Budget — City Clerk / Elections Dept. (missed first 15 minutes)

    5:16PM Mar 11, 2024

    Speakers:

    President Sheffield

    Keywords:

    election

    people

    elections

    talk

    detroit

    vote

    polling locations

    work

    city

    process

    hear

    voter turnout

    department

    state

    district

    caller

    precincts

    madam president

    information

    voting

    Press Can you speak to where we advertise notices? Is it just the Detroit legal news? Do we expand upon that?

    We've only been advertising with the Detroit legal news. For the most part. It's been pretty rare that we've used any other publication, particularly because we have a contract, but generally speaking, that's what we've gone with,

    except for election announcements, and then we use the two dailies and the Michigan Chronicle. Thank

    you. And my other question Mr. Gilbert spoke to it a little bit as it relates to accessing information via the website. The City of Detroit's website is massive. I can't imagine what how much space will utilize just to run the city's website. And because there's so much information there, sometimes it can be a bit convoluted to get to what it is that you're looking for. Are you all exploring any new technology any, anything that is innovative that gives people easier access? To the information that you you retain?

    Um, as of now, we haven't looked into an additional, let's say, website or online resource of some sort, but we do want to make sure that all information is made easily accessible for the public. And I'll take a look at our web page to see how we can make that easier to find for the public as well. Maybe we can work with the administration put it on the homepage of Detroit mi.gov. And I'll take a look at some other other avenues as well.

    Did a chair we also utilize the QR codes on most of our documents, many of our documents, and that's kind of new to us this year. We are expanding that and we're trying to get a better idea of just what we can allow to be that implemented but access the use of the QR code. So we do use those on its millions are public documents as we can.

    Thank you. I think that's a great idea as long as people can scan something and get immediately to an area, if you will, on the website that gets them access to the information that they're looking for, I think is extremely important because there is a lot of very valuable information on the city's website. It just may be difficult to identify where you need to go in order to access it. So thank you for that. Yeah.

    And we utilize it for most of our documents at the Department of Elections. We're moving to do the same thing at the clerk's office. Excellent.

    Thank you. Thank you, Madam President.

    Thank you member Johnson member waters

    Thank you, Madam President. No questions.

    Thank you member waters. Councilmember Vinson? Not here. Okay. Councilmember Doha?

    Thank you, Madam President. And good afternoon to you all good to hear that we are trying to make the shift to make our site particularly when we talk about archiving, more transformational. I know I mentioned last year, coming from the state legislature when you look up legislation on Michigan legislature.org. It's a fairly easy process to be able to find information you can utilize keywords and bills, but as we can keep advancing that and moving that forward. I know it's we're a city and not a state in there are different types of resources but that to hear that you guys are thinking about that in that same vein to make that information more easily accessible. My other question just simply revolves around public notices. Obviously hear from counsel when we have public hearings. Well, we have meetings it's noticed here, because we also have folks working inner workings that contact and communicate with the clerk's office about our meetings. My question revolves around have we thought about any training programs or educational programs for let's say, CAC, organization organizations or groups relative to them, knowing how to use public notices for their meetings. Again, sometimes the honors is on us as a body and we have those, you know, legislative policy divisions. We have these folks helping us, but they typically don't and could possibly use some training or maybe educational model to show them how to notice their meetings. Has there been any discussion about that?

    No, there has not. I'm not to say that they can't be but we typically don't train other boards and committees and councils. That's not our charge. Again, not to say that it's something that we can't do. I'm a firm believer of education and training and my staff knows that and we do it any downtime we have. But I think that's something that we could consider. I don't know what it would look like right now. Again, it's not really my purview. However, however, the city does have a training module that that consists of a lot and they might even consider something like that because I do see it's valued. And

    let me say, I know it's not your charge. I know even from RCAC your office has been very helpful. Navigating what RCAC talking about public noticing kind of given them you know, some some do's or don'ts or ideas are how they do and I want to thank you as well as the deputy clerk for that for taking that extra step because it's not in your wheelhouse, but just you know, just thinking like maybe a pamphlet or something that can you know, speak to public notices and things of that nature. And again, I know that's not your charge, but just maybe even that communication maybe

    you know, through the chair, the Michigan Municipal League, that is their chart, and we might want to connect them with that particular group for additional training.

    Thank you and again, like I said, I appreciate it. I know again, you guys have been very helpful for our CAC, but will also work to connect them as well, just for those discussions. So thank you. Thank you, Madam President.

    Thank you member dear Hall, Council Member Young.

    Thank you, Madam President. Madam Clerk, always good to see you and everybody with you. I just wanted to ask you can you assure us that you have done everything humanly possible within your office to ensure that voting in our election process is accurate? And that democracy is protected? And have you made the provision necessary in order to make sure you know that one that our machines are currently functioning?

    Yeah, good to walk around the city clerk and then we're gonna go to the Department of Elections. Secondly, why

    don't want to answer this easily? Yeah. I appreciate that. But I have a different question for the election. But I just want to ask you, from your perspective, is it the reason why is because we get to you, we get this question a lot. And I just want to just kind of say, I just want to know as the leader, you know that you've done everything that you can to possibly secure that.

    Thank you for that question. And I'll talk about it fully under when we get to the Department of Elections. But please note, please note and 2020 the big lie that surface and expecially are talked about Detroit and our elections. That was proven just what it was a big lie. And that is also a way to get people not to engage in the process not to vote because when you think when you hear especially from our leaders, that you know, there's a flawed process that we cheat that that in all those things, you know, it makes one not to want to engage in the process makes them not want to vote, but when taken to court. Right? And through every audit. And we came up that our elections were pure and secure, and that they were administered in the spirit of the law and in the level of professionalism that it should be. Thanks. I

    know that is one appreciate Yeah, I just want you to be able to stay on the record, because we've gotten those questions kind of throughout the show about that. I know it's not true, you know, it's not true. And I think people need to hear not only that's not true, but why it's not true. I appreciate it. And my second question and final question is maybe a little bit more personal but as we know in 2020, there was a lot of concerns about security, about elected officials that were having people that were at their houses, some of them that were marching on their houses with weapons. I just want to know, I know you can't speak too much to it, but I just want to know it. Have you worked with our law enforcement on state and local levels to be able to make sure that you're protected when you're going out there and you're doing these things? Is there a heightened sense of security around you necessary and appropriate a case something God forbid, might occur? Yeah, so

    unfortunately, it is necessary. didn't used to be necessary and I always shied away from it. Those of you who been on this council for a minute, no. I always said I don't need police but until my life was threatened, until people that don't look like me, came to my home and accused me of cheating and accused of Donald Trump. When because of something that I did, until my life was threatened by white supremacy. I didn't think it was necessary. But then that did happen. And then I did request additional support in that area, and it was denied by the city of Detroit. They do work with me on election day. They do provide help to my staff and my buildings during the two days leading up to election and a day after. But that's not enough. I have to be out in the community upon request it and during this time, I do not feel safe. So I do work with other agencies I work with the sheriff's department when common share, thank God for that. And I do how your private security some of their uniform, some are not to work with me. I feel as though I shouldn't have to go on to my budget for that. I would like to think that the municipality of which I work would provide such but I do understand that there's limited staff we all are limited staff in all the divisions or departments. So I'm not angry about it. I just do what I have to do to protect myself and my staff. If

    I may, I'm rabid. I just want do you have $1 amount of what you would require in order to have this security necessary to be safe. If we were to provide that. Well,

    I get into that with my Okay. Okay. I will speak on that. I do you have a grant for that purpose. And we'll talk about that. A few more. Thank you.

    Thank you, Councilmember Yang, President Pro Tem Tate.

    Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Madam Clerk and team for being here. Thank you for the work that you all do as well. We really appreciate you. Just a question. Do you have any any challenges that you have with the proposed budget that's been presented because I didn't hear the request for any additional funds or

    the city clerk's office we are good. Alright,

    so and I think I heard from deputy director, a Gilbert about the online video archives that's in the wheelhouse of the media services.

    So the online archive videos is media services. Now any video that's attached to a city council agenda is through us in our system. So we use their stream to feed into E scribe and upload that video to the city council agendas. Okay,

    the only reason I bring it up because as late as last week we were looking for an old video want to kind of go back into the archives of you know, when we were in COVID protocol, and they don't exist online. Right now. It goes from 2017 and there's like three meetings in 2022. And then you know, life begins again any did Media Services explain why that's the case?

    You know, I tried to explore that a concern as well and I'm not sure what those videos are. Immediate services said that they'll they'll send us videos as needed, but I'm not sure where that lump of videos exist. Okay, hopefully.

    Man Clark, you and I can work together to get these videos because it seemed like an easy fix. You know, that was a lot of work that took place unprecedented, to be honest with you where we were remotely doing all this heavy lifting, to try to keep people alive and keep the city moving and I think that people should see how their government operated through those very, very, very difficult time. And they're the only that wasn't the reason why I was going back. We were going back because we tried to find some information that was provided during that timeframe. And that's when it was discovered that they weren't there. So Madam Clerk, I would love we'd work together with media services to get that was I wasn't aware until we looked at it. And last week, I

    have a question to the chair. Was media service even working engaging?

    They're showing time every meeting should be recorded. But yeah, but

    particularly during COVID When we were at that stay at home order.

    No, I'm saying every meeting should be recorded. So they should be able to place them online.

    Oh, yeah. A lot easier. Yeah. Record.

