Budget — General Services/Recreation / Media Services
2:14PM Mar 27, 2024
Speakers:
President Sheffield
Keywords:
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rec centers
residents
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year
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work
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detroit
hart plaza
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madam president
talk
Press
You Right Good morning everyone. We will now call to order our budget expanded budget Finance and Audit Committee for the purposes of our budget hearings. Madam Clerk, good morning, and if you can please call the roll.
Good morning. Council member Scott Benson. Council member Fred der Hall, the third resident council member Leticia Johnson. Council member Gabriela Santiago Ramiro present council member Mary waters. Council member Angela Whitfield Calloway council member Coleman a young the second your council president pro tem James Tate, Council President Mary Sheffield. Madam President, you
have a quorum.
All right there being a quorum present. We are in session and we will start with our first budget hearing which is the General Services department and we have director crystal Parkins. And others who have joined.
Morning, you whenever you're ready to begin, the floor is yours.
Good morning. I'm Krystal to uppercase, the director of the General Services Department. And with me I have
Good Morning Joe Harris, Deputy Director General Services Department. Good morning.
Angela Taylor, agency, CFO for General Services Department.
Good morning. We do have a presentation that we will like to show. So if someone can allow jurrell rights to share
we're here today before you to present the GSD proposed budget for your review and approval. The General Services department is committed to providing leadership and best practices to ensure that the resources are strategically and pro proactively distributed. The General Services Department is I would like to say unique because we support internal departments as well as providing a much needed services to our residents. and citizens alike.
And as you can see here, if you look at our budget overview for fiscal year 25 What we have is the percentages of our budget that comes from the different funding sources. And as you can see here on the pie chart over 60% of our budget comes from the general fund. There's a small portion of our budget that that also comes from the Blight fund. We have recreation grants that we receive funding for and that helps supports our full Services Program. And then we also receive funding from major street and solid waste funds. You will notice on the next slide that this year our budget is is almost $24 million shorter than what we requested and when what was approved last fiscal year and the reason being is that the Capitol request that's normally in our budget requests for your body to approve during this time. This gun is has been removed for this particular time but it will go through a different process. The budget administration office is going to have that at a later date for you. In addition, the other decrease is from the vacancy status that we will be talking more about in this presentation. Just to give you a background of some of our services that we do, General Services department we have about 14 divisions within our department. Our administration division is designed to support our internal departments, and also our internal divisions. we procure we have a team that's strictly dedicated to procuring goods and services for our internal divisions so that they can focus more on operations in addition to where procuring goods and services for some of our partnering departments, and our most critical departments like DPD fire and DPW our Business Services Department division provides janitorial services for over 15 City off facilities on a daily basis. In addition to 15 conversations and the conversations are the rescue facilities that you see at our public parks. Our security team ensures the safety of city property assets and personnel from unauthorized use and entry and incidents are security personnel we have in house security personnel, but they also work in conjunction with our contractual staff to to ensure that things like the election ballot boxes are safe that our residents and visitors are safe at our events that we do for the community
Animal Care and Control. In 2023 there was a reunification of Animal Care and Control. Historically Animal Care and Control resided with the Health Department. At some point of time, Animal Care and Control was moved to DPD when the health department was dismantle when the health department was brought back. Animal Care and Control was removed back to the health department prior to COVID control was moved to General Services Department. So Animal Care stayed with the Health Department Animal Control moved to GST. Animal Control is the external group, the officers, the investigators, the investigators, supervisors that's out in the field picking up loose or stray dogs s ranches, citizens complaints, responding and those nature's Animal Care is responsible for the animals once they arrive at the shelter. They're responsible for our adoption programs. They are responsible for ensuring that the animals have what they need in the shelter. In June of 2023, animal care was moved to GSD to be reunited with animal control. We are excited about the new shelter that should be completed in the next coming quarter of this year. And with the completion of the shelter, both units will be on one building. Right now they're separate the shelter that is not able to house all the employees that one building on the Chrysler location. So at the new location at rustling theory, all of the employees will be quite out of one building and that will put the department the unit in alignment with each other. We will be able to house more animals as the new shelter will we'll be able to house over 200 M dogs and additional 80 cats there. There are newer facilities there there is a surgical room along with a triage area. These are things that are lacking in the current space. So we're very excited about that. In 2022, we saw our activities for the animal care and Control Unit were roughly around 18,000 In these aren't necessarily pickups but these are activities that's related to a call from citizens or internal we get we work with DPD as well when we are dealing with animals that are out that are loose that need to be captured or returned back to their owners. In 2023, this number continued to increase. So since the pandemic we have been seeing an uptick in the amount of loose or stray dogs. We've also seen an uptick in the amount of other animals what we only categorize cats and dogs. We've seen a decrease in pickups of cats, but in other animals, which are maybe your chickens or snakes or bats. We've seen an uptick in those and those animals we have once we bring them to the shelter we partner with other agencies to disperse those animals because that's not something that we house at the shelter. Next slide please. Ace arts culture and entrepreneur. This unit is currently in the process of preparing to celebrate five years of service. Rochelle Riley leads that unit and she's excited. She's been with the city serving in this role for five years. So in May she's planning a big celebration. I'm very excited about the partnerships that she's had the opportunities that she's created, not just for our our students but our residents. Through her initiatives. She's been exposing our use and our residents to music, theater, dance and ownership. She's partnered with a DSL to bring their programming to the city. She's also partnered to create what's called sacred spaces for our artists. In addition to it was rush shells initiatives and efforts that brought the MLK statue to Hart Plaza and she's also working on what's called Arts alleys. Their neighborhoods that were there alleys will be turned into a gathering space and they will be decorated with arts they'll have they'll be able to program it and have music and the community is very excited about this initiative. Our blight remediation division. This is one of our most popular divisions. Like to read blight to beauty is very needed. It's seen in the in the city and the customer residents enjoy the work that we do. We are transforming our city every day from blight to beauty. We have a three layer approach. Working with our blades are Katrina Crowley in this partner with BC on a forcement our teams remediate and then we're talking to the property owners about the ongoing maintenance one of the things that I am proud to announce here is that since we've been heavy on our forcement and we are starting to see where owners are coming into compliance, which is a great thing because now we're not sending our teams out or our vendors out to do that work. Once. Katrina is having a conversation with the business owners once they receive that citation, or that correction order. They are reaching out they're reaching out to BC they're reaching out to GSD asking what do I need to do to remediate my property? We use vendors and in house staff to remediate properties. We have a big focus on corridor cleanup right now. We have over 18 corridors that have been identified where we are removing fences, signs and painting by the buildings the fences are either mangled or in disrepair that we're removing the sides are blighted or a danger to the community and the buildings are shabby and just the eyesore just a blight in the area. But in addition to those three items, we are focusing on cleaning the overgrowth the jaw and what we call the front stage from the curb line up to the building and make sure we clean it any litter, any overgrowth, any weeds in the cracks and things of that nature. We also have our city walls and graffiti removal program within this division, city walls is responsible for various murals throughout the city. We have an art artists read his residency program where the local Detroit artists are selected to paint murals throughout the city. This helps abate graffiti as vandalism our graffiti removal program. What they do is they remove tags off of buildings that may not qualify for a mural, or the owner may not want a mural but we use these two programs in conjunction with each other to alleviate the graffiti vandalism that you see throughout the city. We also have 3d program, our 3d tree removal program launched in April of 2023. We began taking costs. By July we had over 7000 requests for private tree removals. So far we have surveyed over 1200 trees, we have trimmed or removed over 400 This program was started at the request of member state and this is something that's greatly needed in the community. The allotment for this was 8.3 million. We had 7.3 in contract so everything has been obligated in contracts. And we have 1.2 million that we spent for personnel. We have five contractors that's actually active doing work. And we have three and process which should be coming across your desk for approval really soon. In addition, we have our freeway maintenance program. This typically prior to last year was being handled by the state of Michigan GSD took this over and we've been cleaning off freeways in the city since then, this program has really taken off has really impressed the neighbors. Not only are we cleaning the grass area on the freeways, our responsibility is just the grass area on the freeways, the ball which is where you drive the service drives that's still being handled by the Michigan Department of Transportation with their large sweepers but the grass area and the barbs on the top part of the freeways is what the General Services Department cleans. We use in house staff and we also use contractors for this work. You won't believe how many calls we've received from residents that is very impressed with the work that we're doing. Happy that has happened. I received a call from an employee in HR his mom had lived dead in at the lodge for 40 years. And she said for 30 of those years, this freeway has been junky nasty, the service drive the picture is right there the first pitcher with the orange barrel on it, and she was really impressed and grateful that the city came through and clean that area up.
In addition, we also have our alley cleanup program which you'll see on the budget as neighborhood trace unit. Alley cleanup program. They are responsible for cleaning up the alleys. Residents are happy with this program. Residents are having access to the alleys that they haven't had in four years able to access their garages for those neighborhoods who want a gate put up we're putting gates up as well to help deter some of the illegal dumping the illegal illegal activity in those neighborhoods. Fleet Management so GSD we are committed to converting our fleet we're committed to working with OCP to find the most emissions efficient vehicles as possible. We currently have 360 vehicles in stock that are either Evie hybrid plug in hybrid. The the challenge that we're running into is the availability we are we are committed to seeking first emissions friendly vehicles for the city. But the challenge that we're running to is availability. For example, we have an order in for some vehicles for police and they were hybrid vehicles, but we receive a call from Ford that those vehicles won't be produced any more hybrid this year, not until 2025. So we're trying to work that out to see what we can do. But our goal our number one goal is to make sure we're first looking at Evie hybrid or plug in hybrid vehicles. I want to highlight our forestry and ground maintenance divisions. I don't think they get enough attention. I think now with the record amount of storms that we're having the high winds that we're having, in addition to the aging tree structure we have in the city. We're seeing a lot of issues with trees. And so our forestry division is strictly limited to right of way trees. So if the tree is not on the berm, not in the city park, not in the right away. Their funding restricts them to what trees they can handle, which is why we have these other programs in place. We have the deep three tree program in place but we also have a right of way tree program in place which is funded by some of our ARPA funding, where we are going to get those trees on now right away. I'm sorry, not Rattray tree program too. So we're trying to make sure we take care of our residents in our city by going through and getting these dead dangerous trees either on the right away on private property or on city property. Our ground maintenance division is responsible for not just our city parks, they are responsible for maintaining the parks cutting the grass picking up the litter, taking care of the leaves, making sure that the park is clean for people who permit the park for our residents who use the park on a daily basis. We have over 300 parks in the city that they tend to in addition to the parks they also provide the same services for DPD in addition to snow removal at DPD and our rec centers as well. We also assist fire with snow removal only during the times that the snow reaches a certain fee. We go and help them and do that as well. That's fine. Everybody's favorite Joe Lewis Greenway which is going to be 27.5 Miles once complete. Right now our biggest attraction and some people have been comparing it to Cedar Point is the slide at the Warren trail gate gate head. I have not been on it. Yet but adults love it. I'm hearing that children don't want to leave the line was long the very first weekend after we did the ribbon cutting and so any sunny day, it's crowded, it's busy. Residents are loving it. We did have one incident where an adult got stuck.
And but we were able to get them out and so it's fun. It's fun. It's fun for all ages right.
Landscape Design LDU PDU and floor culture. This is our landscape design, park development and flora culture unit. This group is responsible for designing the parts keeping the park safe the equipment PDU maintains the park equipment. So something is broken or something needs to be replaced. This is the team that goes out to replace it. They also take care of our diamonds our baseball diamonds, our soccer fields and flora culture is responsible for the flowers that you see. So the the flowers that you see in the park but also on the medians throughout the city. Everybody's best department fund division, recreation fire Fund and the DEA. So we are very excited about the work that we've been doing in recreation these past few years with our major events, especially our four events, our spring. Easter fairs are two festivals we do in October Fall Fest and harvest fest. In addition to our winter fest. We have only been seeing an uptick uptake in attendance with these events. This year. We added the NFL activation events that we've done in all of the districts and we're doing that so that the residents can feel included in this NFL Draft. Everybody can't make it downtown. Everyone doesn't want to come downtown, but we want to make sure that everyone is included in the fun. So at each district we've had the NFL activation events and over that time we've seen over 10,000 people participate in our events. And that concludes my presentation for today if you have any questions.
