BFA: Media Services / Wright Museum of African American History

5:45PM Mar 14, 2025

Speakers:

Gabriela Santiago-Romero

Keywords:

Media Services

Wright Museum

digital engagement

social media

budget allocation

capital improvements

mechanical systems

transitional funding

community engagement

accessibility

sustainability

economic scale

cultural assets

membership

senior citizens.

Public comment

community projects

senior citizen accessibility

health department expansion

media services

disability access

digital newsletters

Wright museum

phone service

closed captioning

budget hearings

voter fraud

city council

administrative changes

public hearing.

Unfortunately, could not be present because she is attending a funeral. We could not have accomplished this task without the support, dedication and leadership of Deputy Director Shayla McElroy, her ability to prioritize staff, well being, safety and development has been critical in the success of current operations. Additionally, her attention to detail, organizational skills and pleasant demeanor, leading the streamlining of external services. Operation and requests have been key in improving the delivery of services and reaching departmental goals and objectives. We have been operating and restructure operation. Restructured operations since July 2024 and though not met without challenges for continuous improvement, though not met without challenges and room for continuous improvement. I am proud of the success we have accomplished thus far in a short period of time. Next slide with the historic elimination of blight, reduction in crime, population increase, fiscal solvency and opportunity rising Media Services is telling our story our way while keeping our residents connected and engaged to city resources. Detroit is undoubtedly a city that has risen from the ashes and now stands center stage for the world to see. The Media Services Department has the pristine privilege to tell the city story and highlight our accomplishments, all while enhancing our digital presence to assist in transforming the way our city is perceived locally, nationally and globally. Within the last year, our digital presence has positive, positively impacted our city's presence in local and national news. A strong and intentional brand presence helps us engage Detroit on programs, opportunities and resources available to city residents, while also setting the stages, the stage for us to attract new businesses, residents and industries, and to ensure long term viability for years to come. Simply put, this is Detroit's time, and we want the world to know what we have to offer. Having had a front row seat in presence in city government, pre during and post bankruptcy, I am honored to lead this department dedicated and creative to public service and governmental communications. Next slide, this year, we have viewed it 115,000 views across four cable channels and broadcast over 1000 pieces of content thanks to the leadership of our director of administration my issue Crawford, we have successfully reformed the City Council program schedule and enhance marketing and awareness of our Detroit connected app and channel 10 to ensure residents are aware of how to engage our legislative process. Our external services division provides graphic design, photography, videography and audio visual setup for city council, the mayor's office and other city agencies. We also manage the copy center process, film permits. Manage GOV Delivery and city web pages. This year, the external services division process 3376 requests since 706 digital mailers and saw over 7 million web visits. The digital engagement strategy within the media services department includes distribution of content across social media, web, mailer and cable our digital media division, branded engage Detroit, and led by our digital media manager Alex Ennis, who was also behind me, supported by our product, our production manager Brittany Smith, and campaign campaign manager Cyrus tena plans, capture, create, distributes and engages content across 11 social media platforms hosting over a half a million followers, yielding an average of 2.8 million views, 93,000 likes, 15,000 shares and 7000 new followers, monthly. I have to shout out our four social media managers, Gregory bugs, Sean Bowman, Jeffrey Kranitz and Marcela Cifuentes for their work, leading Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, next door, LinkedIn, X YouTube, blue sky, Snapchat and threads, we are the only city now that is consistently engaging resident, visitors and users across 11 social media platforms. Additionally, the digital media division manages content creation and distribution across a weekly mailer with over 70,000 subscribers and engage Detroit web page and cable in collaboration with our external external services division and true Detroit fashion, our rapid response team, led by our rapid response manager, Allen hunt the second, works diligently to defend our city's brand, connect Detroiters to resources and resolve complaints. As you see, we had a viral clap back moment when defending Detroit against being called a layover city, which we all know we are not negative commentary and misinformation regarding Detroit discouraged new business, new residents and new industries from investing in our city, it is key that as we build online brand, online brand presence, we also defend our city's local, national and global appeal to assist in keeping our city thriving and growing. Additionally, as we are in a digital age where most people are connected via social media, residents being able to access hotline, phone numbers, job application links and be connected to information removes barrier to access to city government, which often exists in minority communities due to the limitation on access to information. The Media Services Department utilizes contractors for major events as a cost effective solution that reduces strain on staff. Contractor services help manage peak workloads, extending our meetings, weekend events and large scale one time projects without overburdening our team or requiring requiring additional full time hires. Contracts also prevent wasted resources during periods of times where we have limited workload and standard operations. 92% of the Media Services budget is allocated towards salaries, wages and employee benefits. Less than 6% of our budget is allocated towards contract contractual services. Hiring staff to cover the contractual services will cost the department over $5,000 more than the contractor, almost $5,000 more than the contractual services themselves, understanding the importance of engagement and awareness of Detroit businesses, the Media Services Department next slide implements a strategic, organized and planned procurement process. All media services contracts are required to submit a marketing plan for being approved to bid or for the bid to close, we currently have one contract out for bid with marketing starting this Sunday, and another contract preparing for bid when marketing started, when the bid, when the bid opens. The current bid is for maintenance of the 13th server. While we do not expect any service interruptions, we want to ensure that if we do have an occurrence, we can't immediately respond and have a contract in place. The upcoming bid is for audio visual support services. These contracts will be bid small tier and large tier to allow for opportunities for small business businesses to successfully bid. I would like to note that these are open and upcoming bids, so public discussion is limited and interested businesses are encouraged to contact the Office of contracting and procurement. While I am proud of our progress, there is still more work to be done fully to implement our digital engagement strategy. When I sat before you last year, I was four months pregnant, and today is my son's eight month birthday, or eight he turns eight months today. So we couldn't get everything done right away, because I had to take a break to be a mom. But we are moving into the next phase of our digital engagement strategy, which with an improvement in campaign planning and production coordination and outreach. Within the next 60 days, we are prioritizing the hiring of a program coordinator to work with our digital media manager to align our continuous campaign messaging. The program coordinator will also conduct continuous outreach to local schools, universities and filmmakers to provide free programming, distribution the media