    And at the time, full time, they were online during that time, you can go back and watch them so

    yeah, taken down. I like to see that I work with you on that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. All

    right. Thank you. So we can now move to our Department of Elections and we can allow you to proceed. Thank you again.

    I just want you to know the Department of Elections truly excited about the 2024 presidential election cycle as you may or may not know we have five elections this year. Especial primary and general and then the regular presidential cycle. So during the going back this little history during the 2020 womanist election, the 2022 gubernatorial election the 2024 president election, we have balanced in all of our last election 99% of our election day precincts and 100% of our absentee voting counting boards with balance, no errors, no mistakes. All numbers have died since 2021 and 2023. We cross trained our staff because we did not have an election. So we were all cross strength. We all went to various trainings that relate to what we do for a living and we to make our staff more valuable, effective and efficient as we administered this election process. But I'd like for you to consider the following points please, as I present the 2425 budget to you. There we did request 40% increase and we did that because we know during the presidential cycle, there's a significantly higher voter turnout surpassing 50%. That's usually the case. Considering this. We must increase staff mailing notices and changes that impact the administration of elections including the mostly unfunded mandate of the provisions for proposition 22 Two. You might know that more as early voting, if you will, but it's a lot that comes along with early voting. And so that's primarily the increase requests of 40% during the presidential primaries, and of course, the unfunded special elections that we had to administer as it relates to voter fraud. It's rare. It's never been proven. However, we do receive and we deal with those allegations very seriously. We do our own investigation, although I think that initially it should go through the law department. We do our own an investigation of which we're doing right now. A nonnamous letter was received to the mayor's office and it was come to me but should we find should we find it even if we don't find voter fraud all of our findings, positive or negative? Are for are then forwarded not wanting to the law department, but to the Attorney General's Office and the State Department of Elections. If we find fraud, we will ask the attorney general's office to please impose and the State Board of election any penalties and fines that that's associated with that level of fraud. We've never experienced it. We have received information on in the past. We've always investigated and done our due diligence and send our findings to the secretary of state partnerships. You are one of the biggest partners that we have the largest elected local elected board here. And we always always request your partnership we depend on your partnership. We need you to work with us and you have always have in the past and we look forward to it in the future. However, please note we have applied for and received over $2 million in grants and we're excited about it. Those grants are used for election security, ie the answer to a member Young's question how much it costs. It comes out of that grant for poll which Poll Worker education and recruitment, bolo outreach and the overall administration. of the election process. Part of our partners and include in part of our outreaches and endeavors include the polworth ambassador program, the student ambassador program, election disability ambassador program democracy in the DEA, and of course partnering with Wayne County Community College, how we can use your help, how we can use your help. We are asking this honorable body to assist us and expediting the procurement process in the city of Detroit. I'm going to repeat that because I need you to hear it. I'm talking specifically about the grant dollars that I've received that we received to administer this process. Too often, the procurement process moves at a pace that prevents us from achieving our objectives. And it also oftentimes causes us to be in jeopardy of missing critical election dates as you know, elections is driven by election. Law. And it's driven by dates and that timeline. And that timeframe is important. It's important to me, it's important to my administration that we meet those deadlines to keep the process pure, right. So people can say, Oh, she should have done this at this time, but I couldn't because of the procurement process. Now I understand the importance of it and we do follow the guidelines. But if you can help us and assist us in expediting that process when it comes to election, things such as security, sometimes things happen with elections that weren't planned for initially, ie the specials, right? The special I found out about the special province same time you did. And that was the day before Thanksgiving, right? The day before Thanksgiving, I get a call and say we're going to have a special election. That means that I have to go back into work because there's no more vacation, right? My administrators have to come back to the office. And we have to prepare because there are timelines that we have to meet in terms of getting the ballot printed, getting information out to the voters and the like. We need your assistance and expediting the procurement process in the city I'm not talking about for regular everyday stuff. I'm talking about when things happened. It again, the specials whereby we have to implement certain things and we'd need certain processes services to go through that process. So that we can administer the elections are expeditiously We also ask that you engage your constituents that to work with us on election day. I know you all have your coffee hours in your community meetings and I applaud that I think that's what makes the city great every once in a while I pop in on member states. Oftentimes by mistake. I'm going to get a smoothie. They're in their meeting. But one thing he always does is he gives me the opportunity to speak and I appreciate that because I can then talk about the importance of voting and the importance of the process because one thing we know, one thing we know for sure, is that when we vote, we win, right? So it's important that we get our constituents out there that we put to rest the rumors that you hear. See when people put these rumors out here that that you cheat and that the results aren't real. What they're doing is they're prohibiting individuals that aren't sure from voting from believing in the process. So you think you're doing good with your lies? And your allegations, and you're really hurting the very people that you might want to sack. So we need your help in that regard, asking that I know in the past that you all would allow the council to suspend your Tuesday yeah former session so that your staff can work with us so that you can work with us? Because I tell you when the best staff members when the best poll workers we have many, many, many best, but when the best poll workers that work with us from your staff is Miss Paris. Paris Basma. I am so grateful for the work that she does. She's a troubleshooter for us. She's able to eloquently help the poll workers understand the machines understand the opening and the closing process. And then she does a very important job for me because I do it myself on election day. And that is to run those memory cards to get those numbers to my IT department, to the county clerk so that we can get those results uploaded for you all. That's how we can use your help and assistance in our process.

    Yeah, kudos preparing. Yes. way she absolutely loves like, yeah,

    she loves like,

    get down on election.

    We absolutely love her.

    She's always encouraging us, our staff to be a part of it. So thank you.

    Thank you parents.

    Alright, so Is that your final presentation? Okay. All right. Well, we appreciate that. You touched on one of the topics I wanted to raise which was the voter absentee fraud, etc. And really just a proper way for residents to report it if in fact they do sense that something could be happening and you mentioned that you are doing an internal investigation yourself and this is so can you just lay out how you would report any issues of any suspected voter so again, and then also you mentioned that you have done investigation are those findings forwarded to council as well to so that we can also start to counter Hey, it's been investigated this nothing has been found to date. Just so that we can have an information basically the council the internal reviews that you've done thus far. Absolutely.

    Again, the process to report fraud to the Department of Elections as well as a lot department, right? And then we do our due diligence because that's what the law departments gonna ask us to do anyway, right? We're going to do our due diligence, and our findings are sent to the law department, the Attorney General's office, if we find that there may have been some fraudulent activity, and then again, always goes to the Secretary of State Well, the Michigan Department of Elections,

    right, and I guess just for the law department to send that to counsel so that we can have their findings that were sent from the law department to us so that when we are here, we have people who come in insinuate that things are taking place we can say there was a thorough investigation that was done the law department and internally within the clerk's office as indicated that there has been no such activity that has taken place. So to have that information will be helpful. I guess we'll follow up offline, to make sure the law department is giving that information to us as well.

    And one last thing, President you know, we take voter frauds and threats very seriously at the Department of Elections. And if we should find such I will personally petition the Attorney General and ask that she does her due diligence in terms of finding and punishing those individuals that are involved in such I was definitely

    Okay, and then I just wanted to get an update when the capital needs for the building itself. And I just haven't heard much. You know, I come over for the elections meetings and I just haven't heard any timeline five years, three years what what investments are being made in that building and where are we?

    So they come into my building and they talk about no right. But we need a new roof and we're working to that end. So roofing, H vac and plumbing are our immediate needs. And I have been working and reaching out with DSD. And I've asked for a timeline which is somewhat vague in my opinion. But right now oh in an elevator and an elevator right now, I've asked for an elevator and I looking into grant dollars now that I think I'm going to secure that would help us to pay for it. That will pay for it. But of course I have to go through your process. And then you tell me I have to use your people. And at the end of the day I need an elevator. I just need an elevator. So what GSD has done for us is they provide a very significant Band Aid and that in the form of the week of elections, we get an elevator operator that will sit there in our building and when the elevator goes out because it will go out. You're going to be right there to fix it. That's that that's the band aid I get. That's the band aid I get. It's helpful. I'm not complaining. Please note Yes. But that's what I'm getting. And you know as we get closer to election, the numbers in my building swell significantly when it's just us the elevators five, no more than three to an elevator. But when we bring in our staff, our temporary staff right, which we'll be bringing in another 30 days in great numbers when we have over 150 people using that elevator all day long. And some of them even sneak to the freight elevator which is not in compliance and we don't allow but it breaks down. So again, Jesse has said the week of elections and a couple of days after we'll assigned a staff person there to fix your elevator when it goes down every time. All

    right. Well, thank you for that. I would like to add the capital needs to our Executive Session for the Department of Elections because I know since my time here I don't even recall money ever being allocated to that particular facility and it is definitely needed. So um, if there are no was there a motion to add this particular portion to our executive this executive session please. So okay, Hearing no objections that will be added and then also as a follow up because I know the grants department and procurement are not here to be able to respond regarding the grant that our city clerk mentioned. Can we also add this portion to our executive session? So moving on, all right, Hearing no objections and that's regarding the $2 million grant to our Executive Session, Hearing no objections that will be added as well. All right, and we will go now to council members and we will start with member waters. Yes.

    When you said you wanted to $2 million grant. Is that the procurement question that

    she raised? Yes, it is. I would like to discuss that in more detail during our Executive Session. The $2 million grant the procurement issues that she was stating.