All right. Thank you, Director Perkins for your presentation and if Kirkwood no potentate member Johnson any member Callaway everyone is here. Alright, Clark was so nice. Okay. Thank you. So I want to start off by just Thank you, Director Perkins. Our office has had just a good relationship with you. You've been very responsive in the entire GSD department for the work that you all do. wanted to personally also thank you for the work that we worked on together as it relates to the MLK Park on the Boulevard and I saw that planning meetings are happening now. And so more of a statement just to say thank you. I do want to follow up with you offline on the actual amount that will be allocated for that park. I know residents are extremely excited to see an investment. So just want to thank you for that and then also the water may park within the MLK homes. We had the opportunity together to do the ribbon cutting for the pistons investment in the court at the MLK Park community was extremely excited and pleased with that. But it didn't lead to further discussion about continued investment in that area as relates to park the park because aside from the court, there's really no additional amenities for the kids to actually utilize. So again, more of a statement wanted to talk with you offline about continued investment in the MLK Park which the city actually owns. And I was surprised to see how many young people live at the MLK homes, tons of kids and so they are pressing me to press our city of Detroit to invest more in amenities for them to actually utilize their at the park. So my first question is just really around some of the recreational centers. I know there's been especially in district five a lot of updates taking place with both the butzel Family Center and the Williams rec center wanted you to provide an update on both of those centers, timelines and then just some of the improvements as relates to both of those rec centers and then also on page B 4713. I wanted to to address some of the recreation community based programming. Some of the kind of critique that I've heard is that we don't have enough programming within our rec centers. And so wanted you to talk a little bit more about the programming that is available. I'm sure you can't provide all of it. Now we do have a question in writing for you to kind of break down each rec center and the programming that is available but if you could speak briefly to some of the recreational community based programming that is available within the rec centers,
okay. So in our rec centers in as you know, the programming varies throughout the rec centers. But we do have a lot of dance classes for seniors and children. We have arts and crafts, we have a technology technical base programming as well. So, for example, at pro well we have a class where we teach seniors how to be more tech savvy. And they love it. I've gotten calls and emails about that class and I know you all deal with dealt with seniors before. They don't like too many changes. So when we did change one of the instructors I did get a call because they liked the way that person teaches better. In addition, we have our swimming lessons, you know we promote swimming lessons are year round, not just in the summertime, but all of our rec centers with pools do offer swimming lessons, we have what's called Community pass. Right now that's our current program where individuals can go on and see the various programming that we do have in our rec centers, so I'll be happy to list out the programming that we have at each locations. I know that dance is really really popular amongst the young people, young girls, they love that and so that's basically almost at every rec center. But we do just have cooking classes at our A before it location and Northwest activity center. So it's kind of unique to the Rec Center depending on their amenities, but I will be more than happy to provide that information.
Okay. And then also just making sure that we're actually serving the residents in the community and changing as needed. I'm not sure how often those programs have been updated or changed based on the needs of the residents in that area. And then there's a reduction in the community based programming about $40,000 and I'm just not sure what's that reduction for total amount around $808,000 for community programming. And that's page B 4730.
Okay, so that is just turnover saving. So recreation has been and as vacancy turnover site. So recreation has been a department that we've had a challenge with fill in the vacancies. We are committed to working with HR we are looking at unconventional ways to to recruit as well. So we're hoping that if we see that we need to fill those positions going forward budget is committed to working with us to make sure we have the resources we need to fill those positions.
Okay, and then not a part of the first question was just answering the timeline for the Williams rank in the Bledsoe family. There's been any changes or updates and when the timeline for opening of those two recreation centers,
Williams we have a walkthrough scheduled on Monday with the vendor to do a final walkthrough so I do expect that to be open and real soon. But so family is open. But so open. Are you talking about combing? Sorry,
I'm sorry. But so Lord Jesus, that's always been I've always just had a meeting. Call me Yes.
So Coleman is slated to open December of this year. Okay.
All right.
Thank you. And then my second question is regarding alley cleaning. You mentioned that that was under the neighborhood trades unit. There's a nice amount in a reduction from five to 3 million I'm assuming because you don't need to clean as many alleys but can you speak to the ability for alleys to be cleaned more than once? And no that was a request and then have we have we essentially responded to all of the requests from neighborhood black clubs who are requesting that at least be clean. So
we the plan is that we will get through that black club list this year. The original setup of the alleys was that the alleys will be cleaned one time by the city which is why we partnered with the block clubs and they are to maintain it throughout. So it was originally designed for that one clean all that legacy debris out all those decades of overgrowth by the city and then the black club. We signed an agreement we talked to each black Club, which is why we worked with the DAS to make sure there was black clubs in those areas and we will set them up if it wasn't to make sure that there was someone there to take on the continued maintenance because it should not be such a daunting task after we cleaned the legacy blog.
Okay, so just to be clear, though, the 3 million that's allocated for this upcoming fiscal year will cover all pending request. Yes. Okay. And that's just for one round. Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. We have additional questions that we will submit in writing regarding just maintenance of city parks, the Detroit resident discount that we submitted regarding the golf program here in the city, and also the cleaning of vacant lots and bus shelters but we will send that to you in writing and we will turn it over to questions from my colleagues and I will start with councilmember Young.
Thank you, ma'am. Francie. Park is good to see you and good to see everyone. Yeah, I wanted to ask you a little bit about the Joe Lewis Greenway. I just want to ask you Do we have a date? Oh, when that will be complete? And do we have an economic analysis of what that would be? I think Atlanta had a freeway that was similar, about 3.5 billion, I'm assuming in that regard. And, and I'm also asking that to say Are there any new recreation centers that we plan on building and will be connected to the Joe Lewis Greenway?
So right now the plans is to build we have two rec centers, one brand new that's being built which is the at the Brennan pool house site. And district seven, and then we recently acquired the Dexter M horse center that's over there off Dexter and Elmhurst area, which is awesome. And in district seven
are you looking at my colleague right now?
are the only two that we have slated as far as building new rec centers. The joba was Greenway, I can definitely give you that financial analysis. What we're doing what we've noticed and so far is we're running into a lot of legacy blight and debris that we're cleaning that's been buried in some cases. So I'm very happy that we're able to go through because what we're seeing in the areas that we've already started, we're seeing owners taking pride in their neighborhood, right? We're seeing a change in that neighborhood. And what we know from the Atlanta Greenway is that once that Greenway was built those neighborhoods saw a positive economic impact, not just in their home value, but also in businesses opening people receiving employment, people taking pride in your neighborhoods. So that's the economic impact that we're looking for in the city of Detroit. As far as the completion that timeline is still you know, yet to be completed. I can't give you a concrete timeline right now, because we're talking about 27 miles here, right. And so there's still areas that we were working on making sure we have all our paperwork in order to acquire, you know, making sure that the city actually is able to have the contracts in place to clear out that legacy debris. But if you ever get an opportunity to look at what we've done, starting at the Warren gateway trailhead, and heading a little you know, just a little bit wet north and then a little bit west you will see all over to like Grand River and Oakman area, you will see the work that we're doing and you see how impactful it is for those areas. I grew up not too far from Oakman and Grand River and there used to be a go kart place right there. And I remember that area when I was little I remember when they closed the gold cards and how it was just tired everywhere. So now that we're coming through cleaning up that area that property is in cleaned as well. And then what I like about us during this Greenway is that we're acquiring buildings that have been sitting vacant and dilapidated for years, and we're taking that property and we're turning it into something beautiful.
I think so I tried to run me off the road when those go karts are no big back in the day by that time. I wasn't that good, but, but I actually like little flats back there. But I just also want to ask you two days what I want to ask you is there i From what I've knows I'll just use this example but from Gratiot. From yeah from from Rational bear died from Brashear to curb trouble. I've noticed there's been a lot of places where you see houses, if they because they've torn the houses down. They've been empty. And I understand some of that's going to be for infill development or how to be able to do that the economic benefits of it, but I think some of these areas are not going to qualify for infill development. Has there been a discussion at all about having more pocket parks in those neighborhoods, or building neighborhoods around those type of parks? I don't know if you have to partner up with, you know, the land bank and so these properties or if you would have to have a conversation with planning because I mean, I understand the city, you know, is built you like spokes on a wheel and you don't want to go too far away from that vision. But has there been conversations about having parks and the reason why that I'm saying that is twofold one because I think it's really good for us to develop those 2030 minute neighborhoods around a park, but also I think is because after a Belisle was, was controlled by the state. They had a crackdown and they pulled over aggressive crap that they pulled over a lot of people including elected officials from the city. And after that there was a real hesitancy or a lot of people to be able to go to Bilbao. And so they started going more towards these local parks. And so I think that the more parks we have more opportunity people have to go to these parks because they didn't want to go to bail out because they had a bad experience. So I just wanted to know has there been discussion about creating more pocket parks and to see you trade and where those places might be.
So we have been in talks with planning and development about vacant spaces in the city and what we can do with that. We currently have over 300 Parks right now that we are responsible for the care and the maintenance and beautification of. So we will definitely continue those talks with with planning and development. There is some space that they've identified and we will continue those talks. Okay,
excellent. There's the final thing I wanted to say is, is any great presentation oh, by the way, is anybody from Arts Culture entrepreneurship here? Not today? Well, okay, well, I'll just gonna say this and then they you can respond or they can respond accordingly. So when we were having a discussion about the Israel Hamas conflict, I had spent a lot of time reading is the a little bit of what I'm talking about where I spent a lot of time talking about buy views, and what I thought about it, and the history of it. But the problem with that is the public listening to me even though as well, it teaches I thought I was doesn't know if what I'm saying is true, or I'm gonna stop here making stuff up and it's that us is we're dealing with a lot of more historically based things. Whether it's the Israel Hamas conflict, whether it's reparations, whether it's the discussion, maybe a Vincent Chin, who is a young Asian man who was murdered because the color of his skin you know, recently in this area, or other historical events, I think it's important for us to have someone on the staff that is has expertise in history and artists. We already have historian in Jamal Jordan, but I think that what he's doing is really good because every time I go out, I see him and I think he's bringing the city to a whole new level. And I think he should continue to keep doing what he's doing. I wouldn't want him to be in that position unless he chose to be. But I do think we need to have somebody that's on staff. I don't know this is a, you know, LPD question. Maybe I'm going outside of my skis here. Maybe you already have somebody like that. I don't know, forgive my ignorance. But I just think we need to have someone here. Becky actually say what you're saying is right or a call when you know you're full of it. You don't know what you're talking about. And this is what happened that actually is credentialed in that field, so that we're having these discussions. It's based on the correct accuracy because the more accurate is, the better policy is going to be it also because I don't want to be on the wrong side of history can when you're dealing with some of these issues. They're not only important for currently what I'm dealing with towards the issues of service to people, but also my portrait long term. I don't want to be the guy that you know, 3040 years later, looks like a truth or something like that, because I didn't get the facts right,
maybe and can we get to the question, oh, revenue, revenue.
I want to wind this up this this line and it's really important to me. I really feel a certain way about this. So I just want to say it, you're just just wind this down. Is there some way in which we could have someone that's on staff that is credentialed historically or as a history background to deal with those issues?
So I I would like to let you know that. I feel that's Jamal Jordan. He is our official city historian and he reports to the Office of arts, culture and entrepreneurship. He proudly supports directly to his rally. So are you asking you for someone in addition to him?
Yeah, I'm just if you want to be him, that's fine. I'll just ask you for someone that's here. When we're dealing with the web all the time, when we're dealing with these issues of deep history. If you see a tree that's actually credentialed in that area, that can that can kind of just guide people along because we're having discussions about history, and there's no one with a history background as their to be able to wield intellect about law and someone with a legal background and be able to correct that. We're having a discussion about general services. If somebody for general service discuss that. I want to deep debate about the Israeli Palestinian conflict. I need someone that's versed in history, be able to tell me what I'm saying is right or wrong.
Okay. Thank you. All right. Was that it? Maria? Yeah.
I am done and I would like to make a I like to put executive session a additional position with the arts, culture and entrepreneurship for a historian on staff.
All right, any objections to adding that to our Executive Session? All right, hearing none, that action will be taken. President potentate.