next next slide. Next slide. Next slide, please. Thank you The media services. Fiscal year 26 budget creates both the external services and digital media divisions as previously described, and eliminates four positions. Two positions have been eliminated for efficiency, the duties of the communications manager to have been transitioned to both the project manager and the social planner for with with both positions taking on additional responsibilities, those positions are our director administration and our digital media manager that are behind me today, the duties of the administrative specialist three have been transitioned to our director of administration. The position only existed due to the long time absence of a media services director and staff to support the planning and coordination of the state of the city. We now have adequate support staff to support this project in house, and we do not no longer need that position. Two additional positions have been eliminated following the operational assessment, operational review of the positions revealed that there was not enough daily task or workflow to support the existence of these of these positions in the department. As a result of the restructure, we have seen an increase in salaries and wages for most staff, and assurance that all media services staff have benefits. Additionally, we have seen the creation of eight new position management position creating and creating enhancement and oversight operational efficiency and employee growth. Five of those employees have been elevated from within Media Services or another city department. Additionally, we have created new and exciting employment opportunities for film, for film, marketing and creative professionals, which are not always easy to access with competitive wages, especially in government, with the support leadership and guidance of Deputy Mayor Malia Howard next slide and the office of talent and development this year, Media Services is prioritizing professional development, addressing burnout, and working to create a workplace that prioritizes performance and people, with the budget that is 92% driven by the cost of employees, our greatest resource is our staff. They are. They are what make media services move and shake. So we are taking the time this year to establish a culture of growth workplace satisfaction and employee well being. Studies show that when employees have a positive workplace, performance improves. So for media services, this means enhancement and content quality and content output. This effort is being led by Deputy Director McElroy and our executive executive assistant, Chartres Roberson. We currently have 86 talent and development courses assigned, 11 professional professional development workshop schedule, and 84 Leadership Development Days scheduled as well. We also hosted our first media services open house for over 40 attendees, interested in employ. 50 attendees, excuse me, attendees, interested in employment and or networking with media services. Finally, I would like to acknowledge and thank the entire media services department. Throughout my presentation, I acknowledge our management leading our teams daily. However, it is all of media services that contribute daily to not only Media Services Department to put the departmental success, but their talent can be seen citywide, nationally, digitally and globally. Also. Finally, I want to say happy birthday to our amazing creative talent in our department, Rebecca Smith, who many of you have worked with. Today, it's her birthday. Thank you to this honorable body for your time, and I'm excited for your questions. Alright,