    All right, guess what further discussion? Yes. Can we talk can we just say in general emergency contracts so that certainly she will for that particular contract, but there may be additional emergency contracts as we move forward that we have to figure out because that was going to be my question.

    Most definitely. Yes, director would occur. Yes.

    You want an expedited process. You're speaking of emergency, might you consider something a hybrid between an emergency and and a regular price process a way in which you can you can expedite but not declared an emergency.

    Yeah, I think that's what we want to have discussion about. I'm not sure if we're going to know the answer right this second but want to move it to executive session to have procurement grants come in and to have a more you know, thorough conversation about how this will look if this is something council wants to do. Thank you. Yeah, no problem. All right, remember waters.

    All right, Madam President. So I really don't don't have a question. I'm just gonna say certainly, we need to make sure that you have all of the funds that you need in order to make sure that our elections are conducted properly. And when I think about that elevated, because I know that you have an aging population that oftentimes works down there with you, and they can't necessarily a lot of them walk up and down the stairs when the elevators are broke. And so hopefully, that's something that we can have expedited, making sure that you receive a new elevator. So thank you. Thank you for all that you do. Thank you, Madam President.

    And do the chairman I just add to member waters, it also puts us at risk in terms of not being in ADA compliance. So most

    definitely. All right. Thank you member waters council member Johnson. Thank you, Madam

    President. I don't have any additional questions either. I appreciate you articulating all the work that you all do to make sure that elections are transparent and that there are no real concerns or challenges around voting. And so just want to applaud you for the work that you are doing, recognizing that you'll be doing so much more work this particular year. And so I do recall that the mayor indicated the increase in the elections department's budget. I believe you said though, 40% you requested a 40% increase. And I thought, initially, the mayor indicated maybe 20% Is that

    through the chair now? He indicated the 40% currently and I'm very grateful and appreciative of it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President.

    Thank you, member Johnson member Benson

    thank you and thank you for being here. And I'm really glad that you have the opportunity to articulate the both sides of the argument when it comes to voter disenfranchisement. And so we talk about the Trump far right. We often forget to talk about the far left and we get the far left here on a regular basis, who come in homegrown Detroiters who say that we have over problems and as you said, that is a form of voter disenfranchisement, because you were calling into question the system that having any proof that we are doing something wrong here that we even allow something to be wrong. So I really appreciate you calling that out as well. In addition, I want to say thank you, and this continues to be a bright spot in the third district is the fact that at one time it still may be the fact we were the only city in the state of Michigan where a masjid was a polling location. Now we are not in majority Muslim city, but we do have a significant Muslim population and they requested that you we worked with your office to make that happen and they are still voting in high numbers and utilizing that Masjid as a polling location. I can't say we're still the only city that does that. We were the first and maybe we are still the only one that does it. And that's a direct result of working with your office and the community to make that happen. So thank you for that. I'm looking at the budget and if you go to page and this is under the Department of Elections page Bravo 71 TAC five, where you see the significant increase in the 2025 proposed budget. And so we're moving from unprofessional and contractual services from 4.3 million to 8.7. And different operating expenses from services from 1.3 to 2.7. Just in those are pretty vague line items, professional and contractual services as well as operating services can you be more specific organisers significant numbers, I'd like to get some more specificity about what we're actually using those for. This is part of the increase that she requested that she received to help ensure that we can put an orderly presidential election together. Yes,

    sir. To the chair. I'm going to allow Chris Dukkha to elaborate on

    right through the chair. A lot of those expenses relate to a lot of measures that were passed as a result of proposal 22 dash two as well as a lot of changes to Michigan election law. For example, we now have to have early vote centers, nine days consecutively prior to the election. So the funding is being used to make sure that we have adequate staff, we also had to get new tabulators for our vote centers that ICP TOS which are much faster than the original ones that we had. So we have to pay for warranties, and things of that such to make sure that the equipment is in working order and can be serviced. We've also had to augment our security for this election because as I mentioned, we have nine days of early voting which is akin to basically nine days of election at this, these early vote centers. So we need to make sure that we can safeguard those ballots, the equipment and whatnot. So we had to pay for services related to secure and those things as well as our drop boxes, which as a result of proposal 22 dash two. We went from having 20 drop boxes to 34 drop boxes, which we have to monitor by video surveillance as well. As physical security. So we needed to make sure that we have adequate funding for that. And we've also increased advertising dollars. So ultimately educate the public about the changes that have occurred because the proposal to as well as changes within the legislature the legislature that they ultimately approved. And we've also got some new capital items that are currently being finalized as far as our reliable voting system, which because we have an inbound sorter as well as our outbound sorter now. We ultimately have increased costs related to that. So it's a multitude of items. That we now have to pay for as a result of legislative changes as well as changes to the constitutional amendment. So we just wanted to make sure that we have adequate funding to ultimately take care of these items.

    And if I may, through the chair, because of the drop boxes, we have like 34 of them. And because of that I have to bring on in additional 22 staff members who are divided into clusters to pick up those documents that are in those drop boxes three times a day, as it relates to early voting, early voting. Is was nine days in the presidential primary, nine consecutive days, which will now be 12 consecutive days for the state primary and then 14 consecutive days for the the general the and so we're considering dividing the staff up because to add someone to work for 12 and 14 consecutive days is a lot. And as I bring in more staff, that's double the staff for the EDCs that I historically had. So as we implement these things that for the first time in the state of Michigan, all eyes are on Detroit, because for the Secretary of State's office, they have to ensure that if we can do it, everybody else can do it right. So we will always do that in the spirit of excellence and to that vein I have to respect the staff and double it so that we don't have one group of people working 14 and 12 consecutive days that costs a lot of money.

    Or Thank you. I mean just looking at the forecast and so we have elections and fiscal year 26 as well as 28 Maybe we'll have 127. I don't know, if you don't see corresponding increases to the budgets. Will that be a need as well? And I'll put this one in writing and if so, please let us know what those numbers look like because we need to we need to start thinking about how we pay for this and this is a privilege. Democracy is a privilege. It's not a right. And I'm so glad to see that we're leaning in because it is under threat not only in Detroit, but throughout the country and around the world. And so we are putting into it what needs to be done to protect democracy and I'm glad that we're doing it and it's not cheap, obviously. And we need to think about this. What how much do we value our democracy and what are we willing to pay? And so on election day, I went to the polls this year and I took my son for the first time so he can see what election is like and we got there at about 845 And we were the first ones to vote. Now this was a special election. Excuse me now for President primary. But we did have a special election in a third district as well in February. But we are now investing a significant amount of money into the infrastructure to carry out safe, fair elections, and they're not being utilized. And so if we were to make a business decision on early voting and democracy you would say wow, this is an inefficient way to do it. But that inefficiency comes from lack of use, not from lack of infrastructure being there. So as we always say, if we could just look at how we can make our use more efficient. And it's really as you say, that's not a clerks responsibility, no role, and it may if you do that it may tread into dangerous ground. But we really need to think about what we can do to make our voting more efficient and greater use because we spend a lot of money to make sure people have democracy, and unfortunately, it's a privilege to many they don't utilize that privilege. I'm hoping that we can do something. And I would like to request a partnership with your office to do a pilot in the third district with maybe one or two precincts where we can talk about some strategies to actually encourage people to vote you I've had this conversation, and they do it in other parts of the country, but it's like to see if we could do that and if it actually worked. I mean, people say it works when you go to these conferences, but you've never done it. I'm gonna see what actually worked and try it in the third district. If you are pressing delegates to see you they will be interested in really leaning in to get more people to come out and vote a little bit of shaming involved. But shame is not a it's a way to encourage people and it's an effective use sometimes. And I think in this situation to get more people to vote, a little bit of shaming wouldn't be untoward and could be very useful. So hoping that we can do a pilot together in a third district soda

    why through the Chair. Just want to reply to your your first thought and that is forecasting future budgets. So when we we didn't have EVCs, right? We didn't know what that cost was going to look like and we still don't know, because we haven't gone through this year. But after we have an opportunity to go through this year. We can better forecast for the following years because EB C's are here to stay. They aren't going anywhere. And just so that you all get an idea of what early voting is like I know you understand the basic concepts before election administrators. Early voting is like election day, every single day for us. That's election day, every single day, and for nine days. I was tired. I was very tired. And I know my staff was as well. So now we're looking and to be honest with you. I said, you know, Director, I'm not doing 12 and 14 days. We can't. It's too costly. It's too hard on us. You know we're tired. But then my trusted, Baxter said, but we're gonna do it. Because we are the keepers of democracy, democracy. So what at whatever cost? We have to do it if we're allowed the to extend the process we have to allow. I ask you, each and every last one of you. If you would please talk with your constituents. When you have those conversations that you have with those committee meetings. Please share with them the importance of this process, because democracy is truly at stake. And what I like to remind Detroiters and I know you're tired of me.