Thank you, Madam President. And thank you, Madam Director and team for being here. Appreciate all the work that you all do. You touch a lot. I want to touch on two things that we have partnered on and looking forward to a continuing partner on partnering bond, excuse me, and one of you mentioned the Triple D Trade Program. I certainly I was the one who raised it but this was something that had members of the entire council find ourselves being able to benefit from on behalf of our residents, because we've all heard this complaint about the lack of maintenance or deferred maintenance rather, that many of our residents have to incur as a result of their financial situation than a huge tree. So again, thank you for moving forward with this program and looking forward to the next iteration and kind of want to talk about where we are currently. It sounds like we were still getting our legs under our sails so to speak. I know we had some issues with contractors and vendors as of right now it's a no the well they tend to go was 14 to 1300 trees 14 to 1500 trees. Oh, if I'm not mistaken, correct to be either trimmed or taken down is that correct? That that was my last calculation. I'm going
to customer rotate. So actually, our goal is 2000 trees. Oh, and so as we go through the program, we are learning that our average cost to provide a service for a tree is about $3,000. And now that varies because some are trims, and a trim could be as inexpensive as $300 to trim one limb that may be hanging over someone's bedroom that is dangerous, that is at risk of falling. But it could be removal that could cost $10,000 Depending on how large your tree is and how dangerous it is. So, um, the cost per service varies, but based on the amount of money that we currently have, and what we're currently seeing as our average cost as we start to do more and more trees, we're getting a better number. On the average we do think we'll get to about 2000 Trees service
2000 tree service during with the funds that funds so when we see that happen because it was 7000 people who knocked on our door, so to speak. And so I know we have done a survey of 1200 According to the report, so that leaves a gap of 5800 where those folks that we would turn determine that the trees was not Triple D eligible so to speak, or are these folks who just kind of like in the queue we didn't get a chance to get to him because of the large demand.
So the way we sorted the list. So we did get about 7000 requests for service, which was a lot more than I think anyone anticipated that we get. We use a few criteria to get started. Are you a senior Do you have a disability and then how dangerous is that tree? So we have trained three inspectors who are trained our arborists who go out and do the inspection. It's a tree dead is it? Can we tell that it's dead? Does it have some type of tree disease that is going to cause it to become dangerous, or is it currently dangerous and a threat to someone's property a threat to someone's vehicle a threat to pedestrians who may be walking by and so we rank the trees in order of how dangerous they were kind of based on those criteria. And then from there, we went out and started doing the inspections. And so so far we've completed about 1200 inspections and about 450 trees have been service to date. So we're working our way down that list. So as as we inspect the tree, so we have about 800 more inspections to get through to get to that 2000 number. And then whoever we don't get to, we are still going to complete the inspection so we'll know what the condition is of those trees. And then we'll we will grant what is left and then come back to the body honestly and say hey, this is what's next on the list. How do we achieve servicing those residents if possible,
and the proposed budget initially had 5 million in it. City Council put in an additional 3.3 million I believe it is so it took us to 8.3 When do we think we will give me about a month that you believe that we'll get that 8.3 Exhausted 8.3
million at the current pace we'll be done December 2024 slash January 2025 at the current pace, okay.
And that still won't take us to that 7000 number or at least the the actual demand, if you will. So there's a certainly a desire for a re up if you will, so to speak. So we can continue this program at least to get those first 7000 taken care of but we know that that still won't. Won't won't won't hit the exact demand. So what what's been the conversation about what that new number potentially would look like? Because I know it was a pilot we did talk about last year being a pilot but again, with 7000 people calling we had to shut down the phone application process way earlier than anticipated. We know that there's still that need what's anticipated for for the next version of this program
through the chair to member state. That number I don't have right now but I do know what we were trying to do with our our efforts have been focused on getting more vendors on so we can speed up this process and helping the current vendors with their capacity as well. As you stated previously, we did have an unfortunate situation with vendors that we had to shift some things around, but I think we're in a good spot now. We're understanding our rhythm we're learning. You know how long it takes because it's more than just taking that tree down right. Once you take that tree down, you got to get the stamp you got to grind it below grade. You got to you know, do the woodshed, so the need is there, and we see that the need is there. So we do want to make sure we started looking at what's next what happens next so we can get back with you on
okay. I would like to colleagues motion that we placed the Triple D tree program into executive session so we can discuss what that looks like.
All right, Hearing no objections that action will be taken.
Thank you so much. And you mentioned I want to now shift to animal care control you mentioned that you have take care of bats you because I know that bats typically are not animal care and control that's a
very are Yeah, they're they're not but there have been cases where it's like far fewer in between where I see the report and it's like that's where we've had to do that once or twice.
Okay, I would certainly like to know offline. What is that litmus test because there's a lot of animals or critters that we believe are DNR responsibility and if we can figure out a way internally to address it, that would be extremely helpful for some neighbors. So I'll talk offline about that. But want to talk a little bit about inspectors. How many inspectors do you currently have and how many is this budget anticipating with an increase or decrease?
So for the animal care control inspectors, the budgeted amount remains the same. We have a budget amount of nine. We have six on staff right now we have three vacancies that we're working with HR to feel okay.
And so have you ever had that full contingency that that number, you said nine is the number that we're reaching towards? Correct?
Correct. And that since I've been on staff that's been at a turnover position, the care and control positions, since they've been under GSD have all seen a lot of turnover. And we've worked with HR we did a market study on the salary so they recently are was were increased. And I thank your body for approving that a few months back. And so since we've done that, I mean because what we were noticing is that they will come in, get the training and then I can go out to Birmingham or Bloomfield and do less work for more pay. So now that we have increased our rates, we are very hopeful that we will have low turnover in these areas.
I would also like to place the into Executive Session. Just the areas that we can talk about animal care and control inspectors see what that looks like motion for that please.
All right Hearing no objections that actually will be taken.
And then also would like to place into executive session we'll have a further conversation about it regarding the vehicles that you all have, and I believe, potentially need as well based upon our new animal ordinance. We want to make sure that people are fairly confident that you have the ability to execute the enforce or enforce the ordinances that we have on the books and want to give you all the tools to do that. We won't go into the ordinance itself. We'll be doing that as we move forward. But again, thank you for your support there. But madam president will also like to motion to Executive Session addition of additional vehicles for Animal Care and Control and we'll discuss that as we go along the way.
Okay, Hearing no objections that will be added to Executive Session. Thank you so
much. Thank you so much, director and enjoy around everyone else. Appreciate you.
All right, thank you Protune. Member Santiago Romero. Thank you, Madam
President. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the work that you do. The questions that I have. One question that I have is just interested in getting a little insight into who designs our parks. So we sometimes hear why do we have this tree? Why do we have this flower? It's not native to Michigan. We sometimes hear you know, who are the folks that are building our parks and designing our parks. So how do we recruit our landscapers? Where are they coming from? And are they do we know if they are designing our parks keeping native species in mind?
Through the Chair so to member Santiago Amira. We do have a very strong landscape design team. They have extensive experience. Our landscape architectures are certified by the state of Michigan, they have to take a test to receive that certification. I'm very proud of the work that they do the design of the actual Park. It's not without a lot of community input. So the community, the residents, the stakeholders in that area. We have several meetings with them throughout. Are they able to get everything that they request? No, but we try to accommodate them the best that we can. The floor culture division and we have a a expert in Flora culture design, he what he's won awards for the best that we have over at army Henderson Park. And we just recently was nominated for war for Roosevelt Park. He has extensive knowledge and not just the trees but the flowers and yes, we are committed to Naita specie plants that we're planting. Barry is very knowledgeable and he's he's very in tune with what the community is asking for. So I'm very shocked to hear that some community members feel that we're not using native species plantings or trees because that that's our top priority. Native specimens but also flowering and things that are those plants that are great for Michigan soil is what we're looking at when we're planting. I think this body for proven the A before it contract yesterday, but that's one of the things that we were adamant about when we talk to our vendors about the replacement of the trees that we're putting a before there on native to Michigan. Through
the Chair Thank you. That's that's incredibly helpful. I just get, you know, added at on Twitter, sometimes with pictures and they're questioning if they're native or not. And I don't know, but not on the record that we do think about these things and we are making sure that that's in minds. less of a question more of an ask or a seed to be planted. Making sure that we're engaging young people in the process. I know that we ask our residents to help us design the parks, but I'm much more interested in having young people be the ones that are picking the plants, planting the plants, designing the parks not just providing the feedback that we do with the sticky notes which is important. But I'm thinking about inspiring young people to take on these roles in the future. Having Detroiters be the ones that know their city know what is needed to Michigan and be the next designer of landscaping for the city. That's where I'm thinking and that's what I would hope that that we are able to do as well. I'm not sure if it's through coding training talents will be if that's not already an opportunity for folks. But these jobs are seeked out by a lot of people. I know that I want to make sure that local Detroiters are able to access the opportunities and to build the city. The next question that I have is around dogs. So I'm a very proud dog mom of a doctor. And we love Riverside Park for the dog park that has there. I was in New York last year with a friend who showed me certain parks that had certain time time allocations that allowed for dogs to roam freely. Have we have we looked at allowing for you know, one idea can be and this might have to be policy if not policies, just pasture is just a program that is run through the city. But there are some cities that will allow different days at different times to be dog park friendly. So I think when I was there it was Saturday morning and from my title from seven till 11am You knew that it was dog friendly. If you have a dog you'll see dogs running around and that's when when you're able to to have dogs be off leash. I can see us doing something very similar for families. If you have young children under the age of 13. You know from three to six we're going to have programming on our parks. Have you consider Have there ever been conversations around setting aside times at our parks to be more inviting and inclusive and accessible to folks? And if not, would you be interested in talking with me about that because I think it would be a really good idea. We have more people coming in with dogs that are walking their dogs and we have a lot of parks. So how can we make sure that we set aside some time to have them just roam free and enjoy the parks?
Yes through the chair. I will be more than happy to sit down and talk to you about that. I think that's something that would be very beneficial, especially at our parks that don't have that designated dog park area. I can see the need for that.
Yeah, through the chair Clark park, you know, Saturday mornings, I'm sure seven till 11 All the neighbors will be out with their parks and I think it'd be really nice way to just also builds relationships with each other. So thank you for that. Those are my two questions. I would like to make a motion to add the Friends of River Rouge request for the Bridge Park into Executive Session. I believe they're looking for 900,000 to complete the park and want to have further discussion during an Executive Session.
All right, any objections? Hearing none that action will be taken.
Thank you Madam President. Thank you. All right. Thank
you, Councilmember waters.
Thank you, Madam President. So we're still morning. Good morning. Morning. Morning. Morning.
Sorry, we said we are
okay, um,
I noticed that you said earlier that you did some salary increases but we noticed that there were salary and wages decreasing approximately about $7 million despite of the increase say in your in your headcount over fiscal year 24. So will your head count which is about what 946? Yes. Adjust to the previously approved levels of 920 and over what timeframe?
So what you see in the reduction in the headcount is the reduction of vacancy, so it's not actual a body that's being reduced. Okay. It's the vacant position. So in our seasonal positions and our summer rec positions, we've seen just continuous vacancies. And so that's where those reductions have come from. Okay.
All right, seasonal and so forth. All right. Oh, well. That's good, because you guys do a lot of important work. So make sure that you have all that you need. So the other thing I want to I want to talk with you about is something and I've spoken with Rochelle Riley about it. And you might recall when I tried to change the name of Hart Plaza, and of course I got a lot of pushback from all directions for that. And so I'm not trying to do that anymore. Except I do want some sort of monument and Rochelle and I discussed it and she helped we work through a plan at heart Hart Plaza when you enter it with a photo of both King and Hart and on that on that it should say you know, King, Hart King unity Plaza. And the other thing that I like to see is different little placards and that's whether they're standing or even on the ground, because I think I think it just can be something so so wonderful. I'm talking about the history, history as you walk through Hart Plaza, for example, all of those who contribute it to us some of those who sacrificed their lives for the movement. An example we have something like Viola Louisa away at Hart Plaza and other things like that. And let's just put the hit we are Detroit. So let's put some history there. So as people walk around Hart Plaza, they get to learn a lot of different things about who made certain sacrifices who did this and who did what because I just found out recently that a black female I think it was was responsible for the you know, the YMCA that used to be the YWCA that should be on Jefferson that she played a very important role in that and I did not know that. So, but you kind of get the gist of what I'm what I'm trying to say I'm trying to communicate here. And can you can you visualize how fantastic that would be? Yes, ma'am. You okay, yes. All right. So what are we gonna do about?
