Budget — Mayor's Office / Library

    5:03PM Mar 15, 2024

    Speakers:

    President Sheffield

    Keywords:

    library

    detroit

    city

    talk

    residents

    community

    budget

    work

    chair

    people

    neighborhoods

    program

    department

    branch

    dda

    hear

    mayor

    dpd

    councilmember

    groups

    Yes, sir. All right, good afternoon. We will now call back to order our expanded budget Finance and Audit standing committee for the purposes of our budget deliberations. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Councilmember

    Scott Besa. Councilmember Fred do Harada third resident council member Leticia Johnson present councilmember Gabriela Santa Santiago Ramiro present councilmember Mary waters. Councilmember Angela Whitfield Callaway, Councilmember Coleman Young, the second council president pro tem James Tate, Council President Mary Sheffield. Madam President, you have a quorum.

    All right there being a quorum present. We will now proceed with the mayor's office budget presentation. Good afternoon, everyone.

    Good afternoon. So if I could Good afternoon to this honorable body council president we are rolling relatively deep, so if you wouldn't mind I'd like everybody to introduce themselves. That's okay.

    Got better some deputy mayor.

    Hello, microphone microphones.

    Oh, Solomon director department of neighborhoods

    that tried again Todd Bettison deputy mayor

    Carrie Jones, Deputy Chief of Staff,

    Tricia Stein, Chief Strategy Officer,

    James George agency CFO. Oh, well, good afternoon, once again, and I want to thank you for the opportunity to address you with our proposed fiscal year 25 budget and thank you for the continued strong partnership. I am Stephanie Washington, Chief of Staff Mayor's office, and today, my colleagues and I will update you on the latest progress and what to expect in the upcoming fiscal year. So as you already know, the budget is returned to pre COVID norms and realities. So the mayor's office budget has minimal variance compared to last year. So with that being said, we will begin our formal presentation and we will kick it off with Ray Solomon, group executive Ruby executive of the Department of neighborhoods.

    All right. Good afternoon again and to the chair. I will start the presentation department neighborhood overview and projects that we oversee starting with Next slide. Next slide. Thank you. I started with Motor City makeover. We had over 600 community cleanups and beautification program. Last year was the first time we gave out 90,000 flowers. We did that by district and had over 1000 volunteers all around the city for mobilicity makeup. Next slide. Which Halloween and a D we gave out over a million pieces of candy activated 11 police precincts, seven fire engines, one per district and all of the recreation center. We gave out over 400 costumes city wide and had nearly 600 volunteers in total. And through our volunteer coordinator arm, we had over 25 community cleanups throughout the city beautification programs we cleaned up around schools, churches and help plant gardens we had over 500 volunteers citywide from Detroit and we also have volunteers from surrounding state. Next slide. And we also started a snow removal system programs been two years now. So the mayor wanted to make sure disabled and seniors could get out of their homes and get to their doctor's appointment and other various reasons. So this year, we had 85 residents enrolled in that program. And over 150 volunteers participated in that program. Next slide. So a new division that we have, we've hired a few young individuals to spearhead a shadow program that we are doing, where young folks that are close to graduating college can come in and shadow department so we've had shadow wars and DPW our department, police department and more to come. So overall we've had a total of students registered and we've seen 15 Go to the project and we have two more weeks to go and we're looking to do another cohort in about two months. Next slide. And we also participate and make sure we help strengthening our block clubs block clubs. We do our walk in talks to help start block clubs in around entire city. There's a picture of our deed for most premiers over there. So we have over 600 block clubs that are active now today. And that is it for Department of neighborhoods.

    Okay CVI community violence intervention shot stoppers in so I just want to take a moment to really thank city council and give some special shout outs before I get in. Get into it. Because last year when we came before you all we were asking for funding, and we talked about our community violence intervention, but even before that, it's members of this honorable body who have worked hand in hand with myself and other members of the community through some of the groups that actually won the contracts. But you all have really been there, even when I was with the police department just fighting the mission to fighting to lower crime overall. And so I just want to give just really kudos to you all for that. President Sheffield, which are occupied the corner occupied a block in you know with the Gun Violence Awareness Month. Just your overall effort in working with the groups in supporting and so I just want to thank you for that. And with overall support with this pro Tim Tate with you know, as far back as I can remember in your group, always gathering young men and you know, specifically trying to work towards gun violence from a community lands and also the support of DPD all of you. I'm Santiago Ramiro. We actually took a trip to Washington DC and you know, looked at best practices throughout the country and you know, saw what other folks were doing and Brea dirt Hall, you know, the chair of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, and you know, I know so I just wanted to start out by saying you know, just thank you and Councilmember Leticia Johnson to you as well and Angela with Bill Callaway just all in for the ones that are not here because this right here has been a real group effort a community effort is so today, here to be able to report the good news that we've experienced success when it comes to the group's for four of the groups, but two of the groups in particular, we've seen violence fall 5050 to 70% in their geographic areas that they cover, and so they cover roughly a three to four square mile area of the city of Detroit. Two of the groups force Detroit, Detroit friends and family actually generated the largest violence reductions and they actually won their performance bonuses if you lower or beat the city wide trend. So that we will be able to actually attribute the the results in those categories whether it was homicides or non fatal shootings, beating the city wide trend by either 10% or 20%. Then you will be eligible for a performance bonus. And the map. We don't have the map if we can go back to the map really quick. The map, that map right there for the community benefits shows. It's a heat map, and it shows the categories of non fatal shootings and homicides. And it's a five year look back map and so when you look at it, the group's selected the most violent areas in the city. And you can you can see where they're having impact with the work that they're doing. They're measured quarterly and compared to the same quarter period as the previous year. And so then, that is how the group's had been measured. And we can go on to the next slide. The community violence interrupters the shot stoppers, they were awarded their first actual money to get started with their infrastructure in August of last year. And in you can see that with with the funding, some of the things that they've done, they've all had various approaches to the right with the bus that is new air Detroit, and they're out at their headquarters there and providing overall resources to the community. Because one of the key strategies is getting engaged with the community being involved, because it takes community and the group's hadn't that engagement to be able to lower intervene and having community involvement when it comes to reducing fry. You see the other picture where that's a picture of the People's Community Action. And they're actually working very closely with DPS community school districts and that's them conducting a session at Henry Ford High School. We're at one of the schools because we're actually Emerson Elementary School, but they're also in Henry Ford in by speaking to the principal with him report just been overwhelming and they've been received very well. And they're actually interim intervening the key is trust them. They let them know about problem locations, problem spots, etc. And they're able to intervene and inspire individuals to change when it comes to violence. And so, the People's Community Action, they are having successes, well, we can go to the next slide. So when you look at the various zones, the zones saw Bayless reduction of 27% to 72%. In the second quarter, during the first quarter with the ramp up period, we it was really statistically insignificant, which we expected as they hired staff and got their locations but during the second quarter, that's what we really expected. We expected to start to see the impact. And we actually have one of the things that we're doing because as we said that with our program is different from most CBI programs. We're looking at the outcomes and being able to really tell you what success looks like as far as them lowering crime, homicides and non fatal shootings in those two particular areas. We did have two groups that didn't hit the mark. And the good thing is the groups are sharing information working together. And so the two groups that didn't hit the mark per se, have expectations. They're in consultation with the other groups in changing some of their strategies. Now, what we're proposing to do with the support of city council is the four groups that have seen the success thus far, where we'll be asking to extend their contracts for an additional 12 months. For the two groups. You can see the data which will be way Metro in Detroit 300. We're actually proposing to extend their contract three additional months to give them an opportunity to make the adjustments that they need to be able to hit their performance marks. And so if you look at the change in the CBI scores in the second quarter, you can see that force Detroit had the greatest reduction, Detroit friends and family 50% reduction, and in order to get the largest percentage or performance bonus, you had to beat the city wide tree and by 20%, which force did when they hit that 70% mark, Detroit friends and family beat it by 10% and then denied CBI city wide score that was roughly at 37%. And so that's areas that are not covered by the CBI groups the rest of the city. New Era was right there. And Detroit people's community is right there. And so when we look at Wayne Metro and Detroit 300 They are making some adjustments. So one will say well what's one of the bigger adjustments that they're making? credible messengers and then also having the by the bylaws interrupter pieces. I can tell you that Detroit 300 was really heavy on the patrols of the community. You know, from what patrol standpoint, and when I say like community patrols like a radio patrol, and when you Metro, they definitely have the community and the resource in the wraparound services. So they're really tweaking to make sure that they have a more balanced approach when it comes to credible messengers. In violence interrupters. So with that, you know, we'll continue with the presentation and I'll be more than happy to answer any questions it becomes to CBI. Thank you, Deputy.

    Thank you, Mr. Deputy Mayor. I might but here to provide an update on the Office of Sustainability. Particularly I want to focus on the four priority areas of the Detroit climate strategy. We talked about this last year, so I want to come and bring an update. The first one being transitioning to clean energy. The goal is to develop locally sited renewables to offset that current energy use by municipal buildings and so more to come on that after the budget and really want to come in later in April and have a more robust discussion as we move through that process. The second one is increasing sustainable mobility and Evie charging infrastructure. We continue to transition the city's fleet to low or no emission vehicles and build out Evie chargers across the city. And then the third one is accelerating energy efficiency and reducing waste with the goal of increasing our energy efficiency not only at municipal buildings but also residential properties across the city. And then the fourth is prioritizing vulnerable residents and increasing resilience, particularly in preparation for extreme weather events that we've seen over the last few years with some of these efforts include the basement backup planning tree canopy and resiliency hubs are the next slide Malik. Here's just a handful of the accomplishments that have happened since the last time that we were here and together. As I said the the neighborhood Solar Initiative is is under full effect and was launched last summer with neighborhoods that the mayor opened up the application process for neighborhoods to apply to host solar and receive community benefits. The first urban agriculture director was announced in the fall and is doing amazing work. The first resilient hub was also opened hopefully won't be the last but the Linux Center opened up on the east side it has on site solar battery storage and generation a generator backup so that that facility can stay open and be a resource hub in the community during power outages and the construction of that facility has 33% reduction in carbon emissions based on its design. We also have fleet transition continues. As I said we've got Ford lightnings that were delivered at the end of last year and DPW is is utilizing these in the community to increase the awareness about recycling. The benchmark your ordinance was approved by City Council last month and we will be ready to by the end of the year to report out on energy and water use of buildings over 100 square foot. It's approximately 720 buildings so we're building out that dashboard and collecting data from ENERGY STAR putting buildings on notice and be ready to to be compliant with the ordinance. And then also the the the newsprint climate strategy. Hopefully you've all received this if not about a few extra copies and I'll make sure that they're delivered next week for you all to touch and feel that it really is a framework to achieve the mayor's priorities and lays out all the cross departmental work and efforts that are happening. You can go to the next slide just a few coming soon, if you will. So also approved by City Council is weekly recycling that will start this summer. So we're very excited about that. We in addition to the electric buses that are in operation now we've got additional federal funding that was secured and more electric buses are on the way to continue our fleet transition not only with our light duty heavy duty but also our buses. The ATS shuttle how this number will match when to targeted zones to desk test on demand service. Really with people they need to register our goal is 100 participants so older adults, people with disabilities to access health appointment or doctor's appointments, recreation, grocery shopping, so really testing it to before we build it out city wide. While it is the A is automated, I do want to make sure they underline that there will be a driver and a safety officer in the vehicle at all times. And make sure that that is completely underscored. i In addition, hopefully this summer we're also constrained about supply chain so hopefully it'll stay on track for late summer or early fall. We're going to expand it 10 additional Mogo locations across the city. And then we also have electric refuse trucks on order. So we're looking forward to getting those as we again continue to transition our fleet transportation across the city. This is not only municipal but city wide. Our transportation sector equates to about 35% of GHG emissions as a way it's one of our top priorities. I've done the next slide. If you want to just believe it Bay, it's going to do whatever that's good. We blow it all out. So we had a very healthy discussion when I was here when we were all here a year ago talking about how this work would be supported. So really want to focus on that left hand side. And it was the first day of our sustainability director when I was here last year. So we're coming up on a year anniversary. And and again, it was very healthy discussion that it can't just be one person. So I want to focus in and spend a little time on what core staff we were able to build build out in that year. These positions are funded across city departments, which is what our goal was it was aspirational at the time, but I want to come report out to you that we've we've done it. We've additionally secured grant funds, those are those light colored that I'll explain here in a minute at the bottom. And then we've also worked with our partner organizations to add surge capacity on this is particularly around our research research universities. So we've added in addition to the director coming out of your budget discussions last year, we were also able to add a deputy director that as I mentioned, we have an associate director for urban agriculture the three next positions are shared with LMI. They're co located on the sixth floor so they have joint responsibilities and they really cover a lot of the climate strategy, strategy and research project manager and marketing and communications manager and an executive assistant. The three next ones as I said are supported by grant funds and focus on our data analytics or utility data to be ready for benchmarking energy efficiency to continue to do the work to improve our facilities and residential properties. And then a Resilience Program Manager which is funded by the CD b g d r for funding to ensure that we are preparing for extreme weather events. And then our U of M sustainability clinic we had six students embedded last summer and throughout the school year that supported our work. And then we just got a new cohort that kicks off next week that will also be embedded in the sustainability team and help lift up this work and do research to the right eye as we talked about last year, as I said it was aspirational, but I wanted to come back and let you know these four priority areas that the mayor has laid out in the climate strategy are supported across departments across this through in departments across the city. I just listed a handful of of the top departments that support these initiatives. A few of them I've just mentioned and some upcoming and then the whole team is supported by the data strategy and analytics team I know do it was here this morning talking about their work, and they really underscore the data coordination visualization and mapping that happens to ensure that we are delivering on these priorities next up. So coming up, so we will select our final neighborhoods for solar areas and the developers. As I said that will come mod later next month. We'll bring that for you all to discuss and debate and hopefully approve. Then we'll also deploy and continue to absorb the city wide Evie charging infrastructure. Currently there's over 100 locations across the city that have publicly accessible EB chargers. We will also endeavor to deploy 100 more we wait by the mayor has tasked us to at least double that in the next year. And coordinate both with city funding and grant funding and private funding to have 100 additional locations spread out across the city. improve energy efficient energy efficiency in municipal buildings, buildings, offices industrial commercial municipal residential across the city. They represent over 60% of GHG emissions. So focusing on this work, in addition to the home improvement efforts that are done by HRD and weatherization. We also want to focus on our municipal buildings. So that will come in the next year. We're ready as I said to administer the benchmarking or ignite ordinates and then coordinate and support waste diversion and food recovery efforts. I'm looking forward to coming to you all soon and tell you about the food recovery efforts and food reclamation and and distribution. We have a whole convening and coordination effort of the existing network that that exist and how we're going to bring you 2.0 in the future so coming soon. And with that, I will kick it over to my colleague Hilton Kincaid.