    But when we vote we went in, okay. You vote to do it. Because when you vote your way in us in Detroit, right. Hey,

    so we need to vote. And when our numbers are shy, we get things that don't really that we don't care for. Right? I'm embarrassed about the turnout for EVCs. I'm embarrassed about the turnout for presidential primary. I'm embarrassed about that little 5% turnout in the special, which I think should have been bumped on but I'm not the government but at the end of the day, at the end of the day, we put in a lot of work and effort as a community because voting is a community effort. Not just my I take it personally. But this is our this is our thing, right? And we have to make it reflect that it's our thing, because it is so every time you're with your constituents, please get some poll workers. We pay better than anybody in the state. Parents. We pay back in the day she knows we're better than anybody in the state. Anybody in the state and one thing that grieves my soul because I go in those precincts you all see me on election day, nine days are that way of days that I'm in the Free State. It grieves my soul when I look at the tabulated because that's the first thing I look at because that tells me how many boulders we've had that day, when that vote count is not reflective of the precinct. I get offended, and then I get mad. Right. Please remind your constituents and please work with us on election day, so that we can have a hearty turnout, a robust turnout, and we can be proud and I can hold my head up and say, you know, turnout was 60%. What's it? Well, it's a it's never been that high since I've been in office. And that's a shame. And it's not because of the work we're not doing. So

    there was another request to the absolutely

    will work with your office, absolute. When we work with your office, we get results. So you will always hear me say yes, and they met and I mean that for any of you. If we're in a place and you don't like it or you see a better place. In terms of polling location. You say you know what? I think we can do better here. I think more people will show up here. We're there. Were there we are there. We turned down almost nothing, right, unless it doesn't meet the confines of the law. So thank you all so very much for your support, your assistance and for doing the job that you do in the city of Detroit. Thank you so much, Mr.

    President, one that's been given kudos and so this is also when our constituents came to my office and said this polling location is subpar. There were buckets to hold the rain it was dark it was a less than optimal condition immediately reached out to the clerk's office and the next election. We had a new polling place and obviously there are challenges because confines of how far it has to be. But we found a new polling location that was up to par that was standard and was barrier free and supported by the residents. And this was not a wealthy community so they were not used to having that type of response. Or that type of attention. And they're please not go unheard. And they now have a polling location that can be proud of and we moved it over to the firehouse, improving our firehouse as a city issue and we'll work on that but the clerk's office responded and made sure that our residents had a place they can feel proud and safe and healthy. Voting as well. Thank you.

    You're most welcome. Most welcome. All right. Thank

    you. Member Benson member Dr. Hall.

    Thank you, Madam President. And I want to start off by echoing some of the comments of my colleagues, thank you for addressing the apathy and that's what we talk about when we see such low numbers. Here in the city. And it's not necessarily based off of the work that our departments do, but just that apathy. And we've got to strengthen our voice that everybody's vote does count. When people would display false narratives and put false information out there and I can tell you coming into office, I've seen the process even have a recount where they have to count every single ballot and charge taxpayers to do it based off of what some folks say, and it is a process that we have some of our most dedicated workers here in the city. of Detroit. Go through. And so I want to thank you though, for you know, dispelling that narrative but also putting that opportunity out if someone thinks there's something nefarious going on, there are outlets as we've stated at this table, many times you can go through to address that. But also want to thank you from conversations that we've had relative to our disabled community. I remember, during last budget cycle, we were talking about access to elections and you've even sent folks over to our disability Task Force to talk about elections and how we can work to improve the process to make sure that folks who are just able to get to where they're voting a little bit easier, and try to pick locations that will accommodate them. So I did want to publicly thank you for that and those conversations that we had with you as well as Deputy Clerk Gilbert, about that to ensure that we are still trying to take the steps and I know we have some very old structures here in the city of Detroit, and that is not through any fault of the clerk's office, but thank you for even looking for alternative locations to help members of our disabled community. My question, it will be my only question just revolves around just changes as you know, there was a redistricting process already for our State House districts. And now based off of a court ruling, some of those House districts here in the city review Detroit city of Detroit will be redistrict. Again, has that cause any issues or influx or difficulties coming up to the August primary, cause having to shift and this is something that's untraditional that hasn't happened where you've had redistricting and then have to come back and change it in the middle before the next census. Have we seen any changes has cost more does that require more staff? That's my question.

    Good question. The short answer is no it does not impede this upcoming election. However, I would like Mr. Baxter to elaborate, elaborate on that process because it's significant and it's one that you you all should understand. So

    thank you, Madam Clerk. Good afternoon. Concerning your question. The one thing that we benefit from is that we don't redistrict the way that we did when I first started working in 1985. We used to actually draw the new boundaries by by hand. Now it's more technology. We've been very fortunate to work with GIS, and they've been very efficient with our first redistricting when we did it in 2022. So when that information comes to the Department of Elections, we will receive it and lay it over our existing 400 precincts provide that information to GIS and they should be able to turn that around in a couple of weeks. The impact will be voters will be impacted, and every voter that is impacted will be notified well in advance of their changes. Whether their precinct have been changed whether the boundaries have been changed, whether their state rep districts have been impacted, they'll be notified immediately. One of the benefits that we've been able to do for the past couple of years as you know, in 2020, we had 500 precincts. Now we've gone down to 400 precincts and we were very aggressive to ensure that every voter that was impacted, didn't have to change their polling place. If their precinct change their polling place didn't so that's what we're going to attempt to do when these new boundaries come down. So we're hoping to get those by sometime next month, not later than May. And once that information comes, we'll be ready to make sure that we deploy all of the staff necessary to get it done. And then Senator GIS and they get it approved by our election commission.

    But thank you and just a follow up. That's promising to hear again, that's something that's that's unprecedented. You don't see a redistricting process happen and then in the middle, you have to shift those House District or district districts around and then a couple years or have to do the same thing with the state senate districts right. And so but that's good to hear that you guys have a jump on that. I know it's dependent on when you would get the final boundary lines. But it is good to see that you guys are looking into that right now. So thank you for that. Thank you Madam President.

    Thank you remember, Doha potentate?

    Thank you, Madam President. And again, thank you, Madam Clerk and Department of Elections. Director Andrew Walker, thank you as well, for all the work that you do. I had a question about specific specificity as it relates to the the grant situation but we'll work through that offline. I also wanted to give you a shout out because a lot of the changes that we're seeing now with state law you're doing some of those things already leading up to so the the while we certainly have to do all we can to comply with the law. I'm proud to say that we have we're doing some of these things already. So the shift is not as steep as some of those other places around the state who are complaining about the challenges. So again, shout out to you all for the work that you have done and being able to tell your story. Just and I know I've had a brother backs are out at the meetings just out with us, I think January just to a monthly meeting. And we were talking about engagement. And one of the things that we talked about even in December at your event, Madam Clerk, we talked about engaging our young folks, because really right now you got people who are just stuck in where they are. I'm gonna vote I'm not gonna vote. So now the goal is how do we get new voters regardless of what side of the fence you're voting on, but how do you get new voters so always and I remember when you came down before us, you talked about, you know, when you go to schools, you have the books that you provided us to get them started our young folks at an early age and understanding and normalizing the aspect of voting. But specifically, and this is a more targeted one in our high schools and I've talked to some students who have graduated and they weren't sure I've met in fact, I was at the Alpha House on Friday, we had some Morehouse students who were there. And I talked to a few of them and they had some some high school students who were intertwined within there as well. And I asked him about voting and they were like, Well, I'm not sure you know how to vote. I'm going to be going to school. I think that is a big question for some of our young folks. When you are going away from school, how do you still vote here locally? So I would recommend that, you know, the great majority of the schools in the city of Detroit have a pinning ceremony. And that's early in the school year before they are you know, about to leave and get distracted by all the other stuff. I recommend if you're not already doing it, making sure that you are on the list of all of those pinning ceremonies just so you can emphasize part of your responsibilities this year senior sign up for a V or register period however, if you're gonna stay here or AV but I would I think that's an attractive opportunity is because you have a captive audience and we're preparing them for all those things that they have to do to be successful leading from that day forth. So recommendation there and then the other thing is real small, real small. But sometime it's a rebranding, you know, that is needed to get people out of the old mindset. You know, we got so used to saying clips off so bad five minute election so bad we're so used to hearing it, but now we see the reality right most people and we're as council members, telling people the reality so you're, you're hearing it and seeing it more. So maybe now go for a different look of the way that things are presented. And I'll say we can start with a go. I Voted sticker. Now we've had that same sticker for quite some time. Maybe there's one with the 313 or something Detroit related. That now people can really again where we try to get small, first real issue. I get it, but always thinking about how to advance what we do, and be able to show off the pride of all the work the hard work that everyone does. Just the judge. Thank

    you. I appreciate your recommendations. And that pinning thing is definitely something we will begin to do but we didn't have an election last year. And so we purposely didn't go out to the schools because oftentimes it causes confusion when you register a bunch of young people, and then they expect to vote so right then they don't vote for another year. And sometimes we lose them. So we found that it's best to get them when they can engage in the process immediately. So the sooner the better. Right so our charge this year to go into all of the schools in the city of Detroit now we partner with Detroit public schools in a very special way. And we are with it's a new program. It's called Student Ambassador. And we're going to we can now register at 16. We hope and we've always done it, but now the law allows us to do it, but we hold them until they're 18 or 17, nine months and then we can put them in the system right. But the thing about going into the schools that I love so much is that we can offer them employment. And that's the other reason why we go into the schools because we know when we can employ them at 16. Right? And we pay them then they oftentimes become those voters that you say vets vote all the time because that's what they do. So we get them young and we purposely go into those schools but it was something else you said that this I Voted sticker Yeah. Let me tell you about the I Voted sticker I had, I don't want to say names but I had an influential person like you in the city of Detroit was fussing about my I voted stickers fussing about she said that the ones in Southfield were cute. They had pictures on them and what they did 1000 registered voters How many do I have? Thank you. But there are communities that don't even have I voted stickers because they can't afford them. And this is the narrative that you all people in the public don't understand honey, the fact that we got Ibotta stickers is a hallelujah thank you Jesus. Because again, they are they aren't required by law, and they are communities that can't even afford it. I agree with you. I like an upgrade in my eyeball the stickers but you're gonna use all we got for