We are definitely out. I'll have conversation with Rochelle, especially about the monument that you mentioned. And we'll bring him on Jordan and to to see what other history that we can identify as it relates to Hart Plaza.
Yeah, let's just make it a place that people oh my goodness, they they walk through and see a little placard here and there and say, Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know this, and I didn't know that. I just think that would be something great because right now our plaza just gets you a seasonal you know, people just go down at certain times, but I think if we have that type of history, and her Plaza, it will bring people there year round to just kind of walk around and take a look. So that's what I wanted to say. Okay,
thank you. All right.
Thank you, Madam President.
Thank you member waters member Johnson.
Thank you, Madam President. And
good morning to the entire team. Good morning. Good morning. Oh sure. Everybody's microphone is on to Okay. Microphone check. I want to say thank you to you all, for always being available to our residents. I think we have some amazing parks in District Four and I appreciate the District Four parks that you have on the list where we're doing improvements. So I do want to, though, focus on rec in District Four. Right? I think it's extremely important to have equitable access to recreation in the city of Detroit. Previously, I've had some discussion about swimming pools throughout the city. And one of the thoughts has always been, how are we partnering with entities that have swimming pools throughout the city, particularly in District Four using was village Preparatory Academy has an amazing swimming pool that steel the community cannot utilize. And since we don't have a rec center and I know we won't have one in the next decade that has a swimming pool. What are we doing are we able to build upon those conversations around providing access to a swimming pool for our residents. We know the statistics around African Americans and drowning. It actually is just in general drowning. For individuals that do not know how to swim. Considering we had the Detroit River we have access to water. I think it's important to make sure that our residents know how to swim and I will tell you I learned how to swim when I was a young person and I don't know that I still know how to swim. So what are we doing to provide access to Detroit residents to be able to swim and not have to be in fear of drowning in a body of water?
Yeah, so through the chair. In District Four I know there's a lack of city or facilities with pools. We have been in communication with dpscd regarding the use of their pools. We need to continue those talks. We haven't finalized anything so I'll make sure that we bring those conversations back up and our meetings to make sure we come to a resolution but city wide we do partner with the metro parks, swim we have the swim in the D program where we offer free swim lessons throughout throughout the city. And every year since we've been offering that the last couple of years. Those lessons Phillips faster than I can blink. I mean soon as we release it, it's full. I have people calling like Can you can you get me in. So we do offer swim lessons are year round at our rec centers that have pools as well. But I think it's very important that Detroiters our children learn how to swim I do I agree. with you on that.
Thank you and hearing that. I think it shows you the desire and the knee. But equitable access is still extremely important. So making sure that our residents in district four residents on the east side have access to a swimming pool and I'm not sure where the closest swimming pool for us is. Is it common?
I think it would be yes. Okay.
I have residents who continue to ask me about swimming pools because they have children in their families that are actually involved in extracurricular swimming activities. I have a she's now a college student who went to college on a swimming scholarship and I believe she she had some training at Coleman Young but amazing, amazing young lady, but they her family always had to pay for. For her to get training and to have access to a swimming pool on a regular basis was a little difficult, and they have greater means so just, you know thinking about as we continue to move forward and we look at recreational centers throughout the city, and I know that I'm not going to talk about my Kelly. I know that you know there's some activity, there's some momentum building and I just want to make sure that I elevate that for residents in District Four because it is vitally important for our future and just all of our health I think swimming is is very important. And again, I don't know that I still know how to swim but I would like to I would like to know that I can swim. So I appreciate your intent your efforts and working with dpscd Because I think that is something that we can do in the interim where we still provide access or that our residents have access to it in we've had some challenges with those conversations in the past. So all of the support that you can give is greatly appreciated. Staying with water. As you know, stormwater management is a tremendous interest of ours in District Four. Yeah, I know that the community center a before park when that was developed, that you all did some unique things that that is an actual resilience hub. Just in general when you're looking at designing parks. Now. Tell me about the consideration that goes into stormwater management remember Santiago Romero mentioned native plants. Native plants and stormwater management works together very well. So can you talk about just your general overall design and thoughts on improving or developing new parks throughout the city? And techniques that were you utilizing to manage stormwater?
Yes, through the chair, when we are looking at designing parks, even renovating current parks or maybe adding a new park. The stormwater infrastructure is something that we take into consideration. So for example, at the community center at a before we do have bioswales there to help with that. And those are and you can find that throughout most of our parks throughout the city where especially in areas we know how to issue with water retention, right. So what we want to do is try to you know, move that water so it's not just seeping up in the grass areas where the play areas where the people won't be able to community won't be able to utilize that park if it's days after a rain event or something like that. And also to keep that stormwater from, you know, going through our systems and flooding our systems as well. So yes, we do look at the native the native plants, the native species because there are some that will absorb that water in addition to the bioswales that we put in our parks.
Thank you so I'm glad you all are mindful of it when you're in areas particularly particularly likely in foreign seven and beyond. But I do think it's important to make sure that is just a general thought because anywhere in the city and beyond where we can manage stormwater it helps the system overall. So thank you for that I do have some additional questions that will submit and would like to just share with you. One of my areas of focus is the Blight to beauty campaign. I actually had a commercial property in District Four that had blight violations. They had paid the violations and then one day they went to their establishment and the building had been painted. And the question was okay, who did that? And I was attempting to find out I never confirmed whether or not it was the city but I assumed that it was the blights of beauty campaign. So I'd like to get more information around how we identify businesses that we beautify and just just kind of the the focus there because I am not necessarily certain that the aesthetics was improved in that particular instance. So we'd love to have a conversation with you offline. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Madam President.
All right. Thank you,
Councilmember Benson. Thank you.
Thank you all for being here today. I'm GSD. And as my colleague stated, I mean, you guys, you do you touch everything. And it's just once you go through the budget and see my Wow, this, this, this, this and this, but in some moments, some of the new items that you have at the office sustainability, and so now GSD has responsibility for sustainability. We talked about that with fleet management. If you look at the capital budget overview, we've got a 10 a $9 million number. When it comes to climate resiliency and sustainability improvements. I really do want to talk about sustainability, and what the vision is from the GSD side. Before I go there, like this is talk about recreation and how important that is, and for the narrative for our city, how we support our young families, and support our seniors in this recreation is just so important. And if you go to some of our other municipalities, which are competitors for us, when it comes to attracting residents and businesses, and you see how they invest in their recreation centers, how those become multipurpose centers, how they're part of a campus, when it comes to the municipal services, that's something that looks like we're going towards and I remember when I took this job, we didn't cut the recreation centers, or very few of them. We didn't have the landscaping. We didn't have the new playscapes it was a much different time to where we are now. And if you have that barbershop conversation, people talk about taking their children to rec centers and feeling comfortable doing that somebody that people didn't do before. I'm going to the neighborhood park with my children. Well, I mean, that's something we weren't doing about 10 years ago. Now we're doing that. And so that's also something that's a kudos to you on your team and your efforts in GSD and please put that to your team as well. But I personally have seen that and appreciate what you all are doing. So when we talk about special events, and I see Jasmine here, I had the chance to attend the Easter fest last year. huge turnout, something that our children don't often get to do. In the city of Detroit anymore. And if you look at what it costs to go to an amusement park looking at a Disneyland $100 a day, taking your family down to Cedar Point. That's a fly as a $500 day if you have a family of four, if not more and plan to stay overnight and go another day. You may be talking about $1,000 weekend. Not all of our families can afford to do that. What what I saw that day was something that our children don't often get to see. And it costs money. There was a Ferris wheel that day there were rides there was a petting zoo. All those things are fantastic. They don't come cheap. And we want to give our residents and our children the best. Because we may have live in a city I mean we do and has a large population of those and low income doesn't mean we're low quality, and we should provide our children with the best. And so that means we're looking at a Ferris wheel. I want to make sure it's top quality. And we have other opportunities for rides we'll make sure they're top quality, which means it costs money. So where in your budget, are your special events to Fall Fest your Easter fest? Where are those events in the budget?
Through the Chair the special events are located in our recreation department and it's part of the line item
is it 30 page 13 B
47 Tec 13
Yes, it's recreation operations are 47 2200. It's added in that cost center
4722 aeration operations. Yes. Okay. So then I guess the deeper question is going to be well, how much do you have budgeted for those type of events? And is it enough? Can we provide the quality that our children deserve? And I'm looking for, for our residents? Based on that and I'm not sure because those are relatively new if I'm not mistaken. And so I know they're not cheap. But I want to make sure that we're putting the proper investment in those events.
Yes. So we do four major events, along with the events that we do at the recreation centers to right so we have the the graphics with Santa as well. But the four major events can run us dependent on the amenities that we have. They can run us anywhere to 40 to 60,000 per event. And so we have seen an uptick in attendance. The events are well loved. By the citizens and the visitors, the guests. We see every one of our ages. It's it's wholesome family fun in the city, right? Well, you don't have to leave the city. You don't have to drive far and you don't have to spend a ton of money. And so we have been doing very well. Yes, you notice jasmine in the back. I'm glad she's here because it's because of Jasmine's efforts that we have grown these events to what they are now. So I think Jasmine and her team, the staff and recreation, we actually with these events, it's all hands on deck because of the amount of people that we have. So we have some of our blight employees helping work in this event, as well because we need the manpower to help manage the crowds that we're seeing the Easter fest that you came to last year, we clocked over 20,000 people at that one event in district three on the east side in the neighborhood at Holloman Recreation Center. And it was a wonderful event with no incidents and that's what we're seeing at our events so we I want to make sure we continue these four events throughout the city for our residents to come and enjoy an experience that fun.
Okay, so what I heard was 40 to $60,000. So let's go the $60,000 number per event. There's for those that's $240,000. Is that enough? I'm just thinking that it's not just based on what I would like to see for our residents when it comes to quality of events and equipment that's being used there. I'm not mistaken. There may have been a mechanical error on one of those pieces of equipment. So I would like to ensure that doesn't happen again. So I like to see us invest the appropriate amount and so 60,000 is scraping by. I'd much rather see us move smoothly and comfortably through those events with enough resources being provided. So I motion to place 47 2200 recreation center operations into executive session to talk about an increase from 240,000 to $500,000. For seasonal events of that nature throughout the city of Detroit.