    Good afternoon honorable body through the chair Hilton Kincaid Deputy Director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. We have several different priorities, one of which is coordinating large scale events, as well as preparedness and training and exercises. While we are preparing for opening date, NFL draft and the Grand Prix I thought I'd start with current events within the news last week about the large explosion on the east side. And people want to know that we're prepared for something like that. And what you see on the screen is just a mention of some of our cooperations and memorandum memorandums of agreement with our partners. So if we have an incident like that, that we prepared to respond to it if it gets outside the ability of the city. These agreements allow us to reach out beyond the city and get assistance from our partners throughout the region. And we do things regionally to make sure the city stays safe. That's the mean Mac as well as the URC grant and things of that nature. Where you see down here where it talks about the Detroit Emergency Planning Committee daily PC, that is in addition to what we do, we're in charge of the LEP C which deals with all of what we call the 302 sites are the volatile chemical companies around the city, which includes PBS chemicals marathon and things like that. We're responsible for going to those businesses annually and making sure they keep their response plans updated. So if our police fire EMS or anyone like that gets a call to these facilities, they know what the facility has, how to respond to it, how to keep themselves safe, as well as what to take with them to make sure they're doing what they need to do to make sure the situation is controlled and handled properly. And the last thing you see there is our Homeland Security Advisory Council that I've talked about before. It's chaired by myself, the FBI, Detroit police as well as state police. This group allows us to reach out to our public and private sector partners to make sure they're on top of anything that goes on if something happens whether it's here or around the country. We spin up a meeting to make sure if there's a nexus to Detroit that could adversely affect us that we're talking about it. The FBI has given us good information the State Police is on board. Everybody is sharing valuable information to make sure our public and private sector are properly aware of what's going on as well as we are. And we use that for a lot of training and exercises that we do. We don't want the first time there's an incident that occurs is the first time you're meeting the director of LCA or 14 or any of our private businesses. We do these trainings all the time. I think one of the council members joined us at our last large scale exercise with the district Detroit, where we had all the stadiums and Bob because we had a scenario where we had incidents going on at one time, and we want to make sure we could deliver the services necessary to keep people safe. When things are going on at several different locations at one time. And as we do these things are the country is watching us. And that's how we're able to get these things like the NFL draft and other large things. As Detroit becomes more progressive and is prepared. They see that and they're approve of the actions that we take to make sure that we're safe. Next slide, please. Again, we deal with training, exercise and emergency plans. And one of the plans that we talk about all the time was our city wide evacuation plan. Now we're praying that there never comes a time when we have to evacuate the entire city. So this plan has been devised such that we can take people from a Hot Zone to a neutral zone. If something happens around one of our chemical companies, we can take them out of that area into an area where they're safe. If it comes to a situation where we have to evacuate the city again, we have these agreements with our partners that we can get out of the city and have somewhere to go just as well as if something happens externally. It says mesh sheltering, where we have to bring people in like if there's a Katrina or something like that, that happens. We have to bring people in and house them here as a good partner in that same situation. To make sure that happens very well. We're in the process right now, but we have 25 people in one of our new cert classes. Jefferson ease asked us to do a session over there. So we're training more community emergency response team volunteers, so the community is also trained in things like stop the bleed and what to do if emergency occurs. And they are the ambassadors for their community. So as they're trained, they tell the people in their community a black gloves and things like that. So they know what's going on. This is what we do. This is how we respond. If you hear the sirens go off. This is what you do. If you get an alert this is what you do. So training our commercial our community in CERT training is very important. Detroit alerts 365 We're still pushing and pushing and pushing to make sure people are starting to use that properly. Our internal departments as well. As the community using that it's new people are still trying to get their heads around it. But if we can get this thing to roll out properly and make sure everybody's on board, including counsel, we've been in communication with counsel to see if we can get your staff trained so you can send out not just emergency messages, but you may have messages you want your constituents to know about any event that you're having or something that's going on, that's specific to your location. So it's not just an emergency. It's a community tool where we can communicate to our residents so we want to make sure our departments as well as council and everybody is trained on how to use Detroit alerts 365 And the last thing you see there is the active shooter and stop the bleed training businesses as well as our internal departments. We are constantly in the process of training different departments on what to do if there's an active shooter in their facility, whether it's a city department, whether it's our private sector partners, we've been doing this consistently. And our calendar is really kind of getting booked up. And we do this in conjunction with the police department to make sure we can get this message out. And this training out to as many people as possible, because unfortunately, that's the climate of the day we have to do these things and we don't want to but it's necessary. So we try to make sure everybody's aware of what to do to save as many lives as possible. And those are Next slide please. And what you see here is some of the tools we use when incidents are going on and how we communicate internally and with our region because we do things regionally. Our grant dollars come from the feds, the state and we want to make sure we're doing things in an interoperable way with our region. So myosins is the tool we use when we're communicating throughout the state. What's going on the bottom you'll see Homeland Security Information Network. That's a tool that we use when we have a situation like the NFL draft or the Grand Prix, where we can communicate in real time of incidents that are going on to make sure everybody in the region is aware of what's happening because of this happening in Detroit. It's going to affect everybody. Detroit is the hub of this region over here. So And currently, we just got a presidential declaration in February for flood that happened last August, I believe. So right now we have two DRCs or disaster recovery centers, one on the east side, and one on the west side, the East butzel Family Center, the west of that company, where we're serving our residents so they can go in and sign up to get information from FEMA on what they can do to become whole again from that disaster that happened back in August of last year. So this is just some of the things we're doing to make sure that we stay on top of what's going on in the region and to keep the city prepared, as well as safe and organized. If an emergency should come our way. Thank you.

    Thank you. That's the president. That concludes our presentation. So we're open for questions. All right. All right.

    Again, thank you for the presentation and thank you to the entire Mayor's Office for the work that you all do day in and day out. And remember Callaway is eager to go first. So I will admit that you were putting your hand up. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, I thought you wanted to go first. If the clerk would note Mr. Callaway has been here for quite some time now in member young also has joined us as well. In member waters has been here for quite some time as well to the clerk would know for the entire presentation. All right. So we will now go to questions from my colleagues and we will start with you President Pro Tem dates

    and appear to Yes. Yes, yeah. Good afternoon. Thank you all for being here. I want to first start off with a major shout out to a Deputy Mayor for all of your work you've done with us and with my office. I'll just say that first with me my office and then the broader community and district one, but you have come in and not saying things were horrible. I'm not even going to say that but it is a breath of fresh air to have you in the room. And not just on the phone talking to residents or an email but you're actually getting out, reaching them talking to them and helping to address their concerns. It makes it a whole lot easier for our office to get those things done. So we took a tour in the district, you took your time out to do that. So again, just want to give you flowers because you truly truly have lived up to your reputation that I've known in the past but now residents are getting a chance to know that as well. So thank you I also want to thank the administration for bringing on T Rushton direct and Director of Urban Agriculture. A lot of folks didn't believe that people like her exist in the city of Detroit and she is a great example of the growing number of residents in the city of Detroit, who are appreciative and also working towards food sovereignty, but also understanding how to better manage, maintain and protect the land that is actually theirs. They pay taxes on it, they should be able to reap all the benefits of that land. So thank you for her. She has been a godsend as well, for a lot of the initiatives that we're working on including animal keeping. Do want to talk a little bit about and also wanted to give a shout out to brother Kincaid over there. The stop the bleed that is extremely important. We are going to be working with the organization by the name of black bottom Gun Club for those who have not heard of them, do great work within the community. It's unfortunate but we do have to address this issue of how do we stop the bleed if someone is harmed by gunfire or some other type of injury as an intermediate between the time the incident occurs, and when the emergency services arrive. So again, thank you for that forethought. tremendous, tremendous program. I do want to talk a little bit about the Solar Initiative, the solar gardens, just to get a little bit more detail to know what was mentioned today. And there's been a lot of work with the Department of neighborhoods, they we got great partners over there with Carla. And still they're doing a great job but want to talk a little bit about the initiative itself. I know there's been a lot of conversation with the residents, but there's still questions that remain in terms of one. What would that ongoing maintenance look like? Because since we're talking budget, if the awards are going to happen today, and I know that the implementation may not necessarily happen immediately, but just looking down the road, what does that annual maintenance look like for those structures that would potentially be placed in the neighborhoods?

    Yeah. Good afternoon, through the chair to President Pro Tem Tate. We are in the process of reviewing the proposals that we've received. It's an open and competitive bid process right now. And and we did put in the RFP operating and maintenance and that is something that they needed, the potential developers needed to respond to so we're in the process of reviewing those, so I'm not prepared to discuss those details. But at the end of April, that is our goal is to bring up the winning neighborhoods and the developer or developers if we choose more than one and really work through those details and be able to share them with you this will be baked into the development agreement of what it does look like for maintenance community outreach, because we've we've also put in the RFP that community outreach needs to continue. When the winning neighborhoods gets elected, they will be prepared, they will be paired, and they need to be prepared to work with the neighborhood groups and work through what the design looks like. What the setback is what the vegetation the the gear, the fencing and the maintenance and ongoing operating that needs to happen to maintain these facilities. We learned that as I've said before, we've learned a lot of lessons with O'Shea. And that's one of the biggest lessons that we learned is the community engagement and community buy in and the Department of neighborhoods is really leading that effort, as you know, and you've just mentioned, and then we have certainly put the developers on notice that that needs to continue and there needs to be sign off from the neighbors before they put one stake in the ground

    through tear we will continue engagement throughout the whole process even after once if it comes to pass that they are the solar arrays are a place we will continue we've actually been able to create block clubs and areas that hadn't had block clubs. So we've we've built a real strong partnership in those neighborhoods.

    Thank you for that and staying on the solar gardens, if you will, the certain solar project for my concern has always been and I've said this and voiced it in the neighborhood with the folks who are there my constituents and my concern is that we have a program that is being built right now. And it I think it certainly will help those who have when we start talking about those $15,000 grants it's it's pretty pretty decent amount of money to challenge that I have this debt with residents who will be potentially bought out if you will, that we don't have an a process upon which we do our best to ensure that they stay within the city of Detroit. That's a major concern of mine. I know the mayor has talked about you know, we're battling with the census to make sure that our numbers are counted properly. And then the last thing that I want to do is rather they live in district one I want to keep them industrial and of course but if they end up going somewhere else within the city of Detroit to give them money and say going out to Southfield or Ferndale or Alabama or Atlanta wherever it is. What are we doing to ensure to the best of our ability similar to the bridging neighborhoods? I know we've heard that and I've kind of heard it, but that's Canada money that's involved in there. What are we doing to as we're proposing and pitching this to ensure that these residents to the best of our ability stay within the city of Detroit

    I'll start the new bet through the chair to present project eight. We are up I hear you loud and clear because also one of the cross departmental initiatives that I lead is the census as you know, so I want to make sure that Detroiters are counted and that we are being represented well there. We are working with our real estate team. Though the contract that was approved by city council in November and building that out. That was the commitment that we made then to ensure that we had dedicated relocation services. We haven't begun those because we haven't done the winning neighborhood yet but part of the outreach that the Department of neighborhoods is leading is to talk to residents to find out one Do they support this two, are they willing to move and then three to begin to figure out what would be adequate housing to then be able once they are approved to match them with adequate housing. So we're doing all the prep work. We'll bring that back that very robust package on later in April, hopefully, to you all to review and very robust similar to what happened near the airport. Very similar wraparound relocation services, matching adequate housing at least for individuals that are supportive and that are affected by the solar array development that needs to move.

    Thank you. I know we're limited to two questions and I'll have more on that particular sheet. I know a lot more is coming our way as well. But also just want to make sure that when we have those conversations, we also talk about how to unwind the project if that's the case moving down the road, certainly not a year later, five years later, because I'm sure the technologies or the infrastructure is not designed to be temporary. It's designed to be more likely much more long term. But there should be some type of trigger that the neighbor in the neighborhood or even elected body, along with American undo this process down the road at a certain time to be determined.

    decommissioning is also part of the RFP and will be part of the development agreement.

    Okay, looking forward to those conversations. Thank you very much, Madam President. Thank you all for the work that you do. Really appreciate it.

    Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,

    Councilmember waters. All right.

    Thank you. Good. Afternoon. Hello, everyone.

    Okay, so I was looking at in fiscal year 24, your sales and services generated revenue for fiscal 24 But do not anticipate that in the type of revenue in the future year so why not?

    Right, sorry about that. For the chair. So this is this $50,000 revenue is for partial reimbursement. From the emergency management performance grant to Homeland Security for its Emergency Coordinator position. The FY 25 proposed budget moves this expected revenue to the correct category of grants share taxes and revenues.

    Okay. All right. So the next question actually goes to Deputy Mayor. A few months ago, I sent you a proposal for young entrepreneurs program called the Yep. Can you Is there a future for such a program? Did you have an opportunity to review it? Because as I was listening to all of these solar projects, and I'm thinking what an opportunity for young folks to start their own business and be able to do some light weight kinds of installations and things like that, so that either of you both you or the chief of staff have an opportunity to review that that that program, that Young Entrepreneurs Program, and and then you know, what are your thoughts?

    I had an opportunity to review it and a lot of the things was, in my opinion was really kind of duplicate of what Detroit it works in with jumpstart and with the ETC on the Motor City match, but I think there's some opportunity for collaboration with it. But then I did see I can't remember what the price tag of it was, but I'm looking at it we'll definitely have to sit down more with you. But um, I can't remember the exact price tag but I know it was. It was substantial. It was substantial. And so I know we're investing a substantial amount of money into, you know, Detroit at work. So with our jumpstart program that we launched to get Detroiters back to work and in is opportunities for them to skill up through that with American rescue plan that money that we put, you know, roughly a lot into. So,

    you know, and I get that you know, I was part of the whole jumpstart program to you came up with the name but you know, came up with the concept, but, but I kind of want something that will be specifically identified with for young people, something that just says young entrepreneurs, and I and I don't know I want you to figure out how to how to make that happen. Because if we just have a category, you talking about all these different departments, that's not easy for them to find they don't really know how they fit into it. But if you say Young Entrepreneurs Program or something like that, then they know, they know that this is concerning them. And this is the age range and so forth. It kind of gives them something of their own. I don't I don't know if I'm making sense to you, but you know, it and you can take some of those services that you say are provided already. Within that and the other areas and put it under young entrepreneurs and in a certain category.

    You can really spark something there when you think about voting Tory young talent and with with, you know, employing young people for the summer how we're up to 8000 every year in in in teaching them to get the soft skills that they need to be able to go into the workforce with the skill trays or even start their own business. It may be some synergy there. And so I would love to connect with Terry wings and have a conversation to see how we can make Yelp, create a create a box create a bar, you know, create create a synergy where we can really focus more on the entrepreneurial piece of it.

    And I'm gonna tell you how this whole idea was born i i was the I was over at at Fishbowl one day and ended up there were a couple of folks there from the community. And they were saying how upset they were about some of the young people who sometimes try to sell their products even on the streets here and they get ran away by the the security and so forth. And and so the conversation just started you know, what about something of their own, and that's exactly how it happened. And I'd like to see that happen with just them having that category if that's possible. And I believe you guys can make that happen some kind of way.

    We're going to definitely Trump.

    Thank you. All right.

    Thank you, Madam President.

    All right. Thank you, Councilmember waters, Councilmember Calloway.

    Thank you, Madam President. And good afternoon, everyone. And I'm gonna piggyback on what pro Tim Tate said to you earlier. Deputy Mayor, you are amazing. Everywhere there's an event you seem to be there. I don't know how you do it. We just left the transit center. You were there and then now you're here. So I appreciate all the things that you do some ribbon cuttings, I can't attend. You're always there. And you always say kind things about my efforts. in district two. So I just wanted to personally thank you and give you a second bouquet of flowers. And I want the city to know and I want everyone in this room to know that you're amazing, and that you always are in the right place at the right time representing this city in a outstanding manner. And I wanted to say thank you, sir.

    Through the Chair. Thank you.