thank you so much, and appreciate all the work that you and your team does on a regular basis. Wouldn't say it's a shoe shoeing budget, but it is definitely a budget that is stretched based on the needs and the constant evolution of Communication and Media Services. So again, want to give a shout out to your team and your leadership as well and all involved. I'm going to just ask one quick question. I know we just had a contract that was here recently that was not supported by this body. It was for the Board of Review. Yes, just if you can walk us through how that requirement is being addressed in the ordinance, requirement is being addressed in real time, in real life,

so that is not immediate services initiative that will have to be asked of the assessor's office. I know that you all were working with them, but that, but that, yeah, that's not a requirement, yeah. So just they came to us for the support services, and because our contract, as I mentioned in the presentation, is currently, it was in RFP stage, and it's just about to go out to be it we did. We had to pull from a previous contract. So the actual services itself is not immediate services. Service is the assessor's service, okay? So

that's a question we need to be asking now. Thank you so much. I don't have any questions, anything that have I'll ask later in memo form to get us caught up with some time. So I'll go to member Santiago Romero.

Thank you, Mr. President, through you to Director, good afternoon, happy Friday. I am just so incredibly grateful for your staff and for your team. You know how much we utilize media services. It's really helped us documents, keep track of the work that we're doing and to also show the public that we're doing the work. Many times people say, I don't see you, I don't know where you're doing and I can just point to our platforms and say, well, here we are. There was a an ask for social media influencers, wondering what the strategy is there. Has that been helpful at all in increasing the effectiveness of your of your communications, and also wondering what it looks like to make sure that we are diversifying the influencers to touch all parts of the city, wondering what your strategy is there and how that's going.

So I'm limited in how I can speak on that, because it's currently at the market. Okay, yeah, so, but it was something we were trying to try out. It was a new form of marketing, communications, digital promotions, but also opportunity to give some of our local social influencers the opportunity. But it's at the market right now, so I can't talk too much about it, you know. So we can talk about it if, in fact, we do decide to move forward with it.

Okay, to the trip by at the market. You mean, you're out to be it. It's out to bid right now. Okay, so then we will be working with the influencers to be doing media services work based

upon the proposals we received. We haven't really decided for moving forward, because it is a new service. So the service going on to the market was a test, like, Hey, do we have this here? Is it an interest? What does the request for proposals look like? And then we will go from there, okay,

through the chair greats would be very interested in seeing what that looks like. And, yeah, just making sure that we're continuing to tell the full story of the city. And I guess wondering, do you need anything from us? It sounds like you're restructuring the ways that you need to be able to meet the needs, but wondering if you haven't asked of city council at all, I

think, on behalf of media services, we appreciate your understanding and your flexibility. It is nine council members, and we work to service you and we appreciate you. My staff speaks highly of the council and the support that they get. They love coming out and filming and capturing so there is no ads, but for us to continue to work together collaboratively and let us know how we can support

you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President, thank

you. Member, Santiago Romero. Member, can't wait.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon everyone to you, and your team is Barnes. Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for getting right in there, and you know, doing what you had to do, restructure, rebuild. And I'm so proud of you. And Congratulations on the birth of your baby, and I'm hoping you were able to take advantage of the city's pay parental program that was spearheaded by myself and member Benson, supported by the entire council. So I hope that's the case.