    me. Oh

    I'll let you know. I'll let you know we can do something. We can do something pretty. I guess they have to be approved by the state. No, no, we can do something. Okay, let's do it. We can do it won't be gold. But we can we can do that with lately. We can definitely look into because that's an easy fix. That's an easy fix. But for the high school students we have those little bands you know those little rubber things that that they were exactly what I was gonna say. Now we got a bunch of I mean they're like those anymore. They were five years ago. But things like that changes so that's why we have a tendency to stick with the tried and true. But no, we will get I bought a stick new Ibotta stickers and we can get them by the presidential election. I just want to general I just want to just talk about real briefly that grant. Now these are outside grant monies that I have applied for on my own to help administer the process if I qualify for so I used to write grants back in the day when I was in another life. So so when I see an opportunity, I'm going to apply for it. Now I feel away when you tell me procurement, that I can't use my own dollars that I recruited and apply for I understand the processes the process. I understand that but I just don't want you to think these dollars come from the city's grant program, whatever you all may have I know of none, but these are outside dollars from from agencies that that I'm affiliated affiliated with election administrators, roundtable groups. These are civic life and technology. These are grants that we procure on our own because we can and for you to tell me I can't use my grant dollars to buy secure cameras up in my building. My blood pressure increases and I can't afford that. Overtake I can't afford that. So that's what I when I'm speaking up if you can help us in that way to expedite that process. These are not city dollars per se these are dollars that we initiated and went out and applied for and and bargained for and wrote for. So that's what I speak. Thank you again. Thank you.

    Thank you pro tem and Councilmember Santiago Ramiro.

    Thank you, Madam President, through you to our city clerk just have a continuation of what we just discussed around voter turnouts. Can you share with us what is the average again for the Trump voter turnouts?

    Depends on the election right so for which election are all of them. So, for the presidential election, you're going to get for the general you're going to get anywhere from 50% and higher back so please chime in if I'm if I'm wrong, or need to add to for a primary primaries. Are unimpressive. What I mean by that the turnout is typically low. You're gonna get into teens 1314 15% turnout for the primaries. Except, except for the state primary, but state primary which is the one that's upcoming, you're going to get. We expect something like 28% 30%.

    Typically primaries all primaries are low. They run anywhere from maybe 10 to 15%, whether that's a municipal whether it's a state primary, the elections that bury are your generals, for your municipals or your mayoral election, you usually go somewhere between 18 and 23%. For your gubernatorial you're at 35 to about 42%. And then as the clerk mentioned for the presidential election, you're right at about 50% Plus,

    through the Chair. Thank you. I asked because I'm trying to figure out what we can do to to increase our voter turnout and if it's just apathy if it's resources or a combination of it all. What which, which cities are doing well, like what which ones palette is do we know have good world turnout and what are those numbers look like? Typically

    throughout the nation, municipalities with a higher educational demographic usually have a higher turnout. Those communities with racially mixed demographics usually have a higher turnout. In your district, I would like to see turnout increase significantly, and I believe that you're the key to helping us make that happen. We have early voting, of course, in your district, we have several dropboxes Of course, in your district. Yet the participation in your district is unimpressive.

    We want

    we want all of our communities about those low vote districts. We really, really want to lean on you because they like you. They voted for you. They trust you. They trust me they trust you. And so we need you to show us how we can gain that trust and how we can improve the numbers. So whatever it is that you see that we can do whatever community feel excited to work with the community group can't call the name that very popular. You wouldn't know if you've lived in that area for a while. But it helps and it works. But But what would I like to see more and I believe that if you help us recruit co workers from your district, I think you'll see a greater turnout. I think we'll see a greater turnout, right? Because at the end of the day, that's what we want. But again, they trust you they like you

    sure through the Chair. I appreciate that a lot. Thank you and I am happy to support in the ways that I can and I asked these questions because I agree the numbers are awful and I think that we will be better if we have more people engaged in the process. But what I need from you is a strategic plan. I need to know how it is that we're going to get there because that's not a job that I can do on top of what I'm doing now. But when I'm being asked for more resources every single year and we support I need to know how we're measuring success, how we're measuring growth and how we're going to grow our voter turnouts, where we can sit down and talk about what you're doing to grow turnouts, what may not be happening, what support you might be in need of and how I can help you with that. But I am someone that needs to plan, sit down, measure put goals and to hear that we have not received voter turnout in the way that we should be. To me that means that we're missing the plan to make that happen. So happy to support we need to sit down and figure out what it is that is being done, what is not being done and what is needed. And then we can grow a plan because quite frankly, I would like to challenge the elections department to grow voter turnout, but I don't know what is a realistic number of growth. We can discuss what that looks like if we implement whatever new strategy or tool resource that'll grow that. But we should definitely sit down and measure how we do that work. Because I agree I want to see a higher voter turnout in District Six. And I believe that being the election departments, but it's something that we can charge you with and happy to support you with that. Yeah,

    and yes, please.

    So councilmember Santiago Romero. Thank you for that. But one thing that I do want to point out is that, you know, there's a fine line in terms of being an election administrator, nonpartisan and working to increase voter turnout that construct in terms of Department of Elections, increasing voter voter turnout, probably emerged right around the 90s. But the truth of the matter is, is that when you look at elections, presidential elections generate the highest voter turnout. Why? Because candidates are spending millions of dollars to get people out to vote. The media is paying a lot of attention to a presidential election. More so than they do a municipal election. So when you look at voter turnout, there's two major elements that you have to take into consideration. And those are the driving factors of voting turnout, the primary driving factors, that's the candidate and that's the media. They are primarily responsible for making sure that people get out and vote if I want to win. I better make sure I get as many people out to vote. So I have to make sure my messaging is clear. In terms of engaging Yes, the Department of Elections is responsible for the administrative process. We tell you want Election Day is we train poll workers, we make sure your registration is processed in a timely fashion fashion, so that the playing field is level. But in terms of GOTV, that's your candidates. That's your interest group whether it's the Democrat or Republican Party, your grassroots organizations, they're responsible for knocking on those doors, those trusted voices are responsible for going out and having those conversations. So I just wanted to make sure that that's on the record, in terms of how do we increase voter turnout because I think that that's critical for our understanding.

    Thank you through the Chair. Thank you. I appreciate that insights, and just want to also encourage us to think about voter turnout outside of just elections. I wanted to vote as soon as I turned 18 years old because I was surrounded by talking about people in power holding them accountable, being engaged, so happy to hear that we're doing more in schools with with young folks. But when I talk about voter turnout and strategies, I'm thinking long term proactive, not just around elections because I I think that it's going to take everyone not just the candidate, and if it's on me, and when I'm the candidate that's every four years and we have more elections than just those. So I'm talking about a strategic proactive plan that is ongoing, that we don't have to depend on the candidates so that we know our folks have what they need. They're educated, they're engaged and they're ready to vote for every election. Thank you, Madam President.

    Right. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Yang. Thank you,

    Madam President. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Appreciate you and your service. I just want to say I appreciate you being able to partner up with you. We were talking about voting you don't make it for this February. election. And thank you for forgiving my tardiness during that event. But I just want to say thank you was really beneficial for me. I just wanted to ask you really briefly, and these are two things that don't go together but the Bruin decision of the Supreme Court basically overrode a lot of protections involving guns being banned from certain places. One of those places is the is the voting booth or the ballot box. I just want to know, you know, just based on that same question we talked about turning to security. Is there a plan with working with law enforcement to make sure that we deter people from carrying firearms prevent intimidating people at you know, these ballot boxes that you talked about earlier at these polls that we talked about earlier and other such places where the ballot drop off areas that where people can vote? That that's been an issue around the country?

    I'd well certainly has and in fact, we have an election roundtable security Roundtable. That is coming up April 3, April 3 and that includes all of our first responders, at every level, they're invited to participate is put in by this put on by the state, and certainly will be talking about those kinds of legislations in a deeper way, in a more involved way, and and, and so I have mixed feelings about it. But certainly, whatever. Whatever the law is, that's what we will abide to. But I also want to say to you you apologize for being late to our voter turnout. At least you were there. At least you were there, because your constituents can see you, right, and if it's important to you, it will be important to them. So I thank you for your participation. All of you are who attend our election rally type events, because it's important, and that happens throughout the year, and not just at election time. And we just appreciate your support as well. So thank you.