    You're welcome. I have a question for I think it's Mr. Kincaid. I was looking at your budget and under the Homeland Security appropriations shows a 61% decrease in spending for the fiscal year 2025. And I don't know if I'm reading it properly or not, but it was adopted on May 2020. For $3 million. And then now, for 2025. It's going to go down to $1.1 million. And then that goes up like 2020 26 So can you explain the decrease in the appropriation and the reason behind the decrease? And then also, part two of that question is what is the reason for the loss of all 21 intelligence specialist staff under this cost center? And thank you? Yes,

    ma'am. Through the Chair. I think the answer is wrapped up in both of those issues. It was wrapped up in one answer regarding the decrease in funding because we're moving some of those dollars to police. The intelligence analysts that were in my budget originally, it's a natural transition for them to go over to DPD because when they first started DPD did not have the real time crime center running or anything like that. And we had the expertise and a couple of people on my staff with master's in emergency in intelligence, who did the training or the intelligence specialists and things like that. Now their role has gotten so broad doing everything from critical infrastructure, and dealing with the event vetting to make sure anybody that's coming to Detroit to an event to do something bad or any type of snickering that we're prepared for that. So a lot of that information sometimes can be las what we call law enforcement sensitive so they are placed in the real time crime center, and they're supervised on a daily basis by Detroit Police Department just in case that information needs to be constrained to the law enforcement community. So and it's grown from the original five people that we started with and trained and now they have a training process and everything. And the real time crime center is in full effect. Initially, they came to our shop and looked at our emergency operations center with the cameras and everything. And that's how they set up the real time crime center. So it was just a natural progression of transition that these intelligence analysts go over to DPD because that's where their house and that's where the supervise and that's one of the biggest decreases in our budget. Thank

    you. And I was just concerned through the chair to you, Mr. Kincaid, that we were eliminating services but no, no, we're just transitioning to exactly

    the manufacturer. We're getting better when how to eliminate. It allows my direct staff to concentrate on some other things. We no longer have to train the intelligence specialists. They are trained under DPD now, so it's a natural transition. And I was doing all their paperwork and performance evaluations, which meant I had to deal with the supervision there at DPD to find out exactly what they were doing, because they supervise them on a daily basis. So it's a natural progression. Thank

    you for that clarification. And my second question is to the Department of neighborhoods. One of the biggest issues I find in the city since I've been on this council and even as a resident and a taxpayer in the Green Acres area is blight. And I have found myself out there initiating cleanups and participating in several during the year since I've been in office and don't mind doing it. And the neighbors come out and we get a lot of volunteers from my sorority. My Alumni Chapter we come out because it's it's necessary. We got to continue to clean up the city but what is your department doing to address the Blight litter and illegal dumping? I know that's one of your charges, but we're lacking in that area and we've been lacking in that area for quite some time. I don't mind going out there doing that heavy lift with the community. But if we have a dedicated department to do that, I'd like to see more done in that regard. So can you let me know what measures your department has taken to address the blight, the litter and the illegal dumping? Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Mr. Romm.

    Thank you through the Chair. First of all, let me say thank you for your partnership. You are always out there side by side, but we actually do blight rides a couple of times a week. So if you have any specific areas where you need us to focus on, I definitely can get with the team so on those rides, we partnered with AI environmental team, we partnered with our MPOs anyone that can write warnings or citations and take those down we use improve Detroit we teach the block clubs and neighbors how to use improve the choice so it's a layered approach. And if it continues, we also again do our walk and talks where we knock door to door and say hey, do you have a block club? Would you like to form a block Club? Well, how can we help you increase participation with your block club because we have visual is actually the key right? If somebody's looking out the window, it's less likely someone's going to be dumping in that area but you can call me directly if you have any areas you want me to focus on. We can do some walking talks and blight rides immediately in those areas.

    Thank you. Mr. Callaway, your microphone

    Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate that your answer but it doesn't really answer my question. I think we have to be a little bit proactive. I like your walks your walk through the neighborhood, walk through the through the neighborhoods but we got to do something about the cultural aspect of it. Why do we have a dirty city? Why is it that you can cross eight mile and then our underpass or overpass or wherever you call is filthy. On the Ferndale side is spotless, but as soon as you hit Detroit, you are going to be welcoming and saying trash and it's just so unfortunate. So I you know we can talk about it later. And I know we have the improve Detroit app. I use it my staff uses it and we are getting the residents to use it as well. But we have a problem in the city with with blight. Even when you come up the ramps at the lodge we've been out there a couple times trying to keep them clean. I don't see enough signs out with saying if you litter there's a fine. I've not ever seen a sign. I'm sure they're out there somewhere. But maybe we need to have that into more on trash cans as well. Especially on seven and six mile. It's trash on seven and six miles from one end to the other. And not enough trash receptacles. know they're supposed to be located where the bus stops are. But that's not always the case. And I'd like to see some recycling bins and might be a conversation I'd have to have with GSD but we don't have enough places for people to put trash. But I like us to increase the opportunities to have trash receptacles located along those corridors six and seven mile road. Mostly. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Mr. Solomon. Adam Kuhn.

    Yeah, if I may, and we were remiss in not introducing Brad dig our chief operating officer who remember Callaway that you bring up that issue I know you're very much in contact with Brad and his team who's working on fleet cleaning the freeways and just Yes, we do need to change the culture because I to see it and get angry quite angry that we clean the freeways and then there's debris the next day. So I don't know if you'd like Brad to come to a mic and we can you know if you're okay, council president switch seats or whatever.

    So he can call me oh he's got to come

    higher through the chair the spread that yes, I was writing down the your your question as I was called up so I will make sure we look into see if there's more trash can be placed along six and seven mile road as far as the cleanup on the freeways and run the roads. The crews of all full crews were effective as of two weeks ago. I personally have seen a big noticeable difference with the freeways because I tend to drive them and look at what time of my weekend drives around the city. And I hope everybody else is starting to see that there are two contract crews out plus city crew out of the city crew was a Skills for Life program, which I think most folks are aware of is a program that we started with ARPA funds to train people that had been going through school as well too. And they are out there working. As far as the parks the park crews are out fully they'll be fully staffed for the end of March. It looks like spring is coming early this year. And we will be out working and cleaning as well too. And I'll see what we can do more trash cans and those corridors as well too. If you have a specific spot you want cans, please just let me know and then I'll put the request in to DPW to see if we could have one place there. Thank you.

    Thank you, Councilmember caliber deputy mayor,

    the chair to Councilmember Callaway. I just wanted to just add the component of the Detroit Police Department as well in over their real time crime center. They do have dealt dumping cameras that they monitor that can be moved around. So that's another layered approach. Where if we have a problematic area because oftentimes we can go through and clean it up, and then individuals will come right back there and do it again. And so getting that location getting some cameras up so that we can actually get to the root cause a problem and address the person who were persons who are dumping. And then you know, after they're apprehended, of course go through the process. Oftentimes we impound their vehicle or fit the vehicle to give them issues as well. And so working together, just don't want to forget about that piece of it and then BC with the tickets that they write also holding to be able to change the culture and attitudes. Thank you.

    Thank you

    yes into the chair. And you're right it is a culture so we do a lot we spend a lot of time educating. So through DPW and GSD. They're getting ready to launch a campaign keep Detroit beautiful, where it will be running some ads on social media. So hopefully that will be a another path towards getting a culture change.

    All right, thank you. Remember Yeah.

    Thank you, Madam President. I just first of all, I just want to say to Deputy Mayor always a pleasure to work with you, sir. You've been the consummate professional. Thank you to Chief stay in Washington. Thank you so much. Always been able to easily reach out to you that ease and Brad Dyk thank you so much for your professionalism and all your hard work, especially this week. Wow. It was really needed. So I really, really took a lot off my back this week. So I thank you, sir. And I appreciate you. And to Mr. Solomon. Always a pleasure brother. You know, I really liked working with you and I'm sure your father would be proud of you and all the work that you're doing this time. Always a pleasure to work with you. Thank you so much. So good to work with consummate professionals. I've been in the office where they are nothing but so I really appreciate them when I meet them. Thank you. But uh, Mr. Kincaid, you here sir. I'm sorry to make you stand up in the back of the room but and, and I don't mean to disrespect you. I know you Homeland Security. I'm not trying to get snatched up out of here, sir. So, but

    I do know people. Yes.

    I appreciate you. Um, but I had two questions. One, I'm sure you're aware of what happened in 2020. During the election process, where you had people that were actively trying to intimidate the clerk and other people from doing their constitutionally required duty in terms of counting the vote. Will there will Homeland Security have a presence at all because I personally believe that that is an act of terrorism and basically participate in trying to overthrow the government? Will Homeland Security be on the ground at all? Will they be involved in preventing that from happening at all? I know you can't reveal too much of your strategy, but I just wonder, Is that something that we could count on and would we have to appropriate more money to be able to preserve people being able to have the right that their right to vote is protected? Or is that already covered that the 51,000 increase that you're asking for today?

    The chair? Yes, I'm glad you asked that question. So we do remember 2020. As a matter of fact, one of my new staff members commander's alloggi was in charge of Metro of the SWAT team during that period. One of the things I talked about earlier was our Homeland Security Advisory Council that connects us with just about everybody, public and private sector. He called me on a Thursday night and said, Hey, we got this down here at Huntington. However, I'm getting intelligence information that tomorrow, they're flying people in. I don't know if I can handle that. I said don't worry about it. By eight o'clock that night, Thursday night. I have all of our partners on the FBI Wednesday, police when country, tons of people buy that morning because I said commander tell them what you need, which he did. By that morning, we had eight officers from several different departments, three bomb dogs and three SWAT teams. So we will prepare and the only thing that happened is someone drove in a large Trump bridge on a semi trailer. And when we saw that DPD went out investigated, this guy didn't have a driver's license. They ended up impounding the truck, the bridge and everything. So we're on top of that and because of our emergency connectivity, with the Homeland Security Advisory Council, and other connectivity that we have, we can spin something up at a very short time. But this year, we're already dealing with the election department. We've had a training exercise based on what happened before. What they need to do communications radios will already training with the election department to see what they need. And right now it is covered. But if something happens, we need more money. We'll be back in next year asking for it. But currently, I think we're really really good.

    I appreciate that they might second question I want to ask, forgive me, I forgot the year, but there was an incident where we had members of the Klu Klux Klan are white supremacist who are marching up Woodward armed and I just I personally consider the gentleman to be GentleLASE be terrorists, quite honestly. And I know that's within your department within Homeland Security, I think the FBI, these are things like white supremacist extremists. I don't know. I know, there's like black identity extremists for black people. And I know that they were monitoring Black Lives Matter members and other sorts of folks. I just want to know, Are we there? Is there any plan to make sure that that doesn't happen again? Are they monitoring them? I understand DPD was in a really hard position. You're saying they had to do the things that basically I didn't like to see because they had to give them cover because a lot of people were kind of crowding in on them because of what they represented who they are and the threat they were making. And they were making threats to other people and they were all walking down the street with firearms, literally waving them around. Is there anything that we have or anything that you plan on doing in terms of being able to prevent this from happening or stopping this from happening and is the budget that you have sufficient enough in order to do that in terms of FTE towards the manpower in terms of finances other such things or equipment or whatever, to?

    To expand right through the chair, Councilmember Young. Homeland Security currently works very closely in concert with the Detroit Police Department, and BPD they have a large enough budget in the resources that they need basically a full budget of strength. They completely have it covered back then. And basically during the 2020 elections, I was there as Assistant Chief I was wandering around there working in concert, so we definitely have it covered. Also in caustic contact with our city clerk. She got me more speed down. And so we we have you know, to this day, you can rest assured that we have it covered. And

    the reason why I'm saying is because I understand you have to neutralize the situation. So it wasn't like you could arrest them at that spot. And because of what they were doing, it's kind of hard you just can't arrest people without that even though they weren't doing disturbance. But there was a lot of people who felt that DPD in from weight looks like they were getting certain level of protections that other people who are peacefully protesting that are not associated with terrorist organizations with that type of history wouldn't receive and so I just wanted to know one. What was the plan with Homeland Security's actually supposed to be terrorists, personally, and I know that's your wheelhouse. So I just want to know what was the plan for that? And then secondly, if this happens again, will they be treated as such?

    Well, if I may, to the chair the benefit we have is DPD. And I can say it because I was the loan with the assistant cheap. The DM is one of the greatest police departments there and I've worked with three of them la Toledo and DPD. What we have here is the ability to communicate properly. And what happens is our commanders of the SWAT team and Metro Division, this smart enough to go to the leaders of these groups and said, Hey, this is our mandate. This is what we need you to do. And as long as you stay within that mandate, things will be good. And they go to both sides that are in this protest or in this movement on and smart. And they've been very successful. explaining to them the do's and don'ts. Even though it may look like we're protecting one side to the other. What we're really doing is keeping peace. And my job is to make sure we coordinate the things that why BPD is doing their job. My job is to make sure they have what they need on the periphery. If they need FBI standing by da stand by State Police standing by a large bus from DDOT standing by for mass arrest. My job is to make sure I'm coordinating things so DPD as Assistant Chief Deputy Mayor said can continue doing what they're doing. So even though it looks like they're protecting the bad people, so to speak, the protecting everybody. And they have an agreement and communication with both sides to make sure they understand what the mandate is from DPD.

    Thank you. Thank you, Debbie. Appreciate Thank you. Thank you.

    All right. Thank

    you councilmember young member Santiago Ramiro.

    Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon, everyone. Good to see you all. So my questions. The first question is I'm incredibly excited to hear the success of shot stoppers and back in 2022 We submitted a memo requesting an Office of Violence Prevention, when we took the trip to DC, me and Deputy Bettison and that's where we learned about best practices. Happy to hear it's going well, how have we thought further about codifying this in an ordinance in an office in the mayor's office to sustain the program?

    Through the Chair councilmember Santiago Romero. We have virtually created an office. We have an administrative staff as you know, I have a staff of support team. Michael Pam, Jalen and others Bashar that oversees insurance that the invoice is in really is writing it so it's not called the office by name but it's out of the mayor's office. And so but the mayor is looking long term for sustainability. And so with that, up in Lansing right now, it's a house bill that's in the Senate, and we need to get it out of committee and it's to public safety trust fund. And so based off the 666 that we've seen thus far with our CBI groups, the mayor is committed to funding this long term and so with the public safety, trust and money that will be allocated to the city of Detroit after is passed out of the Senate. He's committed to donating or donating but allocating a third of that to CVI. And so that'll be roughly $8 million a year going forward. And so virtually, you know how we envisioned it. is playing out. And so basically, your office is is here, the bigger thing right now was to push to ensure that we get the public safety trust loan passed so that we have the sustainability of CVI even after administration and so going forward, we envision this

    year years to come. Understood and through the Chair, I misspoke. This is already under your office. It's it's about it being its own office when the administration change. Who knows? The second third fourth mayor in the city might want to change that so my concern is that kind of sustainability is beyond this administration's time of service is making sure that work like this is in a sustained office that is codified that that we find, because my concern is that if if if and when a new mayor comes into play, that they may not support to a program like this. So happy to hear that we are doing what we can to sustain it at the moment to find resources to to continue it. But I will continue to push about this being an ordinance and an established office so that this legacy continues, and that there is no no risk of of losing this work.

    Thank you and there's not much daylight between us and I look forward to being right there with you because the ultimate goal is to sustain CVI we know that it works and let's let's let's work towards that.

    Okay, thank you. My next question is around sustainability. So happy to hear that we are hiring, that we are growing the departments. But I'm hearing a lot of conversations around sustainability and technology which is great. My concern is about the infrastructure that we have. So we are dealing with climate change. We are dealing with failing infrastructure that is aging. We are dealing with industry that is putting trucks on our roads, destroying our streets and our homes and our properties are we discussing creating a climates and a climate resilient city for for the rains and what's to come, but also resilience and sustainable to to what we have right now which is which is aging infrastructure. Are we having these conversations and do we have a plan to make sure that we are investing in sustained infrastructure?