Alright, any objections? Hearing none, that action will be taken. But
thank you colleagues. And then let's talk about sustainability. So sustainability has now been placed into GSD. We're looking at the Office of Sustainability that's on page 47 b 47, tech 14. And so we're looking at a proposed budget of $232,000 and if you look at the FTAs we have to if you look at capital budget $9 million. If you look at what we're doing with your vehicles you committed to looking at high efficiency EVs first we have the first department in the state over at traffic enforcement with a full EB fleet. We don't have enough chargers throughout the city of Detroit this entire body at this table has a plug in hybrid but was not provided with the infrastructure to support the plugin force know that unless you have a garage unless you're willing to wait 14 hours for your car to charge to get 25 Miles is just not efficient. So we want to make the next step. I believe we're going to need to have more people in the office attainability number one, and then put in the investment that we need for sustainability just on a basic level for many of the things that go across the board. We talked about a benchmarking ordinance, we still need to have a greenhouse gas assessment as per our ordinance, which I don't see in this budget either. So we're just going to talk about what we're doing to lean in to sustainability when we have an office of two FTEs and $9 million of capital improvements that need to be made a fleet that needs to be updated and so many more items that need to be invested in the city of Detroit. What is your plan? What is your thought process? Through
the Chair? Thank you for those comments. What is unique about the office sustainability, it's not just on those two positions you see on paper budgeted and GSD but this is the Aussie the effort so we have to partner with other departments that are helping us they loan us people they have people that that are working with us. In addition, we we should we will be taking hold of a grant from the state of Michigan that will bring in other individuals so those individuals aren't showing on the budget because they will be paid for by the grant will have the energy efficient manager one that's going to look at the dashboard for the builders we just off sustainability just rolled out internally, our our dashboard so we can monitor it to make sure it's it's accurate before we roll it out. To to this body and the public. But that tracks the efficiency of our buildings that we own in the city. You know, as you guys know, we have the climate strategy as well. So I think because of the efforts that we have, you know what Tricia and her team in the mayor's office helping to support us with DPW DDOT. We have people in other departments that's partnering with us to tackle these sustainability efforts because it's not just a one department thing, this is going to affect the entire city citywide. And we do need the partnerships and the other departments. Okay,
and so I know we just had a staff change in the Office of Sustainability. We now Tefera who has now moved over very excited about that what happens to the Agriculture Department. I know that member Tate has an ordinance that is making its way through which is being supported by that department as well if it's now in sustainability mean what's the future hold where are we stand with our infrastructure and investment into chargers, high speed chargers, there has been conversation and we approved a contract where we're looking at maybe rec centers hosting some maybe looking at police pitch things hosting some I've tried to use the charger at GE a DPW does not work. I mean so we have to start thinking about this and if we're going to move and partyer body are we actually do we even use our plugs. I mean if we don't have a plug at home, if we can't get one at the DPW er it mean the sounds great. And the thought is apocryphal if we think that like California or San Francisco, that getting to that point with sustainability and they're off sustainability doesn't come without heavy work and leaning in and long years and sweat, blood and tears that that's wrong. We have to lean in as well and be prepared to do the heavy lifting and hard work. Are we prepared to do that? And then what's our plan? Yes,
we are prepared to do that. And we are actually you did approve the contract that like you mentioned, and we are actually meeting with that team with the mobility team. We meet with a contractor we talked about locations I just had a meeting last week to talk about the infrastructure we're going to put at Chandler dome, once that's built in so that those are talks we're having up front because while that infrastructure is being built, it gives us the opportunity to put in this charger infrastructure. So yes, we're looking at our rec centers. We're looking at our police stations, but we're also looking at on street parking we also looking at some of our parks as well to put these charging stations in so we do have that contract with ready that you approved and we're working with them to make sure we have to build the infrastructure because it does no good to purchase the vehicles have the vehicles if we can't charge the vehicles to use it. Or if we're pushing our residents and our customers, our citizens to buy Evie to go Eevee because that's where we want to take our city. They need to be able to charge when they come to our facility. When it comes to our garages and park they need to be able to know that they'll be able to charge their car get in and be able to leave once they're done and not just the you know the level one chargers but we're talking about level two we talking about the DC fast charging, which were in partnership with the DTE to do new Transformers because that takes new infrastructure from them as well.
Okay
and just I'm glad to hear that but we also have to be prepared to maintain that bit of infrastructure because when you go to DPW er parking for Evie vehicles you go to park you go to plug in and it doesn't work. I mean, this thing can't be more than a year old.
You're the chair which yard is that
W on the ferry yard Mary Oh Russell ferry. Okay. So you're checking in to hear from my colleagues maybe they probably tried to use the plug in plug as well. It didn't work. So and this is a statement now. We can charity starts at home. So may you may get a greater level of buy in. If you were to place some chargers where those who have vehicles parked almost daily, could plug in their hybrid in utilize that. Maybe even save some money when it comes to gas. So we're not using the gas cards all the time and get a greater level of buy in and really focus and direct our energies towards that. So motion to place into Executive Session. The A asked for $2 million for infrastructure investment around electrification of our vehicles. For the city of Detroit.
All right, any objections? Hearing none that action will be taken.
In addition to put the F T for sustainability in there, I did not hear that motion to put one FTE in. Increase FTE is Tip three for the office. of sustainability in Executive Session,
all right, any objections? Hearing none, that action will be taken.
And then once again, thank you for all that you are doing and leading in when it comes to sustainability. This is going to be huge for the city of Detroit and we will be the greenest city in the country and get that blue ribbon. That's my goal and we're working on Thank you.
Thank you.
Councilmember Doha.
Thank you, Madam President. And good morning. Still, to all of you enjoyed your story about going to the go kart plays you obviously grew up in district seven so is just great to see what's happening there from a lot of the work that you have been doing, as well as Brad Dick got to give him a shout out as well before he became CEO, and just moving the department forward. I mean, you guys have a great team. And I think a lot of times we don't talk about that team enough. You have one of the biggest teams in the city of Detroit, whether we're going to fill our vehicles up and folks don't know there are hundreds of employees working inside those buildings that sacrifice every day and do the work to keep our city clean and whatnot. So thank you again. And thank you to all of them for their service. My question is this gonna revolve around animal control. As you know, we've been working together we're pushing for a few ordinances to address pet owner responsibility here in the city of Detroit. I don't have to go into depth about some of the issues that have resulted from irresponsible pet ownership here in Detroit but as cost residents their lives, Father, for as well as a four year old father of six excuse me as well as a four year old young man. And that's just recently and my district. And so I do appreciate the willingness as we are pushing this for to get some ordinances on law that will put and strengthen what we have here in the city and ensure that these events don't happen again. But to that point, a little bit dismayed when I look at the budget and I look at a 26% decrease in Animal Control Animal Care and Control. And that is a concern of my considering that we have a new facility now and we're expanding that facility had the opportunity to tour deficit I think is beautiful, I think is gonna be amazing. But the question becomes, as we work to address these issues in the city of Detroit and President Pro Tem asked the question relative to inspectors, but just even animal control officers in our communities, also folks who are working at that facility, is there not a need to have that level of funding in the budget consider considering the expansion
through the Chair, I think what we are what you're seeing as far as the reduction is again, that they can see savings that vacancy turnover. I think that now that we are on par with salaries, we should see those positions to to be field we have not been at operating at full capacity. So as far as staff levels goes, and I think that once we can get there and stay there you will see a change. I believe that with the residents of the city of Detroit, I don't think the the main issue is just the lack of knowledge. I don't think they know a lot of the ordinances that we have on the books. I think it's just been history, just past practice. You let your dog outside to go do their business. They will come back when they come back. And that's actually a violation of the ordinance. And so I have been in talks with my team with our marketing team. You guys recently approved the Emerald media contract. Thank you for that because now we've been we can move forward with some of the marketing that I've been on my team about doing and that's promoting responsible pet ownership. I feel like a lot of these most recent tragedies could have been avoided with responsible ownership. Our department we are doing our due diligence, with responding to the costs with going out writing the citations, you know, rep being representatives at court when it reaches that level where someone is actually charged with a misdemeanor or officers do go to court to represent the city once it gets to that level, but we are doing our due diligence. Once we have our full staff. We will kick up the efforts even more, you will see your CR officers out even more. One thing I just recently instructed our team is to make sure meditate mentioned vehicles to make sure our vehicles are labeled. A lot of our vehicles are not labeled. So we're going to get those vehicles labeled, labeled so that when you're out in the community, the residents will see us out and know that we are out here to keep them safe. That's our number one goal. So I think that until we are operating at full capacity or have that level of time to operate at full capacity. We really just don't know right now if this is adequate because we haven't been able to operate at that capacity level.
And let me say first, I'm not putting those issues on GST or animal care and control. Again, that's why we we stay responsible pet ownership. It's a culture. There's a cultural change that is needed here in the city of Detroit, relative to how folks take care of their pets to your point leaving them outside all day long. Or even just having broken fences are tying your dog to a tree with an iPhone cord and you know some some of these cultural things. And it is it results and what we see dogs walking down the street each and every day. I own the ring app. I get more alerts about somebody's dog being lost than somebody's walking on someone's porch like we get those too but you know that is a real concern and so that when I saw that decrease, that was my question and to that point, though, just a follow up. I'm a firm believer, they say if you build it, they will come right. And so we've got a new animal care control facility. And so instead of the decreased Why don't we utilize that funding to put out there and I'll do outreach to hire more animal control officers do more fairs across the city of Detroit let folks know there that there are opportunities available and or work to increase salaries so it becomes more palatable for folks to go out there and do it. I spent time with a lot of the animal patrol folks, and particularly the officers there. And folks may think that's an easy job. That is actually one of the most dangerous jobs here in the city of Detroit. But but maybe we utilize that funding and with that, in that same vein, Madam President, I don't know if the entire GST budget has been placed into executive session as of yet, but I'd like to make a motion to place the GST budget into Executive Session. Also what they focus on increasing the funding for Animal Care and Control, restoring that to $2 million.
Right, any objections? Hearing none, that action will be taken.
Thank you, Madam President. And second. My second question just revolves around just maintenance. I know last year we were sitting at this table and we were talking I know we beat the land bank up a lot of times as well. But you guys do your best to help the land bank work in conjunction to maintain properties from this table. Last year. I think we put in a closing resolution to urge GSD to work with the land bank to kind of create an assist more inmate maintenance of those properties. Do we have an update of where we are with that? What does that collaboration look? Like? And that partnership look like between GSD and the land bank relative to the maintenance of land bank on properties?
Yes. Through the Chair. We do have an update on that we have been in consistent meetings with the land bank on a system with their properties. And we were taking the approach to target the most dense areas the area's high population schools, because you know, children are walking through those areas and can't remember the their parks, parks. And those are the areas we want to focus on first. So we do you should be receiving a contract request coming through your office real soon. To approve for a vendor to help assist in those efforts as well.
Okay, thank you. I'm looking forward to that information. And finally, I just want to thank you again for your leadership and highlighting our district seven rec centers. Yes, we have to comment. I love my district four neighbor to the right of me. I try not to turn my head and look at her because she'll give me the evil eye or Boombastic side as they say. But you know, when you talk about something that is a game changer for my district, particularly we had no rec center. And so when we talk about our youth and our seniors coming together to congregate has a big deal and to see $20 million coming to the Brennan pool site for a brand new rec center there and then on the further eastern portion of our district at Dexter Elmhurst Community Center. I mean folks are excited. I mean, they are so excited that every community meeting they're asking me when we are breaking ground and so what I will say is just that leadership to push that forward and working in conjunction and hearing our residents and working with me to be able to so we can get that through means the world to me because that was one of their top requests that they had when I was elected to office. So thank you again for your leadership on that as well. Thank you, Madam President.
All right. Thank you, Mr. Hall member Callaway.
Thank you Madam Chair. And still good morning to everyone on all things Palmer Park. And, you know, I have a host of questions that I'll make sure I get to you but you have an incredible staff. I appreciate you taking out the time. Some months ago to walk through Palmer park you saw what needs to happen over there. And you've been a part of the change over there. We have the ascension sculpture back. You were there you made that happen. It had been in storage for 20 years, like hidden away, and then all of a sudden, you know, restored, repaired, repaint it and it's beautiful. But we need signage. We have a lot of historic markers out there or historic landmarks out there folks don't know when they walk past what it is. There's no signage. I do believe before somebody starts well, I'm not gonna say what somebody might do, but we need to kind of maybe have a protective fence around it. So you know, just a protective fence, no more boulders, just a protective fence and then we have a bill out there from Spain. That was cast and design in 1793. But it's so high up you can't read what's on it. You can't read the inscriptions. It's dirty. I guess some people would call it Bettina, but it's dirty. And I've just been reading about all the things at Palmer park and you don't even have to drive up north to the forest. You can come right to Palmer park there that's a forest is a historical park, Michigan is 53%. forest. Forest land 53% 20 million acres of forest land and people drive up north to get to the forest and experience the nature but they don't have to go up north. They can just come over Arbor Park and experienced that same fill in nature. You walked through the trail with us. You got a chance to see our Fairy Doors that children set out and but you know was a difficult walk. We have to make sure we have to look down on where we're walking so we don't trip and fall. So we've talked about this and I'm going to continue to talk about I am going to put some portions of it in an executive session because it needs to be made safe. It's beautiful, but it's not safe out there walking. Some sidewalks are overgrown with grass. And I know all things new everybody loves the Joe Lewis Greenway sold why. But before there was a Joe Lewis Greenway, there was a Palmer Park. It's been there since the mid 1800s. The mid 1800s And it's been neglected and everybody likes you know, new parks. But let's not neglect the parks that have been here and been here and had been neglected and overlooked because we overlook them so we can look to the new but these older parks can be made new again. They just need a little TL see. And I'm going to continue to fight and advocate for all the older parks not just in district two but across the city, but particularly Palmer park because it's one of the oldest parks in the city. So I am going to put a portion of an executive session. You got to fix that bill is just sitting there. And then let's talk about the Merle humane fountain. The oldest fountain practically in the state of Michigan. Built in 1908 to the tune of $1 million. Today that will be over $32 million. It used to be downtown where campus Marsh is where we skate now. How do you think you skate? Both pumps down there used to pump water to the fountain is called the mural humane fountain donated by arm. The park was dominated by a senator. And so we got tired of looking at it. When it became a hindrance to cars. They moved that fountain because the cars couldn't navigate that's where the horses used to drink. So they took it and just plunked it down at Palmer Park in 1926 and ran for few years and the pipe started bursting and I encourage everyone to go and look at that fountain now it's disgraceful. What we've allowed as a city to happen to that mountain is disgraceful. Because everything is Joe Louis Arena, Greenway everything everything. Hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars on the Joe loose agreement to make things new. It only cost a few million for Palmer Park to be restored. I'm begging my colleagues to just come up with everybody Oh district to get this district to Avenue fashion come over and look at the avenue of fashion y'all. Those business owners are hurting Palmer Park we're hurting. Oh, I want to live in district two just to get this district to get this district tool needs help.