    No, no problem. And I just wanted to say it wasn't just for that it was also for the video that we shot for the GTA that is well, no, no, no. Yeah, no, I stated I'm not a priest. In other words, well, yeah, it was that particular event that I was, yeah, I didn't have the lines in there. Right. I just wanna say thank you for your patience. And that was in that way and I had a lot of fun. And that was really beneficial for my constituents who saw that encourage people to get out the votes. I just want to say thank you for allowing me to have some of your time to be able to do that for my constituents. Absolutely. Vital education. And then my final question is involving a little bit of a two part but is involving. I think they're election objectors of I'm not I might be, I might be pronouncing that title wrong. But when 2020 There were concerns about people who were part of the process to object certain ballots that were in an engaging and intimidating behavior of the people who are actually counting the votes. As odd as want to know this kind of on that saying, I'm just really concerned overall about the safety of people and I really think there is going to be a concerted effort there have been training for the Republican Party across but really across the country, of people who are trying to engage in sabotage. And I'm not going to talk about partisan but I'm just going to be frankly, honest here about sabotage in this election. And I'm trying to discourage people and I just want to know that we have all those provisions in place. If not, is there something that we can do to be able to help you get there? Because yes, that that that I think that is real. What happened in 2020, and I think the January 6, I think that's going to be a real issue here in Michigan is going to be the eyes of the world are going to be upon this election. So I just want to know that we're doing all that we can to protect you to protect the people who are part of this process, because I'm really concerned that this could get out of hand very quickly. So I just want to know if there are procedures to be able to deal with Republican or Democrat, anybody who's acting inappropriately or aggressively towards towards the people who are counting the ballots. And then also in terms of the TCF center and we know about people banging on Windows and Carper is are there provisions to be able to determine one are they carrying five firearms?

    Yeah, so thank you for that question. And let me say I don't mean to come off as DPD is not doing everything to protect and to ensure that the democratic process is protected because they are. They are there for us on Election Day and the weeks prior to election day, securing our polling locations, securing our buildings, our parking lots and the like, but as it relates to Huntington place. Yes, they're there 24/7 while we're there, but I'm going to ask Mr. Baxter, that he will elaborate on that process because that's his where he works.

    Thank you, Madam Clerk. Councilmember young? Yes, we have implemented very rigorous procedures and terms of security at Huntington place. We have a pre election meeting with the administrators at Huntington place which includes the Detroit Police Department, and for the November election, Homeland Security will be present and other policing agencies will also be present. This state of Michigan State Troopers and the like everybody is placed on notice in terms of the challenges that we experienced, particularly at Huntington place in addition to that when you were talking about banging on doors, so that caught everybody off guard in 2020. So since that time, we've put procedures in place where folk can no longer loiter. In the hallways, you just have to move if you're not in that building, you can't just come into Huntington place if you're not a certified challenger. In addition to that the Democrat neither Democrat nor the Republican Party and lease a room in Huntington place and that's what happened in 2020. So we've placed a lot of checks and balances in place as well as procedures to ensure the safety of everyone who's working down there. Now when challenges come in, they have to have their identification, as well as their credentials, their identification is swiped into our data file so that we can keep an account of how many people are in the area at all times. The Detroit Police Department will have staff present inside of the central counting board, as well as we hire our own personal security to make sure that all of the supervisory staff has someone that they can reach out to in the event that they're having a problem in their area to address that. So yes, we have a we put a lot of things in place to preclude any bad actors from trying to defer or defer democracy in Detroit.

    Additionally, through the Chair, I just have to say that Detroit police department they keep us on high alert during election time. So we were to call there before I can really hang up the phone. So we appreciate Detroit Police Department because they really are doing a yeoman's job in protecting folks right to vote. Thank you.

    All right. Thank you. All right, that will conclude all of our questions and thank you so much for your time. And anything additional.

    No, ma'am. Thank you all so much. We appreciate you.

    Thank you so much for the work you all do and we will continue to work with you. Ah, thank you for being here. All right, that will conclude all of our budget hearings for today. We will turn it over to our general public comment. We have one person who has joined us, Joyce Jennings. You can join us here at the table here. Do we have two minutes for public comments? Okay, in Woburn Crowley is also here. You will have two minutes. Miss Jennings.

    Good afternoon. Good afternoon and thank you for your contributions to this budget process and your leadership praying for everybody that we will have a great session in support of our future work for for the election since they were just leaving. I have four daughters, and they're like in that group that you will want to capture to incentivize to vote. I have a daughter who's in high school in 10th. Grade, and then daughters that are awaiting college. I know I think Councilman Tate had given some recommendations about engaging with young people like at the pinning ceremony. We may also want to look at like what that sticker incentive may be a way to get the young people involved. Maybe our young people can have we can have a sticker design contest for the vote. And that way we can get our students and our schools involved. Maybe also with elections with like how we have Take Your Child to Work Day, have a movement where we're encouraging families to vote together. And then maybe we can even report out during the election times like since we're in districts, which districts like the total number of registered voters and then out of the total number of registered voters in each district highlight the percentage of who turned up. Um, I did write up comments. Also for the sake of the public. Like for instance, I formerly worked for government, and I'm familiar with a lot of the acronyms that are used. However, this body represents the citizens and if you're not familiar with city government and our acronyms, if we could look at as part of the education process, not you or for the sake of the public, defining the acronyms and maybe putting on the website, what the acronyms mean if we are using internal jargon as we're doing day to day business. So I'll be back tomorrow because my time is gonna bless you all.

    Thank you. Bless you as well. Thanks for Thanks for being here all day with us and we appreciate your input as well. Mr. Crowley?

    Oh, good mic is on and yeah, I didn't say nothing about the as the ballot fraud has been confirmed. I sent the email to all your members Sheffield, your election commission with Janice my free bread do you got voted trap house is over in district seven. You people is incredulous. Not one mention of voting trap houses with absentee ballot fraud. You just had to city clerk and Director of the Department of Elections for my investigation. All roads lead right there to 2978 West Grand Boulevard you know what I'm talking about man Sheffield that's the Department of Elections Detroit Department of Elections to voters trap houses are real. Steel to bear trap proof evidence video evidence documented and some ex Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram and y'all sitting here like y'all don't know what nothing is. Now when I come down here, I come down here with the truth. Now y'all disenfranchising and taking over 100,000 Black us money with tax catches. Y'all been cheated in some of y'all, which was is it? Y'all ain't got nothing to say y'all gonna look there with them stupid looks on your face. And looking at me like I'm some kind of alien. And what I'm talking is real straight up Detroit. sugar honey, iced tea, real Detroit sugar honey iced tea. And y'all they got nothing to say for yourselves. Marisha feel your daddy told me in 2019 about the plan for you to see in a council presidency. You know what had to take place for that to happen? The mayor said it with such sincerity that now I sat back and watched I know it was a plan. Who all involved in the plan Mary Sheffield and who all got them fraudulent absentee ballots in an election and see Angela Whitfield. Skelly ain't here.

    So, that will conclude public comment and again, we are not going to allow a tax on council members especially when you're stating what you just said. Our city clerk did mention on the record today that there has been several investigations none have came back to substantiate any claims that have been raised as far as we get regarding voter absentee fraud. So just want to make sure that is for the record.

    Person. Yes.

    But I'll also say that again, if anyone has any, any fraud any allegations of fraud, take to the federal government. Take it to the Wayne County Clerk if you don't think this clerk works, you can take it to anywhere. But taking it to the city council will get you nowhere, because we are not the enforcement entity that would utilize they would they would actually investigate it and put it that way. So just providing allegations and saying it loud and saying it louder. It doesn't get us anywhere. If there's evidence, send it to the entity that actually does investigations. Investigation into voter fraud is a huge opportunity for those individuals. Now if you just want to get here and rent and get on television and try to get social media hits. That's one thing that if you truly want to identify if there is voter fraud, there are agencies, law enforcement agencies that don't have a problem and put people behind bars for doing that. Send that information there. Otherwise, you're just trying to get social media hits. And I said thank you

    thank you. And just again, to reiterate that nothing that has been submitted today shows that any of that has taken place.

    That's what I've heard and seen as well. Madam President, social media

    hits, okay, social media. All right. Thank you. Protune. All right. Our next caller how many callers do we have already? More who's

    Good afternoon, Madam President. We had 13 Hands raised when you start a public comment, and the first caller is d to victimized over tech senior.

    Yes, good afternoon.

    Good afternoon. I would just like to speak on on this procedure that that we're being subjected to for the budget hearings, each budget each department after each department were supposed to have an opportunity for comment. So, to put them all together is not in sync with the city code. And it is in the city code. So I would like to see us you know, try to be more you know, and compliant with the with this code and the rules. Now as we wait to the EGC. Now, we need to have all of their procedures. You guys should not sit there and have to ask them questions about their procedures because they should have they should have you know rules they should have their bylaws and their bylaws should be subject to notice. Now when Oh IG had a report on on the make your whatnot I mean the Motor City match, and there was several issues with the Motor City match and the oversight of HUD to monitor that program. So we got a huge problem with the EGC we need to be able to see the bylaws. We need to be able to see their authority. I mean, you know their structure, how they're laid out. We need to be able to see who who they've created and who they created and the purpose. The government has to be smaller. So when you allow these agencies to extend, you lose, you lose track, and that's why the audits come out with you know, with issues. So I would just like to see if we can't follow the charter and the code and let individuals have an opportunity after you know, the hearing because four hours later, it's almost impossible, you know, to keep track of what what's going on in these hearings. And if you need the particular site outside, I'll send it to you what code says

    please send the cloud you're referring to I've been given direction by both law and the parliamentarian. If you could just speak to the requirements for public hearing for our budget hearings, that we are in compliance and if you can just stay

    listener we're this meeting is it starts in the morning, it ends in the afternoon, you took a recess in the middle, it's one meeting. You're required to have public comment during a meeting. There's nothing anywhere that says you must have public comment after every department presents and you don't have to have it in the morning. Just one per meeting.