    My apologies, Tricia Stein, had to had to depart a little bit early but she did ask that if there were any additional questions for her that they'd be submitted in writing, and she will respond as soon as possible.

    Okay, so we can definitely send that over through the chair through a memo. I guess just wrapped up. Final thoughts to wrap up. really grateful for my colleague member Johnson who brought emergency management to Executive Session. I have been a part of of those trainings. My chief of staff comes from emergency management's. We have thought about purchasing policy and ordinance that would require training for community groups, but instead we're stepping back and going through the process ourselves. So our office is actually working together now to hold a community emergency management training when it comes to climates, emergency experiences that we have, so that our nonprofits our residents are ready to respond to these floods to these fires. So we're taking those steps as an office with our residents. But we are thinking about what would it look like if this was an ordinance that required churches, nonprofits, community groups, block clubs, to do the training, but again, let's go through the process and have those conversations. So this is already an executive session through your member through your council president to member Johnson. Was this what you were thinking around or is this separate than the near ideas that you had?

    So thank you for the question. So what I put into executive session was an emergency response program that was as a result of the conversations with Deputy Mayor of Edison. I believe, Mr. Ray Solomon was involved in those conversations as well. I think Brad dig may have been involved but it there were a number of different departments that were involved as a result of some other conversations that you all know were taking place, and really just trying to pull everything together just so that what you just referred to, we as a city can respond to emergencies appropriately for our residents.

    Wonderful. So thank you after the Chair, thank you member Johnson. So then I will leave that an executive session to be discussed further. And my only other comments is incredibly grateful for everyone's work again on on the CVI friends. But I need to give a huge shout out to residents. Residents came out and pushed it administration and council to utilize ARPA money not in technology but in community. And that is how we were able to do this work. It was a tough conversation. It was a tough time. But I think it led to really good understanding and opportunities and solutions. So thank you all so much for everyone for going through their process together with community. Happiness,

    the Chair, can I it was a community that actually named the program shot stoppers. And it's a funny story. And if I could just have like 30 seconds to tell it. They've supported us and invested in technology. That's what the residents say things like, you know, we support you all and we've advocated for police to have raises and we've came out and advocated for, you know, supported you in other sports technology, but support us support the community because we're the real shot stoppers. And so when I told the mayor that story, he was like, that's the name of the program and I was like what really it so that's how it came about. We'll CBI Detroit shot stoppers and so you're absolutely right, Councilmember Santiago Romero is the community that has been here and I'm really grateful because when they didn't have any money, and we called in, they were pulling money out of their pockets. And Chief White would say hey, or whether it was cheap Creig at the time, you know, if we had a problem, say can you call it Detroit 300 Can you call some of these groups in they always show it up and I didn't have so much money. It's like a gas car to give them and they came on their own dime in still with the city to help be eyes and ears and support. So I'm glad you really highlighted that point. Thank you.

    Thank you, Councilmember Johnson.

    Thank you, Madam President. And good afternoon, everyone. I am not shouting anyone out. But thank all of you for all of the work that you do. I do want to ask in the future. In this particular budget hearing can be longer because you all it seems like you're like representing so many, almost different departments, if you will. And I have a number of questions that I guess I'll just submit in writing. I want to start with Director Kincaid. So thank you. First and foremost, Donna northern is working with us on the FEMA facility and she's actually helped us with making sure that FEMA is at our meeting on Monday to help do intake for residents. Who had a weather event last year and 2023. You mentioned alert 365 And I've shared this with some folks that are here. On Tuesday. At our evening council meeting. I received a text message. The president of our neighborhood association was asking me what was going on by my house because there were a lot of police cars. I had no clue. I left at the meeting ended maybe 10 minutes later. I get to my neighborhood and I see at least lights probably easily 15 different police cars. This state police was there. Three blocks were all blocked off. And I was none the wiser. I really want to impress upon the departments within this city to make sure that we are utilizing alert 365 and I will work with you. However I can because for me the departments that need to be sending out alerts at the very minimum are DPD fire and the Detroit water and sewage department. So I ended up in my neighborhood to helicopters 15 Police Car state local. I still have no idea what happened because the the information that I received after that was erroneous it was for any event that happened the year prior. So I think is extremely important for residents to be made aware of those types of situations. Apparently they were looking for someone who was running hide in people's backyards. I can only assume that the person was armed. I don't know. And so it was it was unnerving. Primarily because I didn't know what was going on. And so it was difficult for me to protect myself and so if we have the technology we should really use it and so I don't know, can you speak to how you utilize the technology currently, I know you offered it to council members to be able to utilize to send out information to our constituents. I'd like to see it use maybe a little bit more for emergency situations. So that we get the alert. I remember I used to get a text message a phone call, but I have not seen many of them lately. So can you speak about how it's currently being used utilized?

    Yes, ma'am through the Chair. I'm glad you brought that up and I'm going to take that squarely upon my shoulders. I understand. The rolled out initially because when we first created a couple of our emergency plans like the evacuation plan, we realized we didn't have a methodology for communicating with the public when something went on other than the EAS which is the Emergency Alert System, or the we have the wireless emergency alert when it comes across your cell phone. We needed something personal for Detroit. So then CIO Beth niblack said you need to get something and we came up with 365. The biggest problem that I see with the current usage is some of the department's still considered a homeland security tool. And it's not we're trying to push it out and massage it so they know it's a city wide tool. So we're going to departments to make sure they use it properly. I think there was deputy really it started using it quite well. I remember getting a call from my brother because they had a person running to my neighborhood. And he said, Hey, I just got a mess of grief. It made me excited that they were using it. But I understand that there has been some transition in the communication department. So it's up to me to go down there and say listen, we need to get back on board to make sure they have the proper training and resources to continue to utilize this thing. I know personnel moves around, but we're not going to even make any excuses for why it is not being utilized properly. So I'm going to take that on my shoulders to make sure I'm going out to make sure the department start to use that properly and more. We're boasting about it. We're bragging about it. We need to utilize so I need to I need to do a better job my department needs to do a better job telling everybody how to use it when to use it. And I know the water department has been sent out stuff during floods so as fire department during the air quality situation. It's going to be up to me to get most of the apartment start using it better. So I'm going to take that on my shoulders to make sure because that's a very scary situation just explained to me very unnerving. And I'd hate to see that ever happen again. Knowledge is power. And we know sharing knowledge is powerful. So we're going to make that happen. So I'm going to look into that immediately. And see if we can keep that from ever happening again, ma'am. Thank

    you. I appreciate that. And I do know that some several of my neighbors were outside trying to figure out what was going on. And that probably was not the best response for them but they didn't know they didn't know. Thank you for that. My other pressing question that I wanted to ask was around sustainability. And so I'm going to make sure I send it over to Miss Stein, but it really revolved around essentially what Member Santiago Ramirez talked about, but wanting to understand better how GSI is being implemented on the east side. I know there are a lot of projects happening on the west side but really want to make sure that we are if we have to do something differently in a little bit more creative because of the clay soil on the east side or whatever the challenges are, I just want to make sure that those are things that are being elevated to ensure that we can address GSI because of the way it also impacts us on the east side. I will ask my second question to Mr. Solomon. I have recently received feedback from constituents relative to a change within the department, the Department of neighborhoods and how you all view community organizations. So I understand there is black club, there's a neighborhood association and there's a community development organization, and they're all viewed differently. And as such, my understanding is that there are some grant opportunities that may be applicable to one of those groups and not necessarily all of those groups. Can you speak to those changes? Because a lot of people feel as though they're essentially one in the same they're just a little larger.

    So through the Chair, I'm not sure I quite understand the question. I know I've gotten some calls around the block, block club beautification grant. So you have to be a block club and you have to be if you're not a block club, your church or nonprofit, you have to be partnered with the block club to qualify, qualify for that. So that may be kind of where the question is stemming from but we can talk offline I'm not sure I quite understand.

    Okay. I'll certainly follow up with you. But that's part of it. There are some other ARPA grant opportunities that this impacts the type of organization as we've classified them, that prevents them from being able to apply for some dip different ARPA grants. But again, we'll we'll talk about this later. And then just wanted to say thank you for the the work that's being done around the shot stoppers program. I know that of the two that are in District Four partly district for one of them has taken more of a grassroots approach. I've always thought it was beneficial for them to communicate with others that have been on the ground doing CBI work for years. And so I'm glad to see that that's happening now because I just kind of felt like their approach was what we all do in community and building block clubs and engaging people. But I think there's a different piece to the puzzle that is more directed at crime and crime prevention. That needs to be added into the fold of the work that they do. So I'm glad to see that that's happening. So thank you. Thank you, Madam President.

    All right. Thank you, member Johnson member Dr. Hall.

    Thank you, Madam President. And good afternoon to you all first, start off by saying thank you for everyone in the administration and all you do a mirror earlier we were at a press conference talked about partnerships. And those are very important between counsel as well as the administration. As we talked about moving the city forward. Obviously, it takes all of us it takes support from us, but it takes support from you guys on the initiatives that we want to push forward. And so Thanks for always keeping the door open and having those tough conversations. I do believe the city is improving because of it. Still got a ways to go but I think we are getting there. In that same vein, I want to talk more so just about neighborhoods. The SR disabled residents know Assistance Program which I think it'd be a very good program. My question is how do we expand that? Often we receive a lot of calls, obviously from residents about snow removal, who are disabled seniors calling? I know I've come on my own pocket at times to help folks I know you have to re to help folks and even got out there and shovel some snow ourselves. But how do we work to expand this program so we put more money into it? I we've got over 130,000 disabled residents here in the city of Detroit and obviously a significantly a significant amount of seniors love to see that expanded.

    So through the chair, it is 100% volunteer ran so there's not money that goes into that. So to simply answer the question, how are we promotion? Right helping us push out when we are pushing for volunteers. I mean, the more volunteers we have, obviously the more seniors and our disabled community we can get to

    and I appreciate that. I know a big chunk of that are volunteers. And so my mind is wrapping around maybe creating some type of grant program for some of our community groups. Although I will say if you you know this you visit a lot of community groups. Most of them are a lot of women who are elderly, in these community groups who are holding it down in our communities. Right. And not a lot of men attend these groups. Not to say that women can't shovel snow, but some of the brothers got to get out here and help as well. But I'd be interested to have that conversation about opening a grant program to expand snow services just particularly for our senior and disabled residents. And I didn't know if you were gonna I was gonna say

    we'll do the chair. We'll take it back with W mayor and Chief of Staff and look into them and

    I appreciate that I want to start the process here. Madam President, I'd like to make a motion to put the mayor's office budget into Executive Session, particularly the the Department of neighborhoods regarding senior and disabled residents snow removal,

    Hearing no objections that action will be taken. Thank you. And

    the second just revolves around CVI. Obviously, a lot of our members have said stuff that I would always say as well you guys are doing an amazing job, particularly you, Deputy Mayor, you've been there every step of the way you attend the gun violence task force meetings. You know, we walk together when we talk about these groups. Glad to hear about the expansion but in that same vein, I know we've had those discussions on how do we keep CBI going obviously the public safety trust fund that is in Lansing is imperative to be passed. What can we do on our end to assist with getting that across the finish line? No, oftentimes, and I know even maybe miss Washington can chime in on this. I know oftentimes, again, you guys go up there. We do have our lobbyists, GTSI, but what can we do from our ends? Do we need to come together even talk to some of our county officials? Do we need to take a trip up to land so obviously we can all take it together. But what are some of the things that we can do to help push this across the finish line? You're my deputy mayor

    through the chair. Councilmember Hall Thank you for saying that. Use your social and political capital and reach out to the Detroit senators because that's where it's at right now. And you know, good. You know, just encourage them and so matter of fact, we're even going to have some of the CBI groups they're opening up their their various locations that the ARPA money and the American rescue plan Act money within this program, which we allocated. They're going to open up and have some tools to be able to show them, you know, on the ground, what they're able to do and be able to talk about the impact that they're having right into your community. So I got a couple of dates lined up and I can get you those dates. And so one of them is on the 22nd and we're going to be over on the west side and we're a shop and so we've invited I think our eight senators from Detroit out and for them to but then we'll take a look and so I invite you out as well. But just you know, get on a phone call and let them know how important this is because you know, we see it in you know, we're experiencing it and it's not only good for the city of Detroit. You know it's good for other cities across the state this experiencing gun violence, because it's going to help address to address it in plant in ecourse in other places, Grand Rapids. So this is good, not only for the city of Detroit, but across the whole state. And I'll let my

    Yeah, so I would echo that with Deputy Mayor said use your relationships. If you don't please reach out to the lawmakers that definitely represent the city of Detroit, whether it's 5%, whether it's 20%, and also encourage them to speak to their communities that are you know, have these relationships with the CVI groups. And encourage them to, you know, let's move this long, because, as deputy mayor said, is a statewide initiative, but you know, through this, we can hire more police officers, you know, more CBI group, you know, sustainability and I just think, I don't know if that message is is is getting heard, and you council members are right there on the ground level, talking to the community all the time, and I think hearing from you, and a lot of the cases really would help out as well.

    Thank you, and I appreciate that. I echo that. Again, I think we all have to do our part and then we come together we can try to move move this across the finish line. Just really quickly before I end just give a special shout out. I know you guys do amazing work but got a shout out Mr. Malik, Washington as well as were killed Newell because they are our liaisons 2000. And many of us, particularly our team corresponds with them on a daily basis. They keep us informed of what's happening with the mayor's office, what's happening and committees or are and things like that, and sometimes I don't think they get enough praise but they do an amazing job and so they want to give them a shout out. Other than that, that concludes my questions or comments. Thank you, Madam President.

    Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hall. And again, just want to echo the comments that were made about the entire Mayor's office. Thank you for the work that you do. Deputy Mayor, thank you as well for your effort on CVI. I know this is something that we have been talking about for quite some time it you know, making sure that we provide funding for our organizations that do the work day in and day out. So I'm really excited to see the data to date that it has been working and as was mentioned, really looking forward to the sustainability sustainability portion of how we you know, keep the program going. I will ask one question around black club registration and development to Mr. Solomon. I want to get a better understanding of the efforts around what the department is doing to encourage more black clubs and my time out in the neighborhoods during the summer and spring time. We do see a lot of residents that are dis engaged and do not have bike clubs are interested in forming black clubs. So you mentioned you're doing door to door outreach, and I wanted to know a little bit more about that. And then also really quick on your slide sheet it says over 600 Black clubs, curious to know how many are active, how many are not active. And then also how many have been developed or created over the last year. So is this just 600 that we have total? How many are we adding every year to that list?

    Madam President, I will have to get you the yearly count, but I'll answer the first question. So I'll get back with you on how many we created. Year to year. But yeah, so we do walk in talks where we go door to door, knock on areas and several things can spark that. So we actually started walking talks when we had a neighborhood that was experiencing car breaks. So we realized that they didn't have a block club. So we will go to the local church and say hey, if we need to use your space for our candle, we will say yes so when we start those type of walking talks, we already had location we already have the time to meet it's going to be about time we get from corner to corner we've we have a conversation. We have five or six like minded people and we have formed by the end of the day you all have a block club we already so you want to be in the block club don't want to be a block up what will you be a block captain we can we communicate to you by the time we get to the end of the block. We have about seven people to say I don't want to be a block club but I'll be a block captain. Guess what? You all have a block club. So that works a lot so a lot of things can spark the walk and talks. And if you have against specific areas you want us to target all absolutely we can start that immediately. The weather's breaking we're starting our black drives back we're starting to schedule our walking talks. So education, education, education. Yeah, and

    I haven't really seen any brochures or any thing that really promotes black clubs in the city of Detroit, which I would like to see more of that we can take out to our constituents as well too. And it's really a deeper dive into pushing. You know why people should start black clubs and when we talk about our young people getting them engaged, I think this is a great opportunity to let them head and lead a Black Law because they are they're interested in being engaged to but they need to know how to start it. Why it's important. I know I've seen personally firsthand where we have black clubs that that neighborhood is stronger overall. So I just want to see a bigger push and I'm not sure how we measure it because I can't see here for the last three years if it's grown per year, but want to make sure that we're really pushing whether it be through you know, pamphlets and educational materials. I have not seen any today you're saying you guys do have some in your budget to handle that

    we do we have information packages that encourage block clubs and also promote any programs that any department may have. So that could be water department assistance

    program specifically referring why you started how we can incentivize starting them to get people to want to start them specifically about black clubs, not the program because once the black club is formed, then the programs come but how are we promoting why people should start by clubs, how do you start it, the benefits of it, etc.