I implore you to please help Palmer park we found $11 million of ARPA dollars through demolition and construction for Hart Plaza.
I'm asking for a measly $3 million. And then we have the substation just not questions as part of a statement. It's all about Palmer Park. Then we have the lighting substation and Palmer Park. Right there before you get to Covington off Woodward. Where the last pay toll. And 19th 38 is right there at the corner of Covington and what word Thank you, Director Perkins. We got it all shined up. You lifted it out of the ground because was on its face. It's on a huge boulder but nobody could read it. But you made it happen. You all lifted out of Thank you Brad did we lifted it up? Now people are actually stopping and reading something historic. Donated by the Daughters of the American Revolution. Common a young the second I know you love history. And that was the last hole in the city of Detroit because you just couldn't come into Detroit without paying to be here. You couldn't bring all your cattle and all your all your buggies and horses you've had to pay to come into the city because on the other side was called the country area. So I'm asking you to please help us. Help Palmer Park and stop neglecting it because it could be a tourist attraction. It could be a place where children from around the region would come and visit the Belle from Spain. Now Lake Francis is being restored. It's beautiful. The log cabin is being restored. It could really be instead of everything downtown everything Midtown let's move it back toward the north of Woodward. Not taking anything from downtown but there could be a shuttle where takes you from downtown to where Detroit ends which is an eight mile at the book. The Fountain would be running. They could do a tour. We can have a gift shop there. We can have everybody loves her freezer refrigerator magnets. Before you leave you can shop if we had a gift shop there, that substation and then I'm done. You know where I'm talking about you walk the whole park? What about that substation, it could be a gift gift shop a cafe. My colleagues is right there on the right right before you cross into six mile on the right hand side just sitting there what's going to happen? And that concludes my statement and my questions, but it's all about Palmer Park. We're giving so much attention to the Joe Lewis Greenway. Everybody's excited about that. 27 point whatever miles we have a forest in our city. We have a lake in our city right there. We have a log cabin built in. What 1845 We had a casino at Palmer park it burned that it was there. So tennis courts now we have disc golf. All right. Remember catalog. We have apple trees. It's all thing palm apart. Yeah,
we get it. Okay. So
I'm begging my colleagues to please support the restoration and the salvation of that park. And you can pull out any questions you want from those multiple issues that are raised about Palmer park but start with the fountain. Thank you Madam Chair and to my colleagues for allowing me to share my concern about that park.
Thank you for
member renewing. I'm going to make sure we do that. I want director Perkins to respond first and we'll make sure we added to executive says we are about an hour behind and we have a one o'clock committee as well. We still have one more hearing and director Perkins there since
I've been on council I've learned how to weave my questions into statements. Thank you.
Director Perkins, thank
you through the chair to member Callaway. As you know, I am a resident of District Two and yes, I appreciate the walk. I grew up with my family we would walk around the perimeter of Palmer Park The fountain is in disrepair and we have been doing research. There's pieces in this thing. We have been doing research on what it would take to restore that fountain and connect it so that is in the works. Everything that you talked about today and on my walk. I do I have a list in my phone and I come across it sometimes and I get with my team. Real soon you should see a contract come through it's going to be kind of like a general maintenance contract that we have with some of our for some artwork, and that's going to take care of the walkways. So we will take care of those walkways. We have been in talks about what could we do with that substation. Right now is being used for storage by one of our partnering departments because it's actually there as far as the deed is concerned. But as far as the monuments and statues not just in Parma park but throughout the city. We have been in talks internally but also with a with the group that's a nonprofit group that wants to see the public art, the monuments, the statues in the city, document it listed and well maintained. And so we have been in talks with them we are working on some language to put together a scope of work to get someone here to come and maintain all of our public arts is history of a city. It's how we became the city that we are. And so what we want to do is make sure that we are telling that story and leaving it for the next generation so it's not forgotten. So everything that you have mentioned we are well aware of and we are working towards so think I forgot since we did that walk I look at that note at least once a week and I'm talking to my staff like okay, where are we at with this and just, you know, being in a city as big as we are things take time. We have a lot of competing priorities, but we want to make sure that we are addressing all the needs for the city as a whole. So yes, we are working on on your request. All right. Thank you remember
Cal you want to add that to Executive Session? Yes, ma'am.
I'd like to add the Palmer park into Executive Session. Okay. All
right, Hearing no objections that action will be taken and before I come to you member Johnson, you had a motion as well member waters,
I do. Okay,
two quick motions. I want to place into executive session the piece that I discussed regarding our plaza, and also historic Wayne, I'd like to put that in the session. That's the first motion then to have another quick one.
All right, any objections? Hearing none, that action will be taken member waters.
I'd like to go back and place the Veterans Department in the executive session on Korea.
All right, Hearing no objections that will be added to the Executive Session. Member Johnson.
Thank you, Madam President. I'd like to make a motion to add equitable access to swimming pools to the closing resolution.
Right Hearing no objections that action will be taken to our Executive Session. Member Callaway. Yeah,
Madam Chair. I don't know if this should go into closing session or executive session. Maybe you can help me an app that will allow people to travel throughout the city to see all of the different art are struck out structures that we have all of our landmarks, all of our historic historic markers, all of our murals. Does that go into je s d budget because we need to have an app somebody was just talking about taking a tour of the city but you're just on your own. We need an app that will actually help people navigate the city like they have in Kansas City in Washington DC. So should Madam I'm going to defer to you what do you recommend because we need something
we can add it to Executive Session I'm assuming that will be probably it or doing that would discuss it further, but we can add it to Executive Session and Mr. Whittaker, if you can note it with our recreation slash IT department. And we will add that to Executive Session for further discussion. Madam Chair, thank you. Okay. All right. Any further motions. All right. We don't have a heavy low for Executive Session. So you're getting ready Thank you, Director Parkins. Thank you all to the team for all the work you all do. Thank you. All right. Have a good all right. We will move now to our media. Services Department.
Apart from out
and do you all have someone to share the screen that's online? Okay, we will promote you have the name. Okay. We promote her. Alright, so good afternoon. Thank you all for being here. Sorry for the delay. When you guys are ready to present your floors yours.
All right. Well through the chair to this honorable body. I'm Vicki Thomas, the communications director for the city of Detroit. Thank you. And as you know, we've had some change in leadership at the media services department and we did an executive search and extensive executive search and I let you all know the results after that search. We found our gym right here in City of Detroit government. And so we have Jasmine Barnes as the new director of media services. Many of you are already familiar with her work. Talked about it during GSDs presentation. She comes from GSD Parks and Rec. And you may also remember she was with the former honorable council president Brenda Jones. And so she has only been on the job now for four weeks and she's jumped in and is raring to go and is already doing great things. And with that I will turn it over to the new Director of Media Services. Director Barnes
do the chair actually your microphones on press the bottom? Yeah,
okay through the chair. I haven't been in the new. We will work from home and I will never stop
Thank you Susanna Bobby, for hearing me today. I do want to start off by shouting out Santana Robinson. She is doing the presentation. She comes with me from General Services Department. I think a lot of time. Leadership does get kudos for the success of a division but Santana has been so crucial and troubling to the success of the communications and Engagement Division and the General Services Department. So I want to shout her out for the presentation. Everything she's doing. You probably seen it with hashtags and taking pictures of me before so you've probably seen there so we are ready to go. So many of you may be familiar with media services. We are the city of Detroit storytellers, really pushing that opportunity rising and here in the city of Detroit. Our job is to share with city government and affiliate affiliated agencies are doing to ensure Detroit is a place for residents to be proud to call home and that there are so many opportunities available throughout our departments. Who are we what do we do? We are videographers photographers, publicists, graphic designers, ramp editors. We have a social media team and the copy center. We also oversee film and telecommunications permitting. With our videography, we provide various different audio and video services to city departments and elected officials. From start to finish as creative direction of production, creation and distribution of that content. And as a detail there, we go to social media as utilizing digital engagement to push forth the messaging of the departments and of the city through various digital channels across social media. We also have our CCSD Communications and Creative Services Division who does much of your graphics and your pamphlets and your PR we also have the photographers there that come and do a session on Tuesdays the website as well as the copy center we have our film permitting office. You have to pocket Well, you have our field permitting office that when someone comes to do film, which is becoming extremely popular in the city of Detroit, as most know we've seen some large films here. We do film permitting, and we've done a lot of work this year. And Facebook 77.2 1000 followers. Next slide. Instagram 149.4 followers with the reach of 306,000 people plus per month. Twitter we have 39.2 followers next door. 61.4 followers, YouTube 29.6 followers, linked in 52.5 followers, and they have been working 628 requests for meetings a month with the border police commander commissioners five rewards TV videos 140 opportunity rising stories for scale production stated a city state in the US try to mandate in meetings our evening a city council meeting. Individual city council member meetings 649 design request 153 film permits 608 Copy Center jobs and 347 publicize requests that's our newsletters, our E newsletters, our news releases, public meetings and city wide emails to employees to keep them informed and engage and managing 11,000 Plus web pages and over 4 million site being so shout out to CCSD who has done this presentation and keeps everything with a nice voice as well as level was sitting in the waiting room. And that is all I have for you today.
All right. Thank you. Thank you so much for the work that you all do and congratulations Jasmine. On your position. Looking forward to working with you. Can you just talk a little bit about some of the staffing changes and changes that have taken place within Media Services. I supported the creative day contract I'm a big fan of creative day they've done a several of our events. I think they do a phenomenal job. However, I also think that the people in house do a great job too. And I know that there may have been some changes and maybe possibly shifting out staff or losing staff and that was not my intent. When I supported the contract that we will be losing any staff members from the department so can you speak on just staffing levels where we are in really how creative day supplements the work that they do not necessarily trying to replace that people do
I specifically want to address the creative day contract because I came before you regarding that contract and what I said then and what I say now is absolutely true. They are here to supplement media services were those jobs that we may not be able to get to, for instance, the Board of Review hearings that would have really taken away from the department. I mean, I think it was like 20 meetings and a matter of windy days, something like that. And some went from nine until the last person left at night. And so that would have taken Media Services staff away from any events, any council meetings, any charter meetings which we haven't had any yet this year for the mayor, but we use creative day for that because that was such a huge job and just difficult to manage. So that contract is specifically to supplement the work that we can't handle in media services.
Okay, so since bringing them on this is still in line with that question. Have we lost any staff staff members within that department within Media Services since we brought on creative day
we know that the director left we lost the deputy directors and they
lost Have you eliminated any positions? Okay, so I know that there was a manager of Media Productions is no longer
that's been a transition to the chief production managers going into a different presentation. Oh, that person is still will be here. Okay. It's very talented. Shout out crisper. Okay.
And with media's with the creative day coming on, just understanding again, the scope of what the staff has been required to do. Are they now being shifted to do different things possibly that creative day is now taking on maybe trying new roles and position
that is not the intention? Okay, so I've been here for this is actually my 30th day in the position. So we're evaluating the operations, how are we providing services? How are we getting content back to everybody in a timely fashion? I've gotten calls to have a conversation about the timeframe that some people are getting their content back. So we're just evaluating how the department is operating efficiently and effectively. So nobody's roles have been shifted as a result of creative day. And that's that's where they're not in the future is just to be more more efficient and effective department getting the messaging out and servicing this honorable body.