    Okay, thank you. And then it gives one to encourage residents you have tomorrow and every single day to make public comment. You can also send any additional questions, concerns via various departments that you may have to our office or to my office and we'll make sure that departments do respond. We do have a very tight schedule. We have you know, 44 hearings that have to come before us and we're oftentimes going over 30 minutes or so or more. And so we would like to at least have one opportunity for general public comment to allow us to kind of proceed in a manner where we are respecting departments as well as community colleagues. Everyone throughout this entire process. Yes, Director Whitaker,

    in addition to that, the the charter and the code require a comprehensive public hearing. So all of the budget will be open and available for the public to comment on anything that they hear.

    Yep, and that will take place I think about two weeks from now. And

    when on Monday, April 1,

    Monday, April 1. Yep. Thank you so much. All right, our next caller please.

    The next caller is William M. Davis,

    that we heard Yes, you can.

    Okay, I like to start off by saying I think the city of Detroit in general could do a much better job of engaging people and registering people and encouraging people to vote. I think City Council on every department should have a QR code on our their notifications, encouraging people to vote. Right now you can look at the demographics and you could tell how many people in what age groups have voted because, you know, part of my capacity is, you know, President of the tri chapter National Action Network. We do voter engagement every day, every year you know, it's not just election year. More that needs to be done. We need to have a greater get out the vote effort. It is embarrassing to see that we have over 200,000 people the regular regular do not vote in this city. And election should be able to send out alerts like some other municipalities and some other areas that remind people of voting is going to be coming soon and encourage people to vote. Also, on a more personal level, I've been complaining for over three years about the fact that I'm a precinct delegate in precinct 410 And I have to go over three miles from my house over in aviation subdivision, to Samsung weapons school to vote. And many of the people in my district in my area, my precinct are seniors but even not even just seniors. We have a lot of young people who do not drive or do not want to drive. You know, we should be able to like say I previously voted in McKenzie, which is less than a half mile from my house, you know, which is a short walking distance for seniors and young people. You know, if you want more people to vote, you should make sure people can vote closer to where they live in Thank you.

    All right, thank you, Mr.

    The next caller is ad O 's Detroit.

    Good afternoon and through the chair. May I be heard? I'm in agreeance with the first the last person in person and the first caller. It's a little disrespectful to have us only two minutes when we read it all day long, just like you have but you've had an opportunity to ask your questions. So let me let me ask you the return on investment ROI for all of this tiff that we've been giving some 73 Can you give a number about how much we've received and taxes? It's so much I could say about the clerk and all of the things that she said I could just point this council to a 2014 audit, a recount that was wrought with all types of fraudulent looking activity 75% of all ballots that were cast by absentee were out of balance 37% Of all the precincts had too many voters than they had people I don't understand how this council who profess to be of good mind or sound mind could not see that as fraud. Um, I see it as fraud because the counts were thrown out, and the City of Detroit's votes were thrown out. Hence, all of the people who voted like me was disenfranchised in that entire election, because that election could not be certified. But it had been certified not only by the clerk, but by the Wayne County. Cathy Garrett and then again by the state Miss Benson. I'm not sure the checks and balances that go on here. But anytime an election has those kinds of results, and you didn't catch it at some point. Something is seriously wrong with the system. Thank you. Thank you.

    The next caller is Betty a foreigner.

    Good afternoon to all within the sound of my voice. I want to say as I always say I appreciate all of the council members. I want to give a special thank you to council member honorable council member waters for attending my black club meeting Saturday on the ninth. There were people there I had a couple of presidents from other districts. My members were there. And everybody was so excited for the information that you shared with us. I had already told my members about the the senior accessibility home we pair their names already on the list, but they were so excited to be able to hear and get the information about the increase in the monies and to be able to talk and to ask you questions and just to have you in the building. So thank you so much for that you even spoke about the task force and in regards to getting people jobs and careers so that they can take care of their family. And I want to ask you, I don't know if this is proper, but I'm the go to person for my family. My immediate family. I'm the oldest and they know I advocate and I have a family member. It's in one of their apprenticeship programs and I want to know if I can make an appointment a phone appointment with you. Councilmember waters 1015 minutes to test to see if you can give me some advice on something. Councilmember take on about councilmember take my family member which is my daughter and my son in law, they asked whose homes were broken into they call and they haven't spoke.

    Thank you, Madam President. And so yes, Miss Varner when you call I answer, so please give the office a call. Speak with Jason or Santana and the numbers 31362823633136282363. And thank you so much for all that you do.

    All right. Thank you so much Miss Varner. Yes, President Pro Tem Tate.

    Thank you Miss Varner. I have not been made aware of those phone calls. I apologize that they did reach out but I did not receive any phone calls from your relatives. If you can please. Come off as now if you will. And Karen, who is there? I Karen Williams, who's the office manager she'll get your information and make sure that we give you I'll give you a call. Back to connect 313-224-1027 Thank you.

    Thank you, bro. Tim. Our next caller please.

    The next caller is reparation justice before everybody else.

    Good afternoon. This is to your man. I hope everyone's well I am I am making a statement today in regards to the allegations that I'm a right winger because I'm demanding reparation and fairness for people who have built this country. I think a member romero referred right referred to my statements as right wing talking points. No, ma'am. This is black. Love, talk and reciprocity talk. Black people have built this country and for people to illegally cross the border and come here and get a $10,000 visa card and not get vetted and we're not looking at their backgrounds. It's a slap in the face for black people demanding reparations. Already M 13, which is a Mexican cartel. Gang has a blended together with other gangs who happen to come across the border while other people have been let in. This is a a concern of ours in terms of safety for our country. Now for the election commission. I worked for the election commission for several years. ADOS and others that just spoke are absolutely correct. The Election Commission is corrupt. The FCA again, is corrupt ballot boxes. Were not properly locked. I witnessed that and the election was still certified Miss Janet Winfrey ignored the illegalities of Mayor Mike Duggan, Kathy Garrett and her conspired together to allow him on the ballot. And for the 2018 ballot. It's in the newspaper. You can get all the information, so it's corrupt. That's why people are apathetic.

    All right. Thank you, Councilmember Yang.

    Thank you, Madam President. I just want to say something very quickly in regards to our Latino brothers and sisters. This has been a bit what? So, okay. Maybe they're just me hearing something. Um, I really think this has been a very inconsistent relationship in this country for a very long time. It's true that African Americans have built the country, but our Latino brothers and sisters have maintained it. And they've done that for a very long time. You could go back to World War Two and the Bussereau program where they were actively recruiting Latinos to come into the country for the purposes of maintaining agriculture and farming economy in this country. Also, then again, you fast forward a little bit later, but there was a president by the name of Ronald Reagan, who actually gave amnesty to Latino people to be able to exploit for corporations to exploit their cheap labor. So it's not that we have that we are give you them embassy, they have already been given amnesty. They have already been exploited for a very long time. And I'm not saying that borders don't count that they do. And I'm not saying that we can't have border conversations we should. I think we should have a pathway to citizenship. But I we have to be sensitive to the fact that California, Nevada, Texas, Colorado, pieces of Wyoming at one point in time, used to be Mexico, and part of the reason not and not in full, but part of the reason why we had the Mexican American War in the first place, because there was the president at that time. Neva SynTec Guerrero, who was also African American, who ended slavery. And there were people that were in Texas that because he was primarily for land, it was empty land. They were grazing at that time, and they would allow their slaves to be able to occupy this land. And the country Mexico said you cannot have the slaves here because we ended this practice. And so that in part started, not all of it but in part started the Mexican American War. You don't understand the Alamo and things of that nature as well. But it was also based on enslavement of African American people, not to mention the fact that African Americans used to run here for freedom to the north, but he also used to go to Mexico for freedom in the Underground Railroad in the south. So I just want to be clear that just because we support reparations, and rightfully so, it should have reparations for what African Americans have sacrificed not just 25 million in the translate to slave trade that die but two to 5 million in America, not to mention the exploitation of their free labor, the segregation, the breeding farms, eugenics, which first started here in this state, not the actual practice, but the introduction of eugenics with selective breeding based on race. We can have those conversations, but we don't have to hate on our Latino brothers and sisters and shame them in order to have a conversation about reparations and restoration for African American people in this country. So I just want to say that. Thank you, Madam President. Appreciate the time.

    Well said well said. Well said thank you so much, Councilman, for that but good history lesson and we'll say it very, very well Sam, we appreciate you for that. All right. Our next caller. Great job.

    next caller is Steven hollering.

    And I've heard

    Mr. Harvey go right ahead.

    Oh, you can hear me.

    Yes, we can hear you the floor is yours.

    Thank you. I agree. 100% with councilmember Yang mandate thank you for he did a very well rebuttal. But to the point is you know this, you know this voter fraud talk is getting every day keyless you know, there's no affidavits, there never has been a voter fraud. You know, it's a big conspiracy that started off with Donald Trump wanting to be a dictator for life. That's how it all started. And for some reason, I mean, Reuben Crowley and Carol Hughes it all their friends thought, oh, since that municipal bond conspiracy proven to be false. Let's go make up another one. And base it up this I mean, this is getting ridiculous and you know, and it's becoming really dangerous to work with Winfrey. She said, What happened do election deniers were threatening her and harassing her? You know why? Because they believe that all the misinformed spew Donald Trump and the far right spread it around so you know, I'm just, you know, just want to say I understand his freedom of speech, but, you know, I'm just telling this council that definitely made sure to tell the public that stuff is natural and lastly, I know that tax incentives and EGCG came up and as you know, I've been a supporter of tax incentives and defended a lot of myths or rebuilt our normal that a lot of misinformation that has gone around about it, but one concern I do have is, you know, about 80% of the developments that have gotten extra sensitives have they came to fruition? I think they need to do more transparency and who they give it to, is that

    all right. Thank you. So much, Mr. Hari.