    We will make a stronger push and maybe we'll definitely make a separate package that's just focus on

    and you have sufficient funds in the budget to do that. Yes. Okay. And then in that same vein, and I'm going to advocate now for our senior buildings, because they are a part of our neighborhoods as well too. And I think there's a huge disconnect from the resources that Don offers. I know you guys do a lot of stuff online, you're done talks weekly, and you go out to neighborhood block clubs, but our seniors in our senior buildings, where do we do you all come to them at all? I mean, they're just it's a huge disconnect. So I'm not sure if you've ever thought about trying to engage in senior buildings, helping them start tenant associations. Those are like bike clubs inside of their buildings. We have taken upon ourselves to reach out to Detroit people's platform, and we've been in several buildings and started tenant councils. Sorry, no worries. We started 20 councils but I think that our seniors are not aware of all of the services that exist because when I come on a dime meetings I'm always just surprised at all this happening in Detroit you guys provide a lot of information, but our seniors in our in our senior complexes are not getting that information. So can you speak to outreach in that form? And if there's any way that you can help initiate tenant councils within senior buildings, to get them engaged and involved?

    The answer to that is yes, we can. I mean, we have we don't have a targeted effort. We go where there is a need, but I think that's a great suggestion and we can definitely make a effort to target to see your buildings.

    Okay. So I will follow up with you offline to actually figure out how we implement it. And in the interim, if we could add that portion to the executive session, and that will be black club development and tenant associations within our senior senior buildings to our Executive Session. Is there a motion to do so? Okay. All right. Thank you Hearing no objections that will be added. And I did have additional questions just around constituent services, but I will put it in writing for the sake of time, and there's nothing else we appreciate. Yes, Miss Washington.

    I'm sorry. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to say as far as Lansing I pray she just said this before of resolution. Urging the Senate it's already passed the House, the CBI legislation would be greatly appreciate appreciate it from counsel. So that's something to consider as well. Thanks.

    So we can add that to our closing resolution. Is there a motion motion? All right, Hearing no objections. We will add that to our closing resolution, and we could probably still do a separate one as well to that, Mr. Whittaker? Yes.

    I'm not supposed to but I'd be remiss if I didn't excuse me, if I hadn't mentioned are prepared and spare. That's coming up at Kennedy Center in August, August the 10th. We talked about emergency management and being prepared with the community. I want everybody to know that we do have a preparedness fair coming at the community center in August August 10 from 10am to 2pm. We'll have a lot of people there DPD. Marathon be there. A lot of people will be there talking about preparedness. So we talked about the emergency management. We want everybody to come out and get some good information.

    Thank you. We appreciate that. If you have a flyer or something when it gets to us, we'll make sure we get it out as well.

    We'll make sure okay. All right. Well, thank

    you all for being here to the mayor's office. We appreciate you and this will conclude our budget hearing All right everyone have a great day

    okay do I believe it to be pretty bad

    I don't want people to be mad

    Alright, we're moving now directly into the Detroit library and if the individuals that are here can join us at the table.

    All right, good afternoon. Good afternoon. All right. Yep. Whenever you're ready to begin, just make sure your microphone is on and the floor is yours to begin.

    Okay, thank you. I'm Antonio Brown. Chief Financial Officer for the Detroit Public Library. I have with us our commission president, Commissioner Ida short. And we also have our executive director with us miss Joy Madani. I hope that you all have received our brief present budget presentation that I like to present to city council and just kind of go over and then we'll be able to answer questions about five. Perfect. Okay, great. Thank you. All right. You have before you our our proposed FY 2025 budget presentation, it was presented by Miss Madani and myself. The library, the Traip library contributes in many ways to the quality of life and Detroiters. It provides meaningful programs and services that enhance the education and work life for residents DPL also offers a broad range of online services including eBooks, streaming movies and a variety of fun field and stimulating programs. The FY 20 for 2025 proposed budget overall objective is to maintain a safe, manageable and sustainable level of library services throughout the city of Detroit. We plan to provide a full range of library programs and services at 20 Library locations. The FY 2025 proposed budget is balanced with commission approval and the 2025 through 2028 Spending Plan is stable, sustainable and strategic. During the FY 2025 The Detroit Public Library plans to deliver services at Main Library, the mobile library the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped and 20 branch locations. The 20 branch locations include Bowen Campbell, Chandler Park, Chase Collie Douglas Duffield, Edison, Elmwood Park, Franklin Hubbard Jefferson Knapp Lincoln Parkman, Redford, Sherwood, forest, Skillman and wilder. You have before you on the next slide, our general fund sources and use as you may see, compared to our 2020 for our local property taxes compared for 2024 Compared to 2025 has a variance of a positive variance of $7.2 million in taxes expected to receive our federal, state and county income is relatively the same. And our other sources of income has declined about 12%. But overall, our resources have increased approximately $3.9 million dollars our revenue funding sources total $38.8 million for FY 2025. Our spending plan is balanced with the its funding uses of which employee salaries pension and retiree expenditures, Operation expenditures and debt service equals $38.8 million. I did provide a budget revenue comparison for FY 2024. We were we are in our current budget process. We were expected to receive about 34.8 30 point $34.9 million primarily coming from local property taxes and some federal state and county revenue. And it also included a use of fund balance. FY 2025 the budget revenues are $38.8 million with local property tax making the lion's share of that amount, some federal state and county revenue and other income I will say that this budget is balanced without the use of fund balance. For FY 2025. Our expenditures are roughly are increased a little I increased by to match our expenditures for FY 2025 and 2024. Our budget expenditures were 34 point 8 million Excuse me $34.9 million, primarily consisting of employee salaries and benefits and operations being the lion's share of the the expenditures. Those expenditures are roughly the same with employee salaries and benefits taken up a considerable portion of the budget operations, our pension and retiree expense is going to be decreased due to our retiree estimate that we receive from our actuaries. From what we received. We are not going to be required to pay that $2.5 million annual retiree contribution for FY 2024 or 2025. Some of the some of council may recall that from the plan of adjustment in 2014 through 2024, the library was mandated to contribute $2.5 million annually to the pension fund. The pension fund from the actuarial report has done well over the last 10 years. And for therefore, we are not required to make that $2.5 million pension plan contribution. We will be responsible for paying the administrative service fees which is estimated to be about $100,000 a year. So we did receive at least budgeted some savings. Now all of that can change with the economy. But as of right now today, we are not expected to make that $2.5 million contribution moving forward. Staffing and recruitment retention since 2020 pandemic the tripod library like many other organizations continue to say to face staffing challenges, the FY 2025 staffing that will adequately allow the library to consistently deliver programs and services at all service points require several strategies. The human resource department is actively recruiting to fill these positions through a multiple platforms including the DPL website in de NeoGAF mich lib handshake College Central network cod Facebook page, Northwestern technology Institute's Facebook alumni page, I met College of Technology schools job portal DPL will also attend job fairs given a University's College, the city of Detroit and job expos. So we are continuing our recruitment and retention efforts as like many public institutions, the library is it wasn't exempt during the pandemic we faced some retiree, some retirements, some resignations, and we constantly faced the challenge of recruitment and retention. And so we're we've we've beefed up our efforts, our recruiting efforts. I was we're glad to say that we have hired a new HR Recruiter to assist us in our recruiting efforts over the next couple of years as we become fully equipped to handle the challenges of the Detroit library services to give those Detroit library services. And that concludes the presentation that I have prepared

    I will turn the floor over to our commission our commission president. Okay.

    Good afternoon. It's so wonderful to see all of you. I haven't been here in a lot of years since I've been on the school board actually. But like you we have a commitment to serve our community and you're doing it very well. And I also want to point out that while the commissioners are trying to do well with our library system around the city of Detroit, there are some concerns that I do have as the as the Commissioner president and all of the commission do also. One of them is is that we as you know, we have libraries that are closed, we have libraries that are severely in disrepair. And so what we need is additional funding to get this done to repair these buildings, such as the Monti branch, the Boeing branch, and some others. And so one of the things I want to do is bring that to your attention in that we are paying all these fees. I think they're the administrative fees, the 5% to the city, for the for the the services that they provide to us. But one of our members, who was the former president has written the city about getting a FOIA about where these fees are going, how much are we being charged, and how are these fees structured, and we don't have a report back in fact, the city law department said they don't have any records of those things that don't exist. So I'm requesting that the council sit with us and they have to get this down. Which committee it is which department of the council is that we want which is your WP D department DPW or not DPW Department of Public Works no your department that actually goes through and looks at the assessment of the finances. All

    the assessors. I think you're shaking your hair Mr. Corley. Important to yourself

    for thinking she's speaking about LPD LP

    Yes.

    Oh, yes. I'm sorry LPD to sit with us and our staff to trying to figure out where the money is and how much money really needs to come back to us. So that's really why I'm here. Although many people think that libraries are out of date that they're defunct. The reality is we have technology, but people don't know how to use the technology. Our students don't know how to use it technology. Many of our students need help and how to do research trying to find different things. Many of the things that you have talked about today, such as black clubs, how to become an entrepreneur, all that's in a library, and we can show them how to use those resources to get some of the answers that they want. So I'm not going to belabor the point, but I am making that request of the city council.

    Okay, thank you and we did receive a resolution that spoke to the administrative fees that total around a million to $1.2 million from the that is assessed to the library. That was one of my questions that I was going to ask. I'm not sure if anyone has anything that they can provide now about that administrative fee. Mr. Watson.

    Thank you, Madam President. Happy to speak to it. So yes, the the current fee is about I think 1.2 1.1 $1.2 million. And so for the benefit everyone listening in to so what this represents is the city does what's called the cost allocation plan where all of the central support costs of government are allocated across all city governments and then billed back to various non general fund agencies, whether it be DDOT or public works, or in this case, the library and what it represents is support for various central back office functions like the cost of our payroll system, our finance system, part of the cost of centralized treasury and accounting functions, the employee services and HR, but understood the library is in a bit of a different situation. They do a lot of these things themselves as well, while also leveraging our central apparatus. The current cost allocation plan does include various adjustments to account for the library's different situation, however, happy to sit down with the library team as well as LPD. Go over that methodology and see if there are some opportunities to provide some additional relief for the library. Happy to have that meeting. Anytime. I know there's been a lot of back and forth in the past but you know, we're ready to sit down and work it out now. Okay,

    well love. Yeah, we would love for that to happen. And so we can add that to Executive Session, because when was the last time that formula has been looked at or the mythology that you mentioned has been actually looked at looked at? Oh, considering that it is different that this is a different type of structure set up with a library. Thank you, Madam

    President. So my understanding is the same methodology has been used for at least the past 10 years but understood. You know, it can be definitely made clear to all the stakeholders involved in it and you know, we're eager to sit down and work it out with the library. Okay.

    All right, colleagues is

    Thank you, Mr. Waters.

    There are no objections, we will add that portion to the Executive Session for further discussion. Thank you. And then can you all submit a list of the I know you mentioned the 21 branches, how many are currently closed? And

    sorry, I can answer that question. We currently have four locations that are closed. Chase is closed. Monty is closed. Skillman is closed and Conley is closed. Funnily enough if I can give you an update, because that was one of the questions I believe. One of the commissioners asked. I'm just getting one of the council members asked about Chase. Chase was closed due to H back failure. We through the M EDC received a grant to offset the cost of the H vac system. The H back system was installed and we it was installed by our contractor and the contractor has some complications as they started to move it online. So there was some additional work that needed to be done on Chase. We are now the age back system is now working is fully operational. We are in the process of cleaning the branch because the branch has been closed since 2020. We are in a process of cleaning that branch stripping it of the wax and all that stuff. We will weed out the books that are that need to be weeded out and then staff will come into the building and operate the the chase brand so we're looking hopefully to have Chase branch online very soon. Cali is another branch where we had a flood in 2021. It took us quite a bit because we had to repair to the basement floor. So we had to do some analysis Cali is a older branch so one of our older branches, so it took a little bit of TLC. But we did get the floor done. We also did some cosmetic work. We had some leakage in our in our downspout for our wall, a parapet wall. We saw the contractor to repair that so Conley is actively being worked on to come online shortly as well. So we there we should not be too much longer. We have to clean the branch and then get the staff back involved because that branch has been closed since 2020 as well. So we are actively working on two branches. Coming open very soon. So that's that's the update I have for the branch closures. Okay, that will that will be reopening soon,

    hopefully in 2024 this year. Yes. And there was two other ones Skillman in my teeth, but you don't have to go into detail now. It'd be helpful if you can just submit over each of the four libraries that are close. The Capitol needs the timeframe for opening and if there's anything that we can do, I can help you know we can advocate for funds to be allocated to get these branches open expeditiously. Thank you and then just wanted to get clarity if there was a library at the butzel family rec center at one point in time ever inside of the rec center. There was a few residents that mentioned that there used to be some type of ad set I promised them I would ask so there was never any type of pop up thing or any type of library at the butzel family rec center. I

    can tell you it was before my time and I've been here to nine years so it's been a it's been a long time. So

    there was one or was there ever a some type of library at the Butler family rec center?

    Yes. Many years ago,

    long, long time. Okay. Okay, well, I'll put it on the record there. They're looking to see if there's a possibility to bring something back inside of the butzel Recreation Center. Do you have any historical information you can submit just so I can see what it was I operated etc. Yes,

    we can give you the history. Okay.

    Thank you so much. Hope you feel better Miss Madani. Okay, we will move now. To questions from my colleagues. Let's start with councilmember

    waters. So good afternoon.

    I think that

    is good to see you guys and see the other show here. At any rate, I do plan to join member Johnson in terms of getting the Monty's library reopened. I think this what I think that's the goal, and I know that the community is feel very, very strong. About that. I wanted to ask you about the usage of the various libraries, how do you track it? Weekly, Monthly annually. I want to tell you what led me to that question because I was out in the community about a week ago. And this is why do they keep screaming about the libraries, they don't use them. I need you to respond to that, about the type of usage that you do and you know how you track it because for people to say that kind of thing, you know, I mean it could lead to very negative impact. So please.

    So our our libraries are utilized every day. I think once we did, we closed our libraries during the pandemic for for health and safety reasons. And so we are seeing as we are bringing more more libraries on we're seeing that traffic come back. I think our libraries I use very uniquely. It's not just used for for for just checking out books. We have technology programs and trainings that we offer a variety of age range from from young adults to seniors. It's utilized for technologies utilized for printing many people may have access to our Wi Fi at their home because they don't have a printer. We have low cost printing at the library. We offer programs for literacy increase improving the literacy of our Detroit residents. We have a program that's implemented for that as well. So we partner with the schools to get library cards to get access we are the information access hub. So if you don't have access to information, you come to your local library to access that type of information in both written and electronic

    form. And I'm glad you you talked about the whole hub piece, the literacy piece because I actually thought that maybe the libraries or various libraries around the city could be used as tech hubs and we can invest in that. For our tech hubs. It makes sense to me. And so you you went into my next question, and that is what we what are you doing with literacy? I mean, I don't know Is it is it reading financial, digital or all of the above?