Was it the case? It was also too I don't know if people know, with the pay per rent for policy, you don't have to take your time consecutively. You can take it before their first birthday. So I was able to come back. And then, actually, I had just got back when I came to the table, when I seen guys a couple weeks ago for my second wave of paternity leave, which was nice because the the for right after birth is a little bit more difficult than the five months, six months, it's a little funner. So it was the second the second wave of paternity leave was, was good because he's sleeping through the night and all that. So we can really enjoy that time without, you know, the new birth baby. So thank you to your honorable body for passing that. I have personally benefited from that. So thank you for your leadership. Councilwoman

and council member, Vincent, we do do good work around here. Absolutely, I agree wholeheartedly. I have a number of questions that I will send to you if you haven't already gotten them. Sent them to Malika. We uploaded them in smart sheets, but one question the city council district two. YouTube playlist on the city of Detroit channel currently contains videos from previous council members. How frequently are these channels updated? And what is the process for council members to access or upload content to their respective channels? Because right now, when you go to the YouTube channel for District Two, they have Council prior, former council folks

through the chair, we will work to take that down expeditiously. So if someone is listening that manages YouTube, can we work to remove those videos, but make sure we archive them so that if they're pulled for any type of legal reasons, we have them, but we will get those taken down. And you would follow your same process that you follow to get on cable. You will go through the media Request Form request your content capture. If we already have the content, we can pull it and we can put it on to your channel. So if you want to schedule a meeting with Deputy Director McElroy and digital mail. Roy, yep. Shayla, yep. Shayla. McElroy, yeah, Shayla or Alex back there, if you want to have your team, schedule a meeting with them, they can get that all corrected for you and create a process flow for you. If you want to start utilizing your YouTube channel more,

okay, more, okay, that sounds good. And again, you know, I have a number of questions, but I'll make sure you get them. Okay? And media services, do you offer internships or apprenticeship programs to provide hands on training opportunities? Because I know a lot of times we we go outside of media services to get contracts and to secure media services. I think one was President Pro Tem mentioned creative day, right? And then we had emerald media consulting services that was over a $6 million contract went right out the door. So what are we doing to train up our own to offer apprenticeship opportunities and internship opportunities to folks who attend scripts or Wayne State or even the students at DSA. They have a whole department over there that focuses on what you do media services. They used to have their own television channel, but they don't have that anymore, but they still are very much involved in learning how to do what you guys do in media services. So what is your plan to establish, if you haven't already, to establish an apprentice slash internship program, so we can just kind of pull from our student, you know, our students in the city, because they're talented, they're talented and they just need opportunities. We don't want them leaving the city. I'd like to know what your plans are for that,

so that that's through the chair. I have several answers for that. One, we participate actively in the mayoral fellowship program, in the shadow program, so we have someone coming to shadow Deputy Director McElroy next week. Additionally, we are hiring our program coordinator. Their responsibility is doing outreach and engagement to our local high schools, our local universities. For those that are looking to be filmmakers, not only to broadcast our content, but if they do want to come in and intern and learn from us, they will lead that process. And additionally, I did have internship program at General Services Department that we're working together, myself and director McElroy to bring over to media services as well. You know, just only 12 months in a year. So that's that's one of our next phases to get that. But we are looking to do that, and we have that in process, and we look to have that implemented by the end of the year.

I'm so looking forward to that, because our students deserve those opportunities, and we don't always have to go outside of the city seeking those types of skill sets and talents. When we have them right here, we just have to massage it and, you know, kind of develop it from the degree that we can. So I'm very, very proud of the work that you do. You guys are very responsive to my request, and I appreciate you guys so much. From top to, you know, mid level. You guys are on it. You do amazing work, and I thank you for covering all of my meetings, all of my events, and I've never had an issue with coverage. And so I just wanted to thank you for that and keep up the good work to you and your

team Media Services.

Thank you, ma'am. Thank you member Benson. All right.

Thank you very much. Ms Barnes, good to see you here today. As always, always, you are doing a great job in media service, especially with the resources you have. I believe I'm going to be supporting what's been said earlier, as well as what other colleagues are thinking about. How do we get more support from your department? What is needed there? And I already heard what, what can we do to help? We just really want to reinforce that it would really be nice to have a prioritization level is higher than what it is for our events and for our staff. I know we're all stressed stretched when it comes to those resources. So just really hoping to get more support from your office when it comes directly, because oftentimes it's Well, we were already booked up doing these different events. We're already booked up here. This is the weekend event, and that's often times when we're hosting our events and everybody's hosting so when you're fifth, sixth and seventh priority down the line, it makes it very difficult for us to elevate and prioritize our message as well on our own channel. So hoping to see more when it comes to that, then the question is, what do you need for more staff to get us prioritized? Or is it a way to rearrange existing resources to elevate and improve our prioritization when it comes to our