    The next caller is phone number ending in 711.

    afternoon. Caller 711.

    Caller 711

    Right, good afternoon. Caller 711.

    Yes, can you hear me?

    Yes we can. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Yes, Mr. Shelton? We can hear you.

    Let's try to come right back to Mr. Shelton.

    The next caller is Detroit disability power.

    Good morning. You may be heard.

    Yes, you can.

    Thank you. Actually, I should say Good afternoon, Madam Chairman City Council. My name is DESA Cosma. I am the director of Detroit disability power and I'm a resident of district for the great district for First of all, I want to thank our election our local election officials for all the work they do to protect our democracy. I know that is no small feat. And while we have room for improvement, it's such an important and demanding task that it wants to thank you. And on that note, I'm also here today to ask that city council allocates $3 million to the Department of Elections so that they can make sure that all of our polling sites here in the city of Detroit are accessible. We envision accessibility grants that can give those sites the funds and resources necessary to get up to code and meet the letter of the law in terms of in terms of what is accessible for disabled voters. We are very clear that we must find disabled Detroiters ability to engage in our democracy. And those of you who know me know that I'm a wheelchair user. I have voted in Detroit elections for quite a while now. And I have experienced firsthand how difficult it can be to vote at some of our polling locations. We did a study with the Carter Center in 2022. Serving all of the election sites here in Detroit, only 16% of them are fully accessible. This is not a uniquely Detroit problem around the country. The average is only 17%. So we're not dogging on Detroit but we know we have a lot of work to do. In fact, Detroit has the opportunity to lead. Our data shows that if we could increase we could go from 16% accessible to 42% accessible by fixing one thing in each of those polling locations. Some of those cost money and some of them don't. But what we're saying is this is a totally doable thing. It's a problem that can be solved and we asked you to allocate this $3 million so that we can get it right and ensure everyone can participate in our democracy.

    Okay, thank you. Next caller is Connor McNeely.

    Good afternoon, counsel. Can I be heard?

    Yes, you can.

    Thank you. My name is Connor and I'm a local disability activist. When Detroit disability power in the Carter Center audited Detroit's polling locations. We found that while only 16% of these locations were fully accessible, many of the access barriers could be solved fairly quickly. Barriers obstructing ramps unplugged voter access terminals for disabled voters and other small access issues could be solved with Council funding the creation of a training video that helps teach poll workers to remove accessibility barriers. We appreciate your support and we hope that we can see some of these issues fixed in the very near future. Thank you.

    Great, thank you.

    The next caller is Mr. Foster.

    Mr. Foster Good afternoon.

    Good afternoon. I'm just wanted to take some time to say I do appreciate the direction that council has been going. I think that when it comes down to elections, though, I think that we have to have a functional government and functional government means that the county steps up and make sure that all of our blocks have priests and delegates. Under the law present delegates is one of those positions that can be a central vice. They can receive grants, they can receive any amount of funding from anywhere. And so we may need to get our community involved through incentives initially but even on the other side of elections is important that our community is just not voters. Priests and delegates have the duty and responsibility of identifying who they put on that ballot. And so we can no longer have a top down government and just have our community vote know who the top he says there's going to be on a ballot, we have to have a functional government. That means both clerks well the city and county getting together and making sure that we have all the tools in our community, to have a voice and to to vote properly and put people on a ballot that's going to properly represent our community on every level now, I mean, federal, state and city levels. So that's just one thing but once again, like I say I know things take time. Um, I appreciate the direction that you guys are going in but we have to we cannot get fresh fish from a dirty lake. We want to get fresh fish. We have to clean up the lake. Okay. So appreciate everything I say a lot of cleaning up in government across the board. We got to keep cleaning up and really just keep listening to our citizens. And more importantly, just like a bad breakup, you know, you cheat on somebody. It's hard to get trust back. Governor have a job to get trust back.

    Right, thank you.

    The next caller is Ruth Johnson.

    Be heard?

    Yes, you can.

    Good afternoon, Ruth Johnson from Community Development advocates of Detroit. See dad is starting or has launched his fifth annual budget campaign. I've done a couple of trainings I have another training and sending information to our members, partners and others so they can participate in this budget development process. Because I understand this is not just a financial document. It is a legal document and more importantly, our moral document that really speaks to what we truly value in what we invest and I would say over the years I've seen great improvements in the information that's been provided. However, I do believe we can do much better. First let me talk about public comment. I learned that this we'd only have one comeup public comment period per day from a member and I said no way because I looked at L PDS January 10 report and the calendar and I didn't see any indication or advance notice that of the significant change from prayer, past practice. Moreover, if you do not subscribe to the council notices you will not know that this change is taking place. But most importantly, it's a significant barrier to participation in this important process in that city officials are no longer available to hear the public comments nor to respond to them. I think we can do better. I understand what the parliamentarian and others have said about what's legally required but let us do better. I have some suggestions. I think a written guide to the budget hearings and executive session would be appropriate, making more copies of the budget in brief, available and clean up the websites. The LPD and and report tabs have 2021 out of date budget information. As far as the DGC presentation video and other materials. I hope that will be available in a place in which the public can find it. I would just say again, community.

    Thank you so much. Miss Johnson for your comments.

    next caller is Casey.

    Good afternoon, Casey. Good afternoon. Maybe Hearn if she can.

    Thank you. Good afternoon to the council. This is Casey Peller, I'm the Policy Manager at Detroit disability power and a resident in District Four. Again, echoing others who have made thanks to local election officials for the work that they are doing and continue to do every day to protect our democracy and ensure that we all have a right to participate. On that note, I am here to ask for the allocation of $3 million for the Department of Elections for the purpose of redistribution to polling locations that need to be modified to bring them up to accessibility standards and ensure that there are no inaccessible polling locations across the city of Detroit. But you must find disabled Detroiters late last week. Detroit disability power and mores on wheels co sent a letter and a full list of breakdowns are that a full list of budget recommendations that kind of breaks down across departments a more comprehensive view of city accessibility. We hope that you will take the time to review that and reach out to us to have more conversations on the things that are listed in there. As as mentioned earlier during the November 2022 election, DDP along with the Carter Center, completed that polling access audit that found that unfortunately, only 16% of our polling locations fully met the legal requirements around accessibility. And we know that with better poll worker training and city support, as well as the infrastructure updates that needed to be made for the brick and mortar accessibility of these sites. We know that with those pieces in place, our city can lead the country and accessible campaigns and ensure that all Detroiters can access our right to vote. with as few barriers as possible, and then the comfort as much as possible. And thank you.

    All right. Thank you.

    Madam President, there was one more caller it's Detroit disability power again, although it appears to be a different hand from the previous caller that registered under Detroit disability power.

    All right, good afternoon. Good afternoon. Can

    I be heard?

    Yes, you can.

    Hi. Good afternoon. This is Nagi. I'm the community organizer for Detroit disability power. We are here today to also like echoing what my colleague said to thank our local officials for the work that they do to protect our democracy but I'm here also to Acts counsel to allocate 3 million to the Department of Elections, so they can redistribute via accessibility grants and the funds necessary to ensure that our inaccessible polling locations are made 100% accessible for all the elections to come. We must find disabled Detroiters as my colleagues have said also today, in 2022, when we did our poll audits with the Carter Center, we found that 16% of the polling locations were accessible and disabled persons could easily and privately vote but that means that 88% were not so for those 88% the largest cost would be for like much larger signage, parking lot repair, sidewalk repairs. And accessible entrances with button operated doors. So an investment of 3 million or more could create a grant pool with private and public buildings that operate as polling locations. And they could apply to get these access upgrades. So many of these issues where we found our simple and small low cost of free to fix so let's do a really good job of making sure that we get all our polling places fully accessible. Thank you for your time.

    Great, thank you as well. All right, and that will conclude all of our general public comment in I'm just based on the public comment regarding the $3 million for the Department of Elections. I would like to add that to Executive Session. I do not recall if our city clerk talked about that portion. And so we can just add that to executive session so that we can further discuss bringing all of the polling sites up to ADA accessibility. There's a motion to add that to executive session please. All right hearing objections, we will add that to Executive Session. All right, that concludes all of our budget hearings for today. We thank everyone for their participation. And we will resume budget hearings on Wednesday of this week starting at 10am. If there is nothing further to come before us this morning, this afternoon. Their motion to adjourn. Oh before we do so. Yes.

    Thank you, Madam President. Just let the public know. They can go on the City Council's website going to the let's say the policies divisions lake and then you will see a link that goes to the fiscal 2025 budget documents. And so all of our reports has gone out thus far. You can find them there. Also, you can go into the office on city Site administration side. You can go into the office of the chief financial officer going to the Office of Budget link and you will also find another link that leads to the budget documents so there's two sources or systems that go to to keep up with the documents that's going out thus far.

    All right, thank you so much Mr. Poorly or anything additional hearing nothing additional again, thank you everyone for your patience and participation and we will resume on Wednesday at 10am and this meeting today will now stand adjourned.