    Yeah, it's all of the above. All right. It's all it's all of the above. We we still have a reading teacher in the library program that was funded and we are steel, where you have a a reading specialists working with individuals who have reading challenges it's more of a qualitative type program, because it's one on one. So you know, you can say, well, how many people can actually take advantage of that? Well, it's it's impacted by the availability of the reading specialists that can give that one on one. So we are partnering with the schools to help increase the literacy rate of our of our children, especially by the age of by by the time they get to third grade, they should be reading at a third grade level.

    Just a follow up on the literacy piece adult literacy as well.

    Yes, yes, we have adult literacy programs as well. Yes.

    All right. Okay, so I like to add the literacy slash tech hubs to Detroit public libraries to exactly this session.

    Every objection that action will be taken alright. So thank you so much. Thank you, member waters Member Santiago mero.

    Thank you, madam president through you. Good afternoon. I had a question around Conley, good to hear the updates. This is the library that I grew up with. I went there all the time. I love it. It's really beautiful. So happy to know that we're working on it. The timeline is soon. I guess if you wouldn't mind once you know what's going to be open letting our office know so that we can also share that with the neighborhood because they are very interested on when that will be open. A lot of the questions that I had have already been asked Thank you member waters for asking around the services beyond books at the library provides. Am I making this up or do you also provide tangible I've heard of libraries providing like mixing up appliances that are expensive that you can rent out and in? Does our library provide any kind of checking out of those kinds of materials? Have you heard of this before?

    Okay,

    so just wondering, why are we not we were able to provide those kinds of services.

    So yep. Thank you for that question. We don't currently provide that level of of service. We have been able to provide technology services in the form of allowing residents to check out laptops along with hotspots. So we've we've been ramping up our ability to loan out equipment, but the equipment is more driven around technology,

    understood to the chair if that makes sense. I may have been making this up but I think other libraries do provide they do Okay, so I'm not making this up. It's just these are things that I've been reading about other language, which I think is very cool. Our downtown library, you have really wonderful tables with cookbooks. It'd be really cool to then provide the mixer appliance that I think is like $300. If you could rent it out for a week with your cookbook to learn how to cook that'd be really beautiful. So just another seed to be planted for what we can be one day is being able to provide not just the education and the research and the research but the equipment as well to go along with that kind of learning. I think our residents deserve that. Those are the questions that I had the only other thought that I have right now as I sit here is last night I watched Abbott's new episode, and it was on libraries. So if you haven't seen every elementaries new episode on libraries, it's adorable and just really highlights the need and the importance and the greatness that comes in our library. So thank you all so much for your work. Thank you Madam President.

    Thank you so much good to have all your all the work that you do, but it's one to ask you. What programs are our literacy rate is about 51 55% According to LinkedIn in Utah to what kind of programs do you have to deal with the issue of literacy? And is there an expansion of these programs are in it is the budget you have now sufficient in order to improve literacy within city Detroit?

    I had my voice by role, our pension and the way we deliver services, the number one passion is around literacy. childhood to adulthood, either so in line with a variety of programs. That's our number one priority. And we do track that you can't have a library and not be devoted to supporting the literacy needs of the community. He just can't that's that

    I think, no, I think that's excellent. I appreciate your passion. I just want to know, did you have any specific programs or anything you'd working on outreach to the community and then it's now 51 to 55, according to LinkedIn, but I remember one point in time was 47. You're saying I just want to know did you have anything to do with that increase? If so please tell me where it is. And do you have plans for that to grow, you know, percentage wise over a period of time to where you get to the 80s and 90s? I don't know what your target is. But do you have a program to be able to do that and what kind of investment would you need? Over that plan of five to 10, maybe 2030 years? I don't know. But I just wonder what kind of mentioned did you have so we can achieve those goals.

    When the library celebrated and 2015 It's 100 and 50th anniversary we raise money to support reading teacher in the library. There was a saying that said children who read succeed we took that to another level to say children can we will succeed. And we developed programs to support that. And we can submit in writing because my voice is not that good. So I don't want to sound like Louis Armstrong but nevertheless,

    it's got a smoky vibe to it. I like it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm probably at all I just

    wish I could deliver a song.

    I just think that's important. Because I think this has been a problem that we have had issues with a very long time. And I think that if there's improvements because of what you've done that's made, I think that needs to be talked about it. I think it needs to talk about in terms of what you're trying to do and improve that. And we can provide finances that match that improvement for the growth of that because I think that's phenomenal. You're obviously an extension of the schools and so you're teaching and so I think that's a real good thing. So I just want to say that. Otherwise, thank you so much for your time. Thank you, man president. That's all my questions.

    Councilmember waters, I'll send you more detail about how we track and those metrics. Okay, all right.

    Thank you so much. Welcome, member Callaway.

    Thank you Madam Chair. And good afternoon everyone. Most of my questions have been answered, but I would like a more definite open date for Chase. I have a large population over there and they love that library. That's a hangout spot over there. On seven miles. So if you could please give me some type of like, a timeframe. And they're very insistent over there and you know what I'm talking about. So I cannot go back and say they don't know I have to have some type of you said shortly. I need a little bit. A better answer than shortly. Well,

    you know, I know Miss noble and the bad cops. So you know, I know. And we were looking about three weeks.

    Okay. I can say that. Okay, all right. So it approximately three weeks I use the word a proxy Yes. Okay. Thank you. And my next question is we met last spring, we met with the DBA. You all were there and my staff. And we talked about the Skillman library. I know it's not in my district. But I have I've had concerns about Skillman being closed and you also talked about some of the things that probably were damaged because of, you know, whatever happened inside of the building, I told you what I observed with all the equipment from the Hudson's project blocking that library. And so I don't think we should be in the business of closing libraries. I understand the safety in terms of construction. I get that. But we talked about this. She talked about the money from the DDA and the subsidy and they agreed to a certain number. I've not seen that at all. I don't see that reflected in your report. I've not talked to you about it. And so I've seen nothing from the DDA from that meeting. And that was a very, very to me, productive meeting, but yielded no fruits. And that was a year ago. So we need to probably go back to that discussion. And open that library. And again, I know it's not in district two, but that's the library that I go to when I'm down here. And it's a beautiful space. And that is my library of choice. But um, when I went over there and couldn't get in because of all that equipment. I know you explained to me why it was there. But you know, the Hudson project should not be allowed to park all their equipment on that property causing damage. And you guys know what I'm talking about? Somebody's got to pay for that damage that, you know, those that equipment has caused over there. So I'll leave it at that. And I don't know if you can pull the question at all that I've just said but if you can find if not, then we can talk at another time. Thank you Madam Chair.

    Thank you through the chair Matt. Matt. So councilmember Callaway, I do appreciate your you're bringing this up. So we did speak with Well, let me back up. We had a we had our architects, our engineers, structural engineers, on who's on retainer, go and review and do an estimate and assessment of the if there were any structural related damages to the skill main branch because of the heavy equipment. That structural assessment came back that there was no concern of, of any structural damage. implicated from the from the heavy machinery. We did have an issue with the flood where a sprinkler head popped off and cause some water damage to our facility. It was fully insured and it is now the damages had been rectified and cleaned up so Skillman remained closed because of the the safety issues of those of that site. It's one thing to say well, other businesses are open, but other businesses are not directly across the street. From those large cranes and some of those heavy equipment. It's already difficult to find parking downtown at our library branch. And when you bring in heavy equipment that's also causing commotion. It just didn't seem feasible for us to keep that branch open. While major construction is going on. It's loud. And when you're in a library system you'd like to have some peace, to study or to do and to enjoy the library atmosphere that is greatly disrupted when you have 1000 ton equipment in the direct vicinity of that library. So we as the administration made a judicial decision to temporarily close Skillman until the heavy equipment is out of the way because it does disrupt our ability to provide the quality of library services that the city of Detroit residents deserve. So, we have we do have our main library that is about a mile north that we asked our constituents to to access but I do understand the sentiment, but in to keep us from disrupting the library services we have remained we've kept Skillman close for that reason only as soon as those heavy equipment and machineries is out of the direct from directly across the street from this small library says the small library building. We have full intentions to reopen the downtown branch. It is not on the list of closures. It is not on the list of selling the building. We have full intent to reopen Skillman

    Madam Chair, I don't know if it's in district five or district six which is destroyed save your things. I think you I think you might be in five or six or both. Thank you. Okay, so just I really want to include this council person maybe we can meet after budget session because I would like to let the council member know who represents that area about our conversations and the commitment from the DDA. I think it was close to $3 million that they committed and I think I have it in my notes, so I will make sure I share my notes. I could be mistaken but I want to share my notes with councilmember Santiago Santiago Romero. So she'll know exactly what was promised at that meeting. And that we need to follow up with that. And you guys know what I'm talking about? So we have in our notes, and a commitment was made from the DDA for their Skillman library and we have in our notes and all sorts of grant dollars as well that we talked about outside of the DDA, but the DDA did actually make a monetary commitment, and everyone was there. And, you know, we're going to follow up and I'll share my notes with my colleague social know exactly what the conversations involved. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you,

    man. May I just comment briefly to Commissioner Callaway? Yes, we had, we had that. I mean, Councilwoman Callaway, excuse me, we did have that discussion with the DDA. That commitment was tied to physical structural improvements to the to the scale main library branch because the scale man library branch is the only branch that exists within the DDA district. It was tied to perhaps any structural related improvements that we would like to make to the building. We have, we did our structural assessment, so we know that there's no structural damage, but the DDA did agree to assist with any structural improvements, and we just haven't had an opportunity to really evaluate that. The structural improvements that may be necessary. Thank

    you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, sir. But if somebody's going to offer us $3 million, I'll find some improvements. I'll turn my information over to my colleague.

    Thank you, member family member Doha.

    Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon to you all. Thank you for being here. Many of the quizzes I have obviously have been answered. I did want to just get a little bit more specificity about the technology upgrades. I had an opportunity to visit a library that is not in the city of Detroit, and just saw some cool things that they're trying to do with the kids. And I know obviously, there's resource challenges here. We're trying to ensure that we can open the libraries right. But relative to that, when we talk about technology upgrades, what are some of the things specifically like we're thinking about to enhance reading and literacy environment environment,

    show it through to care? Councilman Dubois, I would I would implore you to come visit the main library branch, particularly the hype center. Hype Center has a state of the art podcast equipment, where students have been allowed and able to do their own podcasting, create their own music. It's so it's the state of the art sound system we have gaming equipment, etc. And that's just at the Main Library. One of our unique libraries is the Frederick Douglass Library is a bookless library is 100%. Committed to technology. We have two state of the art technology rooms that's full of computers for presentations, meetings, training, etc. Over the last 10 years. We have no we have improved our entire commute, computer, public computer systems. So there's not one computer system in our Detroit Public Library that is older than four years. We were able to do that through a partnership with the state of Michigan to procure those computers and we systematically over the last 10 years. Got us on a system where we're improving we're probably leasing 100 To 50 to 200 brand new computers every year annually. So we're we've improved the technology piece. We've also improved our ability to add those technology assistance for our residents who may be technology trout challenge. We've increased our ability by having our technology assistant is the TTA training technology training assistant. That so we've we've hired more of those individuals and implemented them throughout our library branch system. So we have been improving not just the system, but also our ability to help residents when they come in and they have questions. So we also have allowed as I said before, we now allow residents to check out live laptops as part of our laptop to go program. In addition to that, they also get a Wi Fi hotspot, they can take home and borrow for three months. So those are the types of programs that we have when we say we're improving our technology offering. Those are the types of things that we're talking about. And in addition, our ability to offer streaming services through our library Kaibab library card, access to videos, streaming services, ebooks. That was and we were all all also offering programs virtually that are we've kept those things going because we had to pivot during the during the pandemic and we've kept a lot of those things alive and leveraging that technology to offer to the residents.

    And I'm glad I'm glad to hear that my brand so I'm gonna edit some brands. Well, yeah,

    you got one.

    We've got one a nice we got a nice brand. It was renovated Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, we're grateful. But just, you know, wanted to give a little bit more specificity on that. My second question just revolves around access relative to members of our disabled community. When we talk about you know infrastructural upgrades you know, some of our structures are older and kind of grandfathered in. But as far as upgrading these facilities as we talk about universal design, and we talked about just making, you know, technology, as well as a lot of the resources contained in the libraries more accessible to our disabled. Residents, what are we doing and what are what is our mind state around that to try to, you know, improve the experience for members of our disabled community at our libraries?

    Well, I can tell you that every month particularly we have in community members from the bowling community, Bowen is one of those older branches where the restroom facility is either on the second floor or in the basement. It's a it's an old building and it's a smaller branch. And so, we we've had certain assessments done to see what could what we can do at this, it would it would take us restructuring the building itself. In order for us to offer and become ADA compliant because the rest where the restrooms are, they're small. This is when you know, you leave before McDonald's and Burger King. You know, we start eating, you know, these types of foods is a smaller closed enclosure. But I will say where we were, we weren't able to make changes. We have the net branch. We did some infrastructure changes and we created an ADA compliant restroom. For the public, where we can do it we have done it is going to take a little more for our older buildings, particularly if they have any type of historic designation to make those kinds of make those kinds of ADA changes. And we just haven't had the ability to really close a branch do infrastructure repairs and then reopen it. But we do recognize we have the grandfathered in. But just because we're grandfathered in doesn't mean we need to stay there. We just need to see what we can do. We have a lot of challenges.

    And I again, I appreciate that. I know again, some of these structures are very, very old before they ADA add but be interested to talk to you more about that offline. And maybe there are some resources available on a federal level. Specifically when you talk about infrastructure and trying to upgrade those facilities, particularly for members of our disabled community. Maybe there's some opportunities on the state level. When we talk about this upcoming budget season and funding to send dollars down here, possibly to our libraries. And so be interested to talk to you about that offline for ADA accessibility. Thank you, Madam President.

    Thank you, Madam President. Thank you all for being here. I don't have any additional questions that my colleagues didn't ask today, thus far, but I would like to receive and I'm sure all of us would like to receive the same information that member waters requested because it is helpful as we go out to the community because you know, she's not the only one who hears but what's Why do we have libraries you have all this other technology online and it helps us better sale. Why? And it's not just a relic of the past, but make sure that people understand what its relevancy is today, so providing information will be helpful for all of us, certainly, and thank you for all the work that you do in keeping our libraries uplifted.

    But you know, through the chair, when we talk about why we need libraries, people say we have Google, we can do everything online. And once I met a very rich billionaire who said to me, we can give everybody technology access and shut down branches. And what I said to him was your very rich man, you don't put your money in a shoebox. You don't put it on a mattress. You have somebody to manage it. This is an information rich society. So much information that needs to be supported by people will need help in managing it. And that's what libraries do. We help manage this information rich? Society? Everything on Google? It's not right. You need librarians to help. They're the best.

    Thank you so much.

    You're welcome.

    Thank you remember Johnson.

    Thank you, Madam President. And I believe you saved me for last right.

    Gravity and member john.

