutely understand your frustration with that. Also, just to touch on the point about potential torts, I think a lot of that would also have to deal with the potential facts surrounding what would actually happen, resulting in the property causing someone harm. So I would not want to speculate on that. I think it would really be fact by fact basis, determining that as often toward cases are. But I will communicate all of these messages to the Blight department. I'm happy to loop your team in with discussions as well, and we will get all these questions answered, and I will absolutely communicate the need for an aggressive approach from the law department's blight team to these actors that are abusing the system, because it's not right, it's not fair to the Detroit taxpayers and to Detroit community. Thank you Councilwoman. Thank you. Madam

Speaker 11

03:54:02

Chair, I moved to bring back. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. Line item, as I indicated, early, earlier. Madam Chair, 19.1 19.45

President Sheffield

03:54:13

and six. Discussion council member, Benson,

Speaker 13

03:54:17

and why I appreciate and I understand the frustration with having those who abuse the system. They're not the ones who are at harm. When you have our seniors have to walk by these properties, when you have our residents who have to deal with falling bricks and other such hazards as a direct result, or the open doors and the holes in the building where small children, little girls, can be drug in and, Lord knows, done what to it's the frustrations of us at this level when it comes to financial obligations and those who are unethical, who don't want to play by the rules and abuse whatever loopholes are there. But it's our residents, the people who receive the harm. They're the ones who are in harm's way. It's our children, it's our seniors, it's our adults who have no choice but to live near blighted and abandoned structures which are dangerous. And so just as was stated earlier, there's a moral obligation by the city to ensure that we protect those who don't have the financial obligation resources to protect themselves. We can protect them as a city. And so I'm hoping that we will give thought to those who are the victims who will be held harmed by unscrupulous, unethical property owners, and we know many of them, can name them all, but it's our residents who are in harm's way, and that's why we do this. We take the right property rights. We're taking property rights away from these unscrupulous speculators. When we demolish a property we are taking their property rights. That's a right that we have here at City Council, and one that does not fly past our members on dangerous buildings who look on a regular basis, hey, we're taking somebody's property rights. Do we want to do that? But for those little girls who've been drugged into buildings, for those people we found bodies in these abandoned buildings, let's think of them as well. In addition to the financial irresponsibility of the property owners, we also have our residents who are in harm's way we need to and must protect Thank you,

Unknown Speaker

03:56:33

Madam Chair.

President Sheffield

03:56:33

Thank you council member Calloway.

Speaker 11

03:56:35

My motion is to bring back in one week line item 19.1, 19.4, 19.5, and 19.6 I like to see some of these properties. If member, I'm sorry if the Record Counts, can provide me some photos. I want to see these properties with the roofs caving in, open to trespass, not boarded up. And I want to see the danger level of them. But in the meantime, my motion still stands Madam Chair, okay,

President Sheffield

03:57:04

okay, the motion is on the floor. And are there any objections to bring back, to postpone for one week? Hearing no objections. We will postpone those items for one week. All right, we are still discussing line items 18.5 through 18 point no, I'm sorry, we already

Unknown Speaker

03:57:26

19.2 and 19.3 Madam President,

President Sheffield

03:57:29

19.2 and 19.3 right? Is there any objections on those two items? Pro Temp Tate shall?

Speaker 7

03:57:40

Pro Temp Tate as a no on 19.2 and 19.3 please.

Speaker 11

03:57:47

Member Calloway, the same 19.2 19.3 A No, if

President Sheffield

03:57:53

you can show myself as a no on 19.2 and 19.3

Speaker 29

03:57:58

objection, members and shadow Romero, 19.2 and 19.3

Unknown Speaker

03:58:03

Jackson waters,

Unknown Speaker

03:58:04

19.2 and three.

President Sheffield

03:58:09

Members, Santiago, I think she, she's She stated her name. So 12345,

Speaker 33

03:58:17

so that motion fails. Both items fail. Madam President, okay, so

President Sheffield

03:58:21

those two items fail, and what were the items? Again, to 19.2 and 19.3 Yes, okay, sure, I have those. All right, we will proceed. The

President Sheffield

03:58:41

Department of Public Works city engineering division.

Speaker 33

03:58:44

Council Member Santiago Romero, a resolution, line item 19.7

President Sheffield

03:58:50

Council Member Santiago Romero, thank you, Madam President. Motion to approve a discussion. Okay, I just want to thank our committee and member Johnson for making sure that we did our parts in making sure there was a community engagement process for the infrastructure that's going to be built in District Four. We have received a full engagement plan that has been reviewed

Unknown Speaker

03:59:20

by myself, member Johnson

President Sheffield

03:59:22

and And we are okay with moving forward with this request. Just want to give some insights, in case anyone wanted any of that information and.

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