Okay, all right, great. And then just again for the public, as far as covering all the city council's taskforce meetings, whether it be reparations, whether it be the skilled trades Task Force or any of equitable development, I'm not sure if there's as recorded but making sure the industry standards boards, making sure that there's sufficient funding through creative day to cover all of the city Task Force City Council's Task Force,
I'm sorry, please forgive me through the chair. City Council is a priority for the department we I come from City Council. As you know, I spent a living here years here, I understand the importance of the work that you do, especially on your quasi task. Forces, and we will make sure that they are continuously covered and supported. Okay.
Thank you for that. And then the office, the film office that you mentioned, is this new?
No. They've been doing that for quite some time. Since we were you know, when I was at Council whenever like a film a lot of it goes to the parks department too, because a lot of people fill out they want to film it like Riverside. I know you know about like moolah films in the local independent companies. We also did Batman here so when they come they want to shut down the streets in order to get permission you have to get a film permit but you also work with the various other different departments, and sometimes special events depending on if you're closing off streets or anything of that nature. So it's always been operation within an environment.
Okay. All right. And I just wanted to make sure this is sufficient funding for that and just the outreach that is available because as you mentioned, and I know that the film industry in Detroit is booming right now. I thought we were like number one as it relates to like the online like to be and stuff like that. And so I have heard some concerns from the field industry that even with the office, there's there needs to be more outreach, and that they're still barriers to the cost is cost prohibitive with the permits. And so I'm not sure just what the communication is with the engagement outside of having someone to actually get them to permit what that engagement and overall office is envisioned to do to really help uplift the film community.
Absolutely. I was really excited to hear Councillor Vincent talking about how recreation is the conversation and barbershops because that was what I was tasked to go to Jesse to do was to expand the engagement and outreach. And I expect to bring those same skills and track strategies to media services to ensure that even with just the cable I think customer Waters had a question in her memo about utilizing partnerships, so doing more outreach, doing more strategic partnerships, and more engagement with the various different industries that make sure that we do remove barriers, like we did at Hart Plaza, as you saw with the riverfront Festival, which was an elimination of a barrier for that industry that wasn't able to get to Hart Plaza. So I look forward to doing that with the film industry as well and it's only one person staff there. It is only one person staff there but from my current operational assessment she's managing her workflow. Wales, okay. Yeah, she's
good. Okay. And then just overall for media service, there was 1.4 9 million allocated last fiscal year this year it goes down to 773,000. How does that impact the department is that because of the shift to some money going to creative day or what
no that is not a result of the shift and I would like for finance to jump in, but from my understanding, there was some shifting and where the positions are represented in the call center is some changes. So the special events position is now within the CFO office. You also have the manager one communications that was more, there were some one time appropriations for equipment that is being put in last year that was not a reoccurring cost, which was asked for a lot it was shifted and changed and if it's any additional thing that I mentioned, I think finance can respond to that.
Did you have anything additional or she covered pretty much? Sure if she covered pretty much every Okay. All right, cool chair.
One time allocation was for 221,000. Yes.
Yep. And then we can turn it over. But that was my last point was has that been utilized for the technology and the equipment that we appropriated last year?
Yes, we are in the process. We met with the Office of Disability of their Oh no, this the separate equipment?
Yes. So I just 21,000 is in the procurement process to see a constable for the end of the fiscal year.
Okay. All right. All right. Thank you. We have additional questions we will submit in writing and we will go now to my colleagues, and I'll start with council president potentate.
Thank you, Madam President. And then no one can get a good afternoon, Madam Director. Congratulations, Miss Barnes. Well, so proud of you. Thank you. The one resident but I also got a chance to see you as you were, you know, rising through the ranks here and to see you now sit in that seat. It makes me extremely proud. Thank you. Looking forward to seeing your continued growth and working with you. Thank you. I don't really have many questions, but I also want to give a shout out to Anthony Gregory and Charles. We work with them all the time and they do a stellar job giving us advice. Always providing the product that we asked for and sometime above and beyond that, I've never been an issue. So always want to give them their kudos as well but do so in the meetings to tremendous job for them. My wash and yet here it is. So we went back and looked at the Archives and the you know, it's come I looked at the archives for the clerk's office and we're going back and there was this historic time that hopefully we will never have again but we did experience and we had a pandemic and we were all at home four years ago this time, but we kept city government going. And it was very impressive. And I'm so thankful to be a part of that. But when you go online, you don't see it. And I think we do a disservice to ourselves and not showing the public the hard work that we all went through to keep the city moving, to keep people safe, and keep people informed. By not having those videos online ever. That was a lot of work. And we didn't know what this thing was going to turn out. We didn't know we're gonna be here four years from now. In this space. But here we are. I was told that when Tim was told that the reason why those videos are not there is because of server capacity. But I look at it I see videos from a thing like 2017 and we gotta move some stuff out the way to me logically we will move out the oldest stuff but certainly want to lift up that historic time in the city's history, if you will. So can you talk to us about what would it take to get those pandemic related videos when we were all working remotely back on the website, and what is needed to increase the service base in terms of funding and etc, etc.
Go to chair I'm a big fan. I happen to catch that budget hearing. So I heard that question and I set up a meeting with our deputy clerk and we have met on that and that should have been restored on the website to where the later meetings are now they are in the earlier meetings have been removed. We're also going to put a message on the website. So if someone wants something for 2017 As a matter of public record, they were requested from the clerk. The clerk would then request it for media services and we'll turn that out turn that around within 24 to 48 hours. So we have updated that on the website and we also are implementing a process to make sure that archive meetings can be retrieved as well. Okay,
and it's in terms of service space. I mean, I know something something's gotta go because you can't keep everything on the server all the time. Is there a need for additional space?
Oh, that's a longer conversation that we're in the midst of having that we're gonna have to bring do it. And so as part of my current operational assessment that is on my list to work on, and I should be able to update you in a few months on that. Looking
forward to the conversation. Yes, sir. Well, congratulations again. And thank you as well also known director for all the work that you provide the city and law office. Thank you Madam President.
Thank you pro tem member waters.
Thank you, Madam President. So good afternoon.
Good afternoon, afternoon.
I'd like to say people gonna say anything.
I think you gotta practice.
I do want to thank you all for always showing up at all of our events. Jason is a jewel, you know, our team waters. We absolutely love us and Jason. So, so thank you. Um, I just want to ask you about the what you guys are doing to expand access to city of Detroit via say public access television partnerships, streaming proud partnerships on TV, YouTube, Hulu and so forth. And I want to mention our community folks, I p TV, because I believe that they can help us get the word out. As well and that we're including our local people, when we do those kinds of things. So how do you respond?
We are working on that. I think that's an excellent idea along with community based partnership and again, in my continuous assessment of operations, that is also something that is in planning and discussion with the department in the team.
And you're not just saying that today because I'm gonna follow up.
Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I like to think I'm thorough and I'm results driven and I will definitely make sure that I respond to that.
And through the quite the go getter.
Through the Chair to member waters. I will make sure that I pass along all of the information that I have on IPTV and Mr. Moore's contact information to the director.
Fantastic. That's good stuff, you know including our community. I didn't like that. Um, so I guess I wanted to ask you about you've kind of reviewed all of the social media platforms anyway. And so I will I want to ask you, how often is that updated? How often do you rotate all land council members on social media, and do we get equal time
on social media? Yeah. So we are implementing a new distribution strategy and we will ensure that all council members are equally represented on that as long as we have the content and we will be working with you guys as we launch creative and production, consultations to support your staff, as well as collaboration with our staff to make sure that we have that content to distribute across the platforms. All right, okay. So she's a keeper. Yes. All right. Thank you. All right.
Thank you member waters. Member Callaway.
Thank you Madam Chair. And good afternoon, everyone and congratulations, Miss Barnes.
Good afternoon.
Thank you. I'm on your new position. I'm really excited about all the wonderful things that I know you're going to make happen in that department. And I absolutely love Santana Robinson, she makes me interview when I don't want to. And so I appreciate everything that you did when you're with VSD and I anticipate you're going to do just as well with in your new role. I have a question about the the PG fees. And I'm looking on page B 36 Dash 17 cable TV $2.1 million and 2024. There's a decrease for 2025. A little over 2 million. How are those funds being used? Who's in charge of those funds? Can we hire from those funds? Can we buy equipment from those plans? And I asked because the last two charter meetings that I've had the one in 2022 I'm sorry, 2023 that was held at Renaissance was a fiasco. None of the equipment work. I was not able to run my video that I took a lot of time to record. A lot of time and effort went into it and it never played. And then that's just, you know, this past charter mandated meeting at Johnson rec center. We had a lot of difficulties, a lot of technical difficulties again, so I don't know what's going on when it comes to my evening meetings for District Two, but I'm hoping whatever technical difficulties that occurred in 2023, and 2024 don't occur in 2025. And that's why I'm asking about these funds. If they could be used for hiring someone else, another person or buying the necessary equipment that we need to make sure that these things don't happen in the future.
So there was $221,000 added to the budget last year and that equipment, some of those upgrades that you mentioned that are needed are represented in that equipment purchase that we look forward to come into this general body. In upcoming weeks. It's in the procurement process. So we hope to be able to address that intermediate future without having to address that in this fiscal year. This fiscal year's budget peg fees are utilized for staffing and equipment and operational supplies. And those dollars have been allocated budget to support the current department operations.
Okay, so through the chair to Ms. Brown you're saying that over $2 million in public education. Government money has already been
Yeah, it was for its budget and towards staff and operating cost. Okay. All right.
I'm gonna ask it that the PE G fund, whatever the fees, the over $2 million be placed in Executive Session, I have some serious concerns about how that's being used. So I'd like to place that into executive session the PG fees and that's on page B 35 Dash 17 is the last cost center at the bottom of the page. And then also my last question is what would be the cost? I mean, you know, we have a lot of contracts million dollar contracts going outside of the city for media services. What and I know you are just in office for like the last 30 days. celebrating your 30th day today what I want you to just let me know later perhaps, what would it cost the city to bring those services in? House? Because we're spending multiple millions of dollars on outside contractors? And, you know, I don't need anybody to tell me, you know, how wonderful these contractors are, you know, I get it, but what would it cost Miss Barnes, you know, in a month or so, just let me know or let us know what it would cost to bring some of those services in house and would it be a cost savings? I know there's an argument for both sides in house or privatizing. But I just want to know for my own edification, what that would look like, and so you don't have to answer now if you have an answer now then fine, because that is my second question. But if you don't have an answer, now you can always get it to me later. I do not have an answer now. Okay. And thank you for all that you do. And congratulations on your promotion. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes for me.
Thank you member Calloway council member. And chair. Oh, I'm sorry, member Callaway. We had a motion. You wanted to add the pit peg. fees to Executive Session? Yes. Okay. Any objections? Hearing none, that action will be taken. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Ranking Member. Yeah, floor is yours. All right.
Thank you. Welcome everybody. First let me just say I am a beneficiary of your new model. Because I have seen I requested more time. And I'm seeing like, I think you got like all my videos I ever made plastered on there. So I would presume the new formula. I like very much amazing look good. That's a pretty hard thing to do. But you do it. So I pretty shade. I'm thankful for it. You know me and my team. We give ourselves Pat's on the back every time we see it. So I thank you for that. Um, what I wanted to ask you though, is I you It's what I've noticed and I think this is to your whole team is Thomas and everyone that's here, but I know that you before you came were an Emmy. award winning journalist, then you came to Media Services, and now they want me for that content. And we appreciate that excellence. I just want to know, do you plan on expanding that at all to other such prizes because more question of content. Do you plan on expanding that at all? I know right now, it's evolving children's shows or things that nature. Do you plan on trying to expand on that? Whether it might be history, whether it might be the issue of literacy, that's a serious concern, you know, whether it might be the issue of terms of science, technology, engineering and math do you plan on expanding a building on that excellence that you already have within? So when people look at that, if not it as much as I like for them to see me? You're saying there's other such educational programs that they could see and they can learn from the build from that
enters through the chair to remember Young? Interesting question, because when I first started, I had all these huge ideas. Yeah, and one of the programs that I started was was called critical conversations and it ran for about an hour long well less than an hour. And, you know, we tackled different issues around women in the workplace, things like that. And so I mean, I, I want to give the new director an opportunity to review everything and really look at what whether or not those longer length type programs would serve us. Well, will it be worth the effort put into them? But yeah, I would love to revive critical conversations because I think that's, that's a type of show where you can tackle many of the issues like face in the city and, and a lot of people might get confused by, you know, some of the issues if they listen to counsel, you're hearing all the different opinions and whatnot. And we could, as a journalist, I love like getting down to the nitty gritty and what the fat separating fact from fiction. Right. And so I think it could be used as a tool to help educate our residents to some of the tough issues that come before you and issues that you know the mayor is dealing with as well.