    And so I want to say thank you to all of you. Miss mon Downey. We've sat down and met Mr. Brown we have met and delved into the details on how do we get my teeth back open, right. As you all know, I have a strong group of advocates that have been pushing from before I sat in this seat to make sure that my teeth reopened and reopens as soon as possible. Right? I've been meeting with Professor Schuster and the team from Wayne State University. I've had conversations with some philanthropic organizations about providing support. I've talked to some union organizations about providing support and we've had those conversations. So can we delve into the details on my team? What you talked about two of the four branches that are currently closed reopening soon. You know, I just cringe when I don't hear my teeth on that list. So what are we looking at as it relates to timeline for my teeth and capital? improvements that are needed costs of capital improvements?

    So due to Chair and thank you, Councilwoman Johnson for your diligence, and know and advocating for my teeth and we we are very sensitive about the state of Montana. One thing that we have done in conversation with Dr. Schuster from Wayne State. He's a silver adopted silver engineer. He's been a, a wealth of resources for us. He's actually a member of that community. He lives in that community. So he, he he's our local police officer who's policing the mounted branch. That one of the things that we have started, we know that there's some there's some leakage around the Monty roof. We have a we have a RFP out right now to repair that to prevent water from coming into the building. We know that even if if we had the funding today it would still take us maybe possibly a year or so for all of the work to be done. We have to replace a roof. There's some cosmetic things in my teeth that needs to be updated and corrected. There's some leakage in certain certain pipes. We've had a full assessment done on Monty and Wayne State and their crew have done a yeoman's job yeoman's job of providing that service, free of charge. And so we recognize that and we appreciate that our ability to move on that is what can we do right now. And what we can do right now is prevent any further decay, which is why we're repairing part of the roof that where water is leaking, and then creating that project management to say okay, if we start if the funding came in today, how long would it take for us to do the infrastructure things and then hire the staff and go in and restock. Monty in our plan in our four year budget plan, we actually state we plan to have my teeth open by 2027 that 2027 budget year budget cycle. So if we started if we can get the funding and get started moving, we still about a year or so in doing the infrastructure things related to Monty and then getting books and stuff or getting staff involved. So we're still about you know, and that's it. We started today. So at the point that we have the funding and the funding commitments to do it, we can start the but we're looking at about 18 month renovation project.

    Thank you for that.

    Do the chair was we've dealt with my teeth. Since I've been here. I don't know if you all there was a member she's passed away. Miss Sandra Hines before us about the library. I've met with him now Smith's Gwendolyn peoples who's been you know very passionate. They have no idea how painful it is though I do

    to talk to people and all they want is a library and we have to keep saying we are working on it is very painful.

    I can appreciate that. And no, I can assure you every time I see Miss PSB She reminds me of it. Absolutely. Absolutely. And my commitment has continued to be there to do all that I can to get this branch reopened. You know one of the things that I will continue to say it it weighs so heavily on me because we were in a district that did not have a rec center it did not have a community center. So our residents relied heavily on the three branches in the district, including my teeth. So it was very difficult to see my teeth closed and to see it close for the length of time that has been closed. So can we talk about numbers can we talk about what it'll cost to reopen Monty as you are aware today, so you identify the roof, the cosmetic improvements and I've done a walkthrough I've seen it. Do you have the numbers?

    So the the assessment that we got from from Wayne State, estimated $5.6 million to to do the renovation. But that also, you know, we have to we have to replace technology that's outdated. We also have to replace signage and different things like that. So from an infrastructure standpoint, for the improvements that that are necessary to bring that building up to code. That estimate was $5.6 million. We would probably have another two or $300,000 in technology upgrades, etc. So it's likely a $6 million project.

    Okay, thank you and Mr. Brown, so you indicated that it'll take approximately 18 months once the funds have been identified to actually get in and do the work on the structure. When are you able to identify some dollars for the capital improvements within your budget? I don't see them there. They're not in the 2025 proposed budget, correct?

    Correct. Correct. We we do not have a capital fund. The library does not have a capital fund. We have a general fund that is used for library operations.

    We have also allocated funds for staffing for our existing branches to ensure that they can stay open and we don't have staffing issues for that. I think that overall. As much as Monty needs to be open and we are identifying and trying to identify how to best utilize our limited resources. When I know we also have capital improvement needs through our system including main branch it's it's a matter of priorities, setting your priorities and making sure that it's sustainable. Right now you don't see a capital line and a capital expenditure line item because we are still evaluating what needs to be done first, because we do have we heard I'm gonna be very, very honest and transparent to this body. We were not expecting the level of revenue that we were provided by the by the city Treasury Department and assessor Department during the revenue conference. Because we don't, we're not in past we were not invited to the revenue conference. So we rely heavily on the City of Detroit's treasury department to provide us the results from the revenue policy conference. And we were expecting the worse. But to our surprise, we saw additional revenues so it Allah it switched our focus on what can we do or what can't we do to what can we do with additional funds? And so the budget that you have today was based off the information that we had at the start of October of 2023 when the budget was due by the end of October of 2023. And it shifted our focus from the conversations that we had in jet in July and August and September to now we have you think about what we can do with what we with the resources that we have. Okay.

    All right. Well, thank you so much. Listen, I am extremely optimistic. First hearing that you're doing work to ensure that the leaks can be addressed before just to make sure you stop that but also optimistic and hearing that you have it in your 2027 your proposed budget or just you're just futuristically thinking that we'll have the Monty branch back open. I would like to have some additional conversation with you to see if we can move that up and see how we can provide support to make that happen. And so with that, Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion to add the Detroit Public Library's budget into Executive Session.

    There is a motion to add the Detroit Public Library's budget into Executive Session. Any objections? Seeing none, that action shall be taken. All

    right, thank you. So we will certainly be in touch. I appreciate the continued conversations that we've had and and we're going to work together to get this figured out. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you. Are there any other items that we would like to move into executive session number?

    Yeah, Mr. Chair, this already been moved to Executive Session. Forgive me, but I wanted to move into Executive Session. The possibility of bringing back the library at

    Oh, my God, the recreation center. I'll get back to you. I'll get back to you.

    Okay. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you all for being here. We appreciate it. Yes, Mr. Gordon. Thank

    you. No, thank you, Mr. Chair. So we know that the library millage is going to expire within the next year or two. And so just like to hear from the library is efforts to get the word out about a renewal, renewing millage for the library.

    Showing respond to them. Sure. Thank you. Bill through the chair. We have we have to one get a resolution passed through our Library Commission. Secondly, we have a RFP out with a public relation firm to assist. I mean, yes, we attorneys Yes. To to make sure that we have our our legal language and our ballot language sufficient. You all this body will receive a resolution shortly, axing that this body put us on the ballot approved ballot language to put us on the on the on the ballot. As far as getting the word out. We are actively we have an RFP out for a public relations firm. Yes, yes. Well, the attorney Yes. So it's the RFQ for the attorneys. Yes.

    All right. Thank you, Mr. Coral. Thank you all.

    Thank you for your patience. I remember now, I would like to put it to executive session to add a library to butzel family center.

    There is a motion to add to Executive Session. The proposal of adding a library to the butzel Family Center. Any objections? say none that action shall be taken.

    If I may just say one more thing to his training that I've done I made quick. I also just want to know and I missed the quarterly read before Ron. My understanding is once the millage is renewed for Detroit library, that also means they will be out of the tip Correct.

    Mr. Chair, so if a millage is removed, then the DDA TIF Yeah, no longer occur. The DDA. The TIF associated unfortunately, with a Brownfield Redevelopment Authority act. That TIF would remain remain, but not for the DDA.

    They'd be clear the DDA TIF that they are recurrently would no longer exists based on state law that will no longer exist if the Renew if the millage is renewed? Yes, next year. Correct.

    So I'd like to hear from Liberia I think the again, maybe next year fires within a year or so and so the new minutes would take place. So

    through the chair, the millage expires on June 30 of 2025.

    I'm sorry. Okay,

    so we are actively putting for the millage to be renewed before it expires. Okay.

    So that was it. So it will be so will it be next year? Do you think we can expect that renewal process to take place or

    the millage the millage we are expecting the millage to be renewed in this calendar year just 24 calendar year?

    You better not think I just want to make sure thank you for that. Thank you um, who?

    Thank you. Member Callaway.

    Cheers. Thank you, Mr. Chair, if Mr. Corley can repeat what he said about the expiration of the DDA and their capture of library dollars. When does that end?

    So this is Mr. Chair, Councilmember Callaway, so according to state law, there was a change in the state law. And that change basically says that if the millage is renewed then the date will no longer occur. But it did not expand to unfortunately the I expand to the Brownfield Redevelopment act, one of the DVA it was a change I believe in 2017 or 1817. Yeah, so So based on that change and state law, once a millage library millage is renewed, that the day will no longer capture taxes associated with the library. Okay. And

    my last question, is there anything that the city, Mr. Chair through the chair, is there anything that the city needs to do to make sure that it's triggered? In terms of the expiration of the DDA capturing funds from the library? What is it? We can talk about it later, but I just want to make sure we do our part to make sure that they no longer are have the ability to capture the funds that they have been capturing from the library. If it's supposed to expire, I really want it to expire. And us not, you know, us failed the city. I don't want the city to fail to do something to trigger that to occur, if that makes sense. Whatever we're supposed to do, I just simply want us to do it to make sure that is no longer the case with the DDA capturing the library's dollars.

    Mr. Chair, so I don't believe there's a need for the City Council to okay, you know, pass a resolution or anything. So that's the law that will be state law. And this has been a communication from the CFO, I'm just arising on this issue to the council. So yeah,

    thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you.

    Thank you all again for being here. And thank you for your comments. Your hearing is now concluded. And we shall now go to public comment. If there's anyone from the public who would like to speak please raise your hand. You have another question? That we're wrapping up. Right.

    She's got another question, Mr. Chair. I actually know wanted to ask Mr. Watson. If they could actually weigh in on something. In writing, that speaks to the impact that the financial impact that the released of this capture would have on the library's millage. So, I'm asking that now but I'll put it in writing but would love to see the impact that all of this is going to have on the revenue that is generated that the Library Association actually receives if the millage is renewed? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    We'll be on the lookout for that response. Thank you so much. Thank you again. To the Troy Public Library. Thank you. So concludes your hearing if there's anyone from the public who would like to speak please raise your hand now. We kept it open and now we see some hands in the auditorium or in the Committee of the Whole excuse me, got you. Through all three of you here. Anyone who wants to speak please raise your hand now. Going once, going twice, going three times. Collection of public comments have now concluded. All right, so we have three speakers here in person. We're going to start with Ross blunt. Next speaker is Mr. Ronald Foster. And then we have Masindi DAR. Everyone will have two minutes. And we will go to

    thank you Mr. Chair. I'm going to modify my presentation because I want to share in response to the questions that were just asked about the the tax capture for the future that the city of Detroit has conveyed to the Library Commission for fiscal year 25 $4.3 million in tax captures button 26 4.4 and 27 4.5. And over the next four years the the city's projected tax capture amount is 17,853,886. Everybody knows about the the millage renewal but this is still what's being projected by the city to the library. Okay, and there's some people who are shy about bringing up the tax captures, but somebody has to put the facts on the table. I want to convey quickly that over the last 10 years $38 million has been taken out of library funding and I wish people wouldn't get up and leave when the public is speaking but you all need to know. Surgery. $8 million has been taken from this by the city and over the next four years. It's projected that 22 million will be taken. So when you talk about seeing the library get upgraded. Be in mind that the city has some responsibility and what I'm asking you to do because and I appreciate director Budget Director Watson describing the administrative fee functions. I testified about it in the 90s in Lansing when the city was being attacked on this stuff. So it's been around a long time. But I'm suggesting because there is a gap between what other departments pay through the administrative fee for it and what the library does. It's a big gap that the last 10 years of this be revisited. Working with LPD, the library and the budget department and use ARPA funds to reimburse the library that I think there could be as much as 10 million reimbursed and it would be a great boost to all the programming that you've heard described here today. Thank you.

    Thank you. Taking the MTC will be Elena Harada.

    Mr. Foster,

    good afternoon. Just wanted to stick around First off, appreciate everything you guys do. Always say and always made it. I'm gonna start with the Health Department. One thing I would ask you guys to add on there, I've been very adamant about it. I've actually shared testimonies about the effects of caregiving. And the lack of questioning to the health department about resources and grants for a lower and impoverished community to support their loved ones, I think is an omission that should not have been omitted. I'm asking that you guys asked an advocate for caregiver support, which means financial support to be able to finance CNAs but number of hours to take care of their loved ones. Second thing when it comes down to the IT department. My question is and all this investment in technology, is there any safeguards to protect counter intelligence, which means when citizens write emails to department heads, do we have measures in there that prevent the city from reversing and trying to do their own intelligence so whatever it is, or citizens that may be grieving or doing any other issues with the emails, I had a situation where I was blocked out a city government. They said it was accident but I was blocked out for almost a year so that needs to be addressed during the when it comes down to our mayor and Mayor de o asked for more block clubs not just in areas where you want to develop and disincentivize but actually producing the means and tools necessary to get block clubs across every block here. As we come across the election season. We find it important to have presets and pretty soon delegates were those things start from block clubs, finding stars for block labs and, and communities. And now lastly, when it comes down to libraries, it's important to understand that library is part of culture due to libraries bringing property value, and are there any grant writers or FTEs for the library Department. Thank you.

    Thank you so much. I call from Miss Cindy Daraa. She's not sitting in a seat so I'll let him this route. I see him again, you can go forward or sit next.

    I don't want to repeat what has already been repeated here and I do know that you know that the Boland branch is not accessible. There are millions of dollars that are being diverted away from the libraries and going to people who do not need the money. Going to projects for people who don't need the libraries. Our public schools in Detroit do not have school libraries and they haven't since emergency management. So we're going with very few resources in the open branches. And we still have closed branches. I'm talking about a situation where the city could use ARPA money to make these repairs. We don't just need our libraries open. We need them thriving in order for them to thrive. They would have to be relevant to people. I'm asking you to look at the neighborhoods to look at the areas we're talking about Conley Chase, the bowling all of these areas. There's a lot of children around there. We also have people who cannot walk up the steps into the library, much less go up or down to get to the bathroom of the libraries. These are human rights issues. And I'm asking you to look at it and stop allowing poor people's money to go to rich people. They don't need it. We need it. Thank you thank you

    and finally in person is gonna send you down my opinion again, are you man,

    Cindy, dear. Please get better speakers so that we can hear back here I can hear better when I went in your office with your receptionist to look at her TV and you need to move these TVs back at least that one over there. You could put it switch that saw that we get that we don't have to look through all these plastic barriers to see the TV and we can't hear you. The camera work isn't as good as it used to be. But I would like to at least be able to hear what you're saying. And I really your mics aren't turned out up loud enough for us. You need some speakers back here. And I don't know where they are but it's even the guard told me I'm not I'm deaf but I have hearing aids. I've got them up the flowers ago. I want you again to ask for the get a legal opinion about the constitutionality of this chips tax and incremental funding and then the Brownfield it revised religious, you know, act where you're allowing money that I bought, and I jeopardize my property if I don't pay my property tax I bought for the millage to go to the schools and the library I don't vote for the money to go to some rich developer downtown to build some buildings I don't even think is the right thing to do right now. Okay, I want the infrastructure. I love the library. I use it all the time. And I try and go to their meetings and give them suggestions how they can you know, so they have feedback. But if you can't get the Dana, NASA to write your constitutional opinion, then ask the legislative policy or maybe you can get the mayor's Corporation council to write you know, a legal opinion about the constitutionality of when we vote our millage is to go on place somewhere else. And I'm I just want to okay, I'm in Jumpstart. I'll work for $1 an hour on politics and it's asked me something I agree with, but I assume need to get a job to stay on jump start so I'm probably their youngest person.

    Appreciate you so much. I'm gonna call us we have online and who do we have folks? We have 12 callers online. Our first caller is a D O S Detroit.

    Colin

    Good afternoon. The floor is yours. You have two minutes general public comment

    Are you there Miss Hewes?

    I'm here but I don't see the thing. We can hear you or you can hear me. Okay. Good afternoon. Carolyn Hughes may be heard. We had several meetings today. That's a good idea. Miss. Council. Woman waters. Yep. It is a good idea to focus on our youth and bringing them in instead of talking about how we're going to beat them. over the heads all the time. We need to be talking about how we're going to help them to advance in society. I went I used to go to the Edison branch library and the main library, and we're digressing as a society. Libraries are necessary and they are they are indicative of learning. I I like to know how many jobs has Motor City match created. And Mrs. Mrs. Fair, the we need someone else in that position. She said nothing. about the issue. She knows nothing about what's going on with the health of the people in the city. So her greatest her greatest was what she said was, you may not know my location, but you know where I am and so that that should that should that That alone should tell you that there is a problem there. So please stop taking money from the libraries and please stop taking money from the poor, and we need more than just surveillance and policing. Thank you.

    Thank you. Next caller please.

    next caller is William M. Davis. There's the

    William M. Davis. Just hold on one second, Mr. Davis. As Darren, you are welcome to leave if you would like but you cannot disturb the meeting. Thank you so much. Mr. William M. Davis. Thank you for joining us. You have two minutes general public comment. Today was are you there?

    Hello. Can I be here, sir? Okay, first off, I think that the library should be fully funded. And none of my millages should go towards helping anything else other than the library that should be going to the library. Second, you know, I think the health department needs to be greatly expanded in so much did like say this past Sunday, up at the Johnson recreation center they had there was providing medical services, dental and vision and they was there from eight to four and it was a continuous crowd. You know, there's an urgent need for us to have a true health department in the city. Also as relates to the mayor's office there was talking about emergency emergency preparedness and what you should be doing. I did not hear them mention the fact that like we're I used to manage the wastewater treatment plant. Well, you have chlorine tankers like 18,000 gallons under pressure that could kill lots of people. And if not properly managing that not only is a violation of county state and federal regulations, but also the violation international treaty on the international waterway, you know, so we need to have better people prepare better plans. I I had training as a female incident commander, you know, we need to have make sure people are aware the very many dangers that we have in the city. And the fact that far too often. It appears that people do not care if the person is going to be exposed to it as you know is black and brown. So we you know, we need to make sure that more services are provided to help more people we need to make sure our libraries are fully funded and fully open. I used to go way, way back when in the late 70s, early 80s. I used to live at the Main Library, because knowledge is essential. And you know, so it's sort of like a form of a pipeline of Jim Crow. If you're not fully funding the libraries. It's almost like some people saying they don't want the black kids in Detroit to learn and have resources. Thank you.

    Thank you. Next caller please. Next we have Kia Mathis. Kia Mathis. Thank you for joining us. You have two minutes general public comment.

    Yes. Hello, my name is Kia Mathis. I am with the housing justice team, the short Detroit people's platform. I am calling to you in reference to the HRD presentation yesterday. Now what we do know is in the budget season, we can support community members or we can exasperate our housing insecurity issues. So therefore I'm asking in three different ways we can address this in this budget season we can address homelessness, through expanded bed capacity of shelters and transitional housing. The second thing is financially support development of quality, affordable accessible housing for extremely low residents, including those seniors, households with children singles and those with accessibility needs. And we can also support the long term housing protection methods such as the right to Council Housing Trust Fund and the public health fund. Now when it comes to the development, and the budget that passed in 2023, there was an allocation of $203 million for affordable housing development. Now according to the Detroit city website on the HRD page, the development of the 750 units within that was specifically for the demographics at 30 and 60%. Ami those are on hold their own whole due to funding needs. Now Mister in Detroit Housing Commission, they're the largest at this time, so providers for most of the truly affordable housing in a city and they receive funding from HUD. Unfortunately, the federal government budgeted only $8 billion of what HUD Secretary fudge says is a need to have $70 billion nationwide. Therefore increasing our local support should be a priority. So I asked her to ensure that $750 unit Development Development get completely completed by filling the financial gap. Also with homelessness, the mayor recommended $5 million into homelessness services, but we need the housing population needed allocation for shelter locations and bed capacity specifically in order to meet that need. And also we have the methods of right to counsel how the trust been in the public health fund because those policies

    thank you so much. Our next caller please. Next is Betty a Varner, Betty Varner. The floor is yours you got two minutes general public comment.

    Good afternoon to all within the sound of my voice. Please excuse the noise in the background. If you hear it. I'm on hold on another line. But I still wanted to speak today and first I want to say I appreciate the council and the work that you're doing. Please allocate as much money as you can to the libraries. When I was working, I had a part time job working with foster children. Spectrum Human Services. And that was one of our regular activities going to the libraries. There was so much for the children that I work with to do they will be so excited. And so we need the libraries. Please continue to support my black club the soda Elsword black Association and our programs think recorder and deeper part. Please allocate additional monies to the new program out of this budget for the senior accessibility home repair fun. There are so many people who are in need seniors and people with disabilities that need those ramps and the walk in showers especially those walk in showers. If you can't take care of your hygiene properly, properly, it creates other health problems for seniors and people with disabilities and traditional Bathtubs are very dangerous. So kudos to all of you for supporting that particular new program. I'm so proud of you. Thank you, God bless and I yield the rest of my time and have a good weekend. Thank you. You

    have a great weekend as well. Next caller please. next caller is Renard mentioned ski with Armand Shan ski. The floor is yours. You have two minutes general public comment. Okay,

    good afternoon. Mr. Chair. Can I be hurt? Yes, sir. Good afternoon. My name is Renata Schinsky. I am a resident of the city of Detroit. I reside in District Six and I'm a longtime resident and also organize with Detroit people's platform. I am calling in full support of the Detroiters for Tax Justice to reimburse our library system and reopen the montieth library system in our sorry if I mispronounced that. The library is one of the most important forms of the comments meaning our commonwealth, the institutions that are for all benefit for all Detroiters, and anyone that needs his services is egregious. And in an era where books are being banned and censored. Here we're going through the same exact thing, except that the money is going to people that do not need it. Through text captures our libraries. deserve to be fully funded. And many of branches need to be reopened so that our youth and all members of our community can use that crucial resource library is so important. I can't even overstate how important is to a city to civilization and to our residents who need that. The library also serves as heating and cooling and respite centers for those who do not have homes and those that are using also our transit system as well too. They provide a numerous resources in terms of learning how to use different computer applications. People use it as a resource to apply for many jobs that are coming out. And also for knowledge for entertainment. And just for a place not to have to spend money at a bar or a restaurant where someone can just be it's it's a no brainer is no debate that the libraries need to be reimbursed, but also funded as it is a regular function of any city in any civilization. And we need to stop this robbing of our libraries because it's no different than the book bands that are happening across our country. Thank you

    Thank you. Next caller. next caller is phone number ending in 711 Caller ending in 711. You have two minutes general public comment.

    Yes. Good afternoon. My name is Malik Shelton. Any city worth going to we're living in is respected and empowered. Not because of its tall buildings downtown but because of its educational system. Its school system which includes of course the library's the city of Detroit. The city government has an obligation and a duty to provide the residents with clean air. Yet whenever I've called the city health department and I've called about four times I'm told that the health department does not take complaints on air pollution. So they refer me to BC and when I get to that department in BC tells me that I have to take my complaint to the state agency or the State Department Eagle. It's gotten so bad one time I call and the Detroit health department the Curt whoever answered your phone told me asked me excuse me, was I joking when I tried to file an air pollution complaint about those Joanna's factories over here on the east side. And I think it's atrocious for the city of Detroit to kind of buy bow out of their responsibility to the residents, but still into the air pollution going over going on over there on the east side when they use $36 million about unlimited tax obligation bonds bond funds in order to expand that plan and they didn't say anything about not being responsible for any air pollution issues that may come about over there.

    Thank you so much. next caller please. next caller is black bag RU. Mr. Rubin, James Crowley Jr. The floor is yours you have two minutes general Republican

    Rubin James Crowley Jr. Are you there?

    So as absentee ballot fraud is all over CBD trade all over the district 70 You can't deny and so is that Michigan State Police report back to the police department. When it says that there's not enough evidence to call Canisius after suicide that's over there too. We'll go right to this a fraud situation. We got voted truck houses over there district seven. Confirm you got the video. You can act like you ain't get it and you'll know what I'm talking about. Nah, I made sure you got it's all over social media. I'm looking for them social media hits he was talking about Dave's take see because you have fraud in these people on this. By the season, city cars have been cheated in. That's how y'all been stalking the console. Now this particular situation, city clerk Gina Avery Walker. He busted co busted cheating. They are Rosalie lead directly to them. That's why I'm saying the names. Now. The absentee ballot fraud that was committed 2024 presidential primary over there at 16 a four to six avenue I documented it is on video circulated all around social media. And I'm saying is about a Chophouse and I triple dare anybody in his whole city. I don't care who it is to say online. It will be slandered and black bag ruined I'm writing again. Daddy take you in a way when he won't. He won't be able to stop ser Hamama killed her so that's your you're dumb. You you and the way you gotta go marry Sheffy on the way she got to go. And Santiago mer you voted no you gotta go to right along with Scott Benson. And over here on the board of police commissioner's Willie bail he got to go and everybody else in the whole city got to go.

    Go next caller please. next caller is phone number ending in 124. Caller ending in one to four color ending and one to four. Thank you for joining us. You have two minutes general public comment.

    Yes, good afternoon, ma'am. Because

    yes, ma'am.

    Okay, well, our Detroit city charter section seven dash 201 Health Department says the city is responsible for providing an adequate level of health services both physical and mental to all its residents. But we lacked the capacity, especially after the city sold. Herman keeper and like a Kmart Bluelight Special for less than a million dollars. So we're not living up to the charter. And then we got a problem because Corporation Council is the one that's supposed to implement the charter. But basically this mayor treats the land bank like it's his private real estate firm, in my opinion, and and the law department like it's his private law department. Now it's very sad. About all the money taken away from the libraries. When I went to Wayne State I started a tutoring program at the main library and had law students come over and others and tutor kids and that can be replicated that's what are for money should be spent on to help the kids catch up who fell desperately behind and then it was very sad. The other day, that ugly library we could have rescued the ugly library with ARPA funds, but instead it was turned into the Detroit when integrated health network headquarters I heard the mayor was there and talked about that. Oh this about your vans gonna build housing here but residents were fighting but we're gonna go ahead and do it anyway. So he doesn't care about the residents. He you know, he said he would meet with all of us about that discussing secretly plan north and landing and then he backed out on his word and only met with a few people down into kaymak fortress during COVID And so when Anton brain says they're intentional, yeah, the city sure was intentional in their purposeful exclusion of the residents who live right there. Why do we have district managers when they're most of them are not responsive? I reached out to a district manager about this sidewalk people crack in my sidewalk. And he didn't respond. This is mostly the case and they were all involved in the secret of stuff. I believe that.

    Thank you so much. next caller please. next caller is DeAndre Jones. Yeah. Trey Jones. Thank you for joining us. The floor is yours two minutes.

    Thank you so much. My name is Deidre Jones. I'm actually a librarian with Detroit Public Library and president of our local union 2200. So first, I'd like to thank the public for all your support in the library. And you asked earlier about the program that we have in the library we have lots of family literacy programs, weekly and daily. We have a drop in technology workshops for people we have a lot of programs catering to returning citizens to a lower risk of recidivism. We have Microsoft Word How to use computer bracelets, how to use your cell phone, we constantly get people coming in and only know how to collect benefits online, such as champs differ DHS how to even get to the my identity. So we are very integral in closing the digital divide with our communities to I am you know, just as we're anxious and ready for our libraries to be open. So not only do we provide our literacy services, we provide cooking classes as well and many of our locations, as well as we provide different access to the digital platforms that Antoine Antonio talked about so so very eloquently. So it goes well beyond what we do. We do our fitness programs, we have dance classes, and we do cater to a lot of seniors and disabled people as well. Thank you for your time.

    Thank you. Next caller please. next caller is Steven whoring Steven, how are we thank you for joining us you have two minutes general public comment.

    Thank you.

    Can I be her issue man? Well, happy Friday everyone. So you know like first thing to say. Like usual wallow Ross spotlight on Lena Harada and all those old slides. I mean, that was completely misleading. And, you know, none of the money from the brown scalar DDA is still or none of the library money is stolen from the DDA. That's just a typical spew that comes up by anti development activists, you know, to go against developments and it's pretty dangerous misinformation. You know, I do want to say, though, regarding the libraries, you know, one of the reasons why we're just seeing so many close libraries is because, you know, technology, the generation is changing, you know, I support libraries. 100% You know, when I was at CCS, I would always go to the Detroit Public Library, but we really need to find a way whether it's marketing or even just changing the model to kind of get the libraries that kind of, you know, bad enough fit, you know, the younger generation, you know, even getting you know, more digital like, you know, this might be kind of ridiculous to say but even like doing VR programs or, you know, even doing like, digital or kind of expanding the digital footprints, you know, there could just be there's so much cool stuff you can do that you know, the libraries are just not doing and, you know, you get, you know, all these people who comment, just complain and complain that, you know, they're losing money to developments. You know, that's just nonsense. It's just that the libraries that are poorly mismanaged and you know, the generation is just changing just like Blockbuster.

    Thank you. Next caller please. The final caller is M P. Caller M. P The floor is yours. You have two minutes. General public comment.

    Good afternoon. I'm Jocelyn Harris. I am a resident that live close to the Monti library. But also I'm representing our District Four Community Advisory Council, where we do have a workgroup that's focused on our basic needs. And we know that one of the basic needs is that every thriving community have a live living library. As a resident near the man teeth library. We've been working for years to get that library reopened. The fact is that we're so thankful that our city council woman is working hard in our behalf and just to let you know the depth of the problem being that our closest library is in gross point. Some of our residents venture over there to use that library. It's a tale of two cities. They have a state of the art library within two minutes of our community. But we absolutely no that we are not welcomed there. We've taken our children to get books and of course they don't allow our children to take out books. This is 2024 We're looking at that library being open by any means necessary as soon as possible. Thank you, Russ valon. Thank you, Gwen's peoples. We in District Four support the reopening of the man teeth library as soon as possible. And thank you City Council for supporting this. We're looking forward to a brighter future for our community and especially for our children. This library must be reopened. Thank you, and have a good evening.

    Thank you, and you have a great day as well. I think that takes us to the end of our public comments. Thank you so much. Mr. Corley, the floor is yours. And before we wrap up, I

    gotta be really brief. So be wonderful to receive the administration responses to counsels questions on the budget as quickly as possible. I've noticed a lot on your plate, Mr. Wesson and your team, appreciate what you are doing. But it really helps castle to receive responses as you go into Executive Session. Which starts on Tuesday, April the second. And then lastly, be wonderful for council members to also send your questions to the budget to us and LPD. So we can log it and try to you know, monitor the response rate on to those questions. So, thank you so much.

    Miss Corleone, Monday, we start at 10am What is what is what is the slate look like Monday for the folks who are watching

    three budget hearings on Monday. The first one is fire at 10 o'clock. Lemon 30 Airport and then two o'clock, public lighting department and public lighting authority.

    Thank you so much, Colleagues, any thing in addition before we wrap up, seeing no other questions, comments, concerns, is there motion to adjourn the No objections that action shall be taken be safe be Well, everyone have a great weekend. This meeting is adjourned.