It does the budget that you have now currently. Does that contribute to you being able to do that? Or would you see potential increases where you would have to really be able to get
what you need? I would like the director said we're in the process of just evaluating and Adam analyzing and looking at our capacity.
Okay, that's great gratulations to you also by the way that you well, well deserved. Well, um, I also just want to ask a second question. And I and cows President eloquently alluded to this about the movie industry. And particularly, and I remember, when I was at the legislature, I passed with the tax credits it he created about 10,000 jobs in the state and I pat myself on the shoulder to MANOVA BB. BB, you want to say so? Yeah, right. And during that process, one of the players that they had was to be able to develop the riverfront by writer long here. It says a lot of those abandoned factories and buildings, they wanted to buy those out and turn those into movie studios. And I just want to ask you, is that something that you're working that's on that's still in the works because my understanding is once the movie tax credits were repealed, that all kind of went away? Are those still in works? Are you still in conversation? We're working with him to do that, or are you waiting for those historical tax credits to be passed again in the state because they're having that conversation? Right. And are you playing a role in terms of trying to influence lawmakers in the state to be able to pass those new tax credits
as a member of sag AFTRA? I'm aware that you know, there's a huge push to get those tax credits restored for the film industry. We haven't done much in terms of the department and being engaged in that conversation, but that's something we will definitely look at. Right.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you, Councilmember young member Santiago Ramiro.
Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon, everyone. You know, good to see you. Thank you for the work that you do. The questions that I have. So first of all, yes, a huge thank you to media services, they always come out to our events. Huge shout out to Lucas and Charles who are always there on time before all of us last to go and making sure that everything is said so thank you all so much. Do have a question though, when it comes to some of the events that we have. We have been requesting photographers, and we've been told that there are none available. So wondering how are we with staffing of photographers and do we need more staff or resources to make sure that we are accessing those services?
So we are currently staffed appropriately via the budget. I think it's just looking at and depending upon when those events are happening, because sometimes, we are a Maathai day, my time requested. department. So it's always balancing employee workplace satisfaction as well. We have a request for Mother's Day. So we might not have a photographer on Mother's Day because they might want to send a buddy with their mom or their family. So I think it's just balancing with other possibilities look like and making sure everybody is cross trained. And so that we can maybe have photography taken by videography or also upscaling your staff because iPhones work wonders as it relates to content capture in photos. So I think launching the consultations from a creative direction and a production standpoint is not just going to benefit the council but the departments as well. So that we have media services but also a certain amount of self autonomy when it comes to content creation across the board and we're working with do it to make sure the proper equipment is available and things of that nature. So I will say that will be more the reason versus that the budget and the staffing
through the chair understood and our office does do that. Work. I ask because we have a media services department that has the resources to do so. And quite frankly, my staff is not I do have a communications director. But I'm not necessarily hiring simply just for media. We are doing policy and Community Relations constituents work where we we are prepared to take her own pictures but asking you since we have a full department to run those services. And I understand wanting to make sure our staff have have have a life and breast. So just wondering if you can consider maybe setting aside photographers, letting them know that there will be some evening because when we've asked it's not during holidays, it's a 6pm which I understand it's after five but we do not do a nine to five here we work all day every day. So just wanting to flag that for consideration and looking at how it is that you staff what the expectations are and letting them know that there would be evenings and weekends that are expected for photography because that's when we're holding our community events. We will continue to take our own pictures but wanted to make sure we have good quality photos as well through media services. I will then focus my next question on the contents which I absolutely love that I see coming out of media services. I've asked this I believe last year as well. And this work might be happening but I don't see it. So wondering what are we doing to diversify the contents that we are sharing from the city we do live in a majority black city which is beautiful. And we are also very diverse. And we have folks that are here from all over the world. And frankly Unfortunately, due to politics, there has been more isolation there's been more comments that are more oppressive and and separating us instead of bringing us together, where I do believe that media storytelling highlighting our differences, the strength that comes from that can go a long way. So with that, what are we doing to highlight stories that are diverse stories in the city? That might not be you know, English first that might require some English subtitles. But what are we doing to really ensure that we are highlighting the diversity of the city?
I love that idea. I would love to talk with you about that farther and see what some of your ideas are and how we can implement that and I will make sure that there's a focal point for us as we move forward with storytelling and content creation through the Chair. Thank
you. I did mention this and I think that it's an opportunity and I've seen some stories. I think I got a kick put doodle had a really beautiful video about what the work that they do. But I think that we can do more and frankly sitting here sometimes we hear some some pretty awful comments about immigrants in particular. And I believe that if we show each other love and support and care, maybe we can combat some of those comments. But those are my questions. I will follow up with one question offline regarding actually, madam president, if you wouldn't mind this is a yes or no question. Through the Chair to you. Are you responsible for the audio in the call in the formal session or in the auditorium as well?
No, that is a Detroit lane. Joint building authority. Facility.
Okay, did the Chair thank you because we've got some great mics around and we got to address those. Thank you Madam President.
We've reached out we have reached out to Amber I'll forward you guys the email she knows about the concern and is actively working to try to fix the sound in the auditorium. So but thank you for raising that councilman.
I go to chair we are we do have that email. However we need to support that from media services standpoint. We'll jump right in.
Alright, thank you, member Johnson.
Thank you, Madam President. And in the essence of time, I'm only going to ask one question. I do have to shout out Shawn Bowman. I think he does an amazing job. And congratulations to him and his wife on their first Yes. And as we all know, and you've heard everyone mentioned Charles because Charles is ubiquitous for media services. He is everywhere. And he does an amazing job and always making sure that we are happy with the work that has been provided and with our events. So thank you to him as well. Congratulations to you, Director Barnes. I always hear great things about you from your time here on City Council. So the question that I want to ask is relative to the city's website, there is so much content so much, so much information that is there, that sometimes it becomes overwhelming and it's overwhelming for me as I'm trying to find something on the side. Now I will say that one of the departments last week, share with me that they had answered questions from the community and posted them on the site. And I had to go search it and I've tried to figure out where it is. Naturally, it would have been nice to get a link to directly to the answers but what are you all doing to streamline the information to archive some information that may be from 2013 2017 or what have you so that residents can have a better sense of where to go to find things on the website? Do you provide that support to the various departments to help streamline information
through the chair to member Johnson. We do what we call a website reviews, webpage reviews for all of the departments and during that review, we're moving over to kind of like a formula to kind of make it look similar. So people because right now, I think we've made a lot of progress over the last year, but we haven't gotten to every department yet. But we're asking them to update their their information, remove all information. And so we're in that process right now. I would say that we're probably about 50% complete and it'll be a continuous process. With my creative director. We we do that along with Rose love.
Okay, thank you. I would love to do a review of District Four. Because when you search for District Four other information shows up and so I'll leave it there. It's it's, I have a conversation with you offline, to figure out you know how we do that so that residents are getting updated information as opposed to information that's really
old, and through the chair. Whenever you run across something like that, send it to me right away because I mean, I'd like to make sure we get that off, you know, old or bad information, improved search engine optimization. So when you're looking for something, you can find it quicker. So if you send that to us when you run across it, we can we can investigate it right there and make changes right
Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you member Johnson member draw.
Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon to you all first, congratulations to you as well. Good and good afternoon to you director Thomas as well. Obviously, your work precedes you. I think when we look at how our city is advanced relative to media services a lot particularly social media, I mean has become a huge thing. I know a lot of that kind of started with GSD I remember going into a lot of our events. A you weren't Santana, are there with the hashtags and all that good. stuff and to see the city evolve like that has just been tremendous. So I just got a couple quick questions. My first question obviously, obviously is going to revolve around our disabled residents. Last year's budget we put in $50,000 to increase the services and media services to help our disabled residents. Can we get a quick update on how that's going? It is not in this year's budget. So I'm probably probably going to make another request to put another $50,000 in your budget for that. But how are we doing with that what has been some of the advancements that we have made relative to that
through the chair? We first met with someone from your staff and then we have held a meeting with Christopher samp with the Office of Disability affairs to kind of vet equipment that we looked at that we thought would be useful for the disability community, specifically those with hearing impairments. And so right now I think we have two listening devices that are here and a cow and we have a requisition and for a pack that would include 12 more. And we also would like to launch awareness campaign informational campaign so that people know that they're available so that they can, you know, participate if they don't know what's here. They won't you know, they may not take that step to find out whether or not you know, they can participate if we have the equipment that will assist them in hearing the meetings. And those are infrared technology. We also are looking at Wi Fi technology with the opportunity to be mobile. So we are working on that. So you should see the for sure the the infrared coming in soon.
Okay, and that's great. I noticed we have ASL Interpreted at least on all of our council meetings now which is something that is great, something that's been pushed for and then even our evening council meetings in person, and so want to keep that going and keep up the continuity. But with that, just very quickly, Madam President, I'd like to make a motion to add to Executive Session $50,000 for the media services department to expand resources and capabilities for our disabled residents and noting I want to make this reoccurring funding so we don't have to come back each year and do this. That is my motion. All
right, any objections? Hearing none that action will be taken. Thank
you, Madam President. And then second, just revolves around you kind of answered a couple questions relative to social media engagement for council members, and you mentioned training. So looking forward to that and equal time and all that stuff and even getting our staff trained, sometimes. Just that cross pollenization between your department as well as our staffs gonna be helpful for us getting the word out for our events and such. But my question really is just going to revolve around just just services in general. I know for our team we normally had to videographers that would come through. We have a gap there now I believe for the ones that we used to use. And I just want to update on where that is. Are we hiring a couple of new folks for and I don't know if they service any other council member as well, but are we hiring new folks to be able to do that?
This year? First, I just have to acknowledge that Detroit parks and rec from a social media standpoint. It's gonna come out either tomorrow or Friday. That is number one in Michigan for social media. Number six in the nation. So we look forward to bringing those skill sets to counselors issue with moving you're on social media platform for again, we're going through operational assessment from what I've seen, but we have the staff and resources to support all of our external resource requests. So you will continue to have the videography support that you need. So if you're having any gaps or any last please, please feel free to contact me and I'll make sure that any lack of coverage that you've been receiving is corrected immediately.
No, I appreciate it. I know we're working with skip. Right now. I know we used to work with Xavier and psi. And so I know there has been some changes relative to that. But just wanted a quick update on that and just further to say and put the common out there. I know you guys operate with what's generally recommended, but any way that we can be helpful and pushing that funding for you know, we'd love to do that. Particularly again, being spread thin. Sometimes as council members, we make requests for weekends. And that is not an easy thing. And then also just talking about the growing field. Rates are competitive, salaries are competitive, and so they may get offers from other folks. So we want to ensure that we have enough funding to retain the talent that comes in here as well. So with that, Madam President, I just like to put the entire media service budget into Executive Session, to have those further discussions maybe to work and increase salary rates. But as well, further fts.
Alrighty, any objections? Hearing none, that action will be taken. Thank you remember Dr. Hall. Oh, Tim prison.
President gone. So, Miss Barnes. I did. Look at the archives and it's only going back to January 10 2023. Okay, so just FYI.
Okay. Grace, if you actually. Got it. We'll get right on that. Right. Thank
you so much.
All right. Well, thank you all for the work that you all do. Again. Congratulations. Thank you. Well, Vicki, for always just being here, being responsive and reaching out. Shout out to skip who's my videography, Dante, Cyrus, all of them do an amazing job to the entire team. So congratulations, keep up the great work and we're looking forward to continue to support you guys. Thank you for all right, you all do. Thank you. Thank you off. All right. That will conclude our budget hearing and we will stand in recess until 2pm As we continue our budget hearings at 2pm. This meeting will stand in recess.