events through

the chair. Do you have if we could offline? Have a conversation about when you were not provided support, because it is a departmental directive that council is top priority when it comes to media service request form. So if at any point you're not prioritized, or it is something that happens, please feel free to reach out to me or deputy director McElroy, if we can see how we can make sure that we can align how the staff have been assigned to make sure that you are first priority with those assignments. Currently, we have the staff to operate and provide services for both external services and digital media as as we move forward prioritizing Council in our digital engagement strategy. So if again, if that's not happening, please let me know. Happening, please let me know so I can make sure that that is what's happening. I did not know that you were not getting your resource I know one instance that occurred with you that was not a Resource Based issue. But if you're not getting, if you're getting consistent denials, please let me know so that I can address that. Okay,

so then the question is, do you need additional

I do not we have, we have the staff available to move for the department. Okay, yeah,

all right, thank you. Thank you so much. Member Johnson, thank you

Mister Chair. Good afternoon. I really don't have any questions outside of what was already submitted to media services, but just want to say thank you for everything that you've done. You've come in, and you have made some tremendous changes that speaks to greater efficiencies within the department. And so I do appreciate that. I know we sat down and had a conversation, and you brought some things to life for me, because I'm not the person who necessarily wants to be seen on the screen all the time or have a microphone in front of my face, I just do the work right? And there are, honestly, times when I probably should have reached out to media services to cover different things that we do, and we have not. I talked to you about something that I'm doing with the schools, and you, you know, spoke about wanting to cover that I would have never thought about that, because we're just out in the community, and so just want to thank you for your thoughts, your creativity. You know what? Let me ask a question, kind of relative to what member Calloway spoke about, there have been times when we've had contracted services for the department. Can you speak to if there are particular skill sets that you don't have within Media Services that requires those contracts? Is that something that we can bring in house,

bringing you, oh, it's not if you could go to your it's in your PowerPoint slide. So we only utilize those contracts in very limited time, during very limited spaces. So state of the city marriage charter mandated meetings Council presidents occupied at a corner. So we don't utilize contractual services consistently. Our staff perform over the majority of the work that we get. So that's only when high volume, large scale, complex projects that require a lot of night time, weekend work, where it will conflict with the work that we are doing on a regular basis. So it's very itemized. It's not a consistent workflow.

Okay, thank you for that. And I know member cowboy talked about one of the contractors that have been procured by the department that I had some concerns about as well. Can you speak to what specifically that work is? Because I don't believe it's a particular event that they're covering, but it is ongoing work, creative day. No, the other, uh, emerald media, yes. So, uh, director Thomas is not present. She would have to be here to speak to that. So if you have questions about emerald media, if you wanted to submit that in writing. We'll make sure we get those okay, we'll add it to our memo. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Chair. Thank you member.

Durham Hall, thank

you, Mr. President, good afternoon to you all. I don't really have many questions as well. I think you guys are doing a phenomenal job getting the word out here and just expanding the reach and actually just doing, you know, different things with social media. One of my favorite posts that I saw recently was, I think, during Halloween time. Well, not recently, but during Halloween time, just the guy following folks around with the screen mask and hopping on a bus and doing Detroit stuff, right? And I thought that was just really engaging, but something new, to really tap into a younger generation and connect them to government, all right? So I think that is just a great initiative. Keep pushing forward with those ideas. We'll be looking to do more work and sit down and talk with you guys as well, of how we can increase our reach. To member Johnson's point, I think we get stuck in the workhorse mode. Sometimes got to get better at putting that out there to the public to let them know with some of the initiatives that we are doing and some of the great things that we have done as well. My only question is about accessibility. I know last year we worked, I think, in the budget to add an additional or additional funding to be able to expand services to our residents who are disabled here in the city of Detroit. Can we talk a little bit about, you know, your thoughts of how to expand that out what has already been done for media services to have a further reach with members of our disabled community relative to accessibility

through this year. Yes, Ma'am, can I ask our director administration, Crawford to come up and speak on that sure she can give you an overview while she's coming up? I do want to tell you that I love your new social media presence is going well. So we do offer consultations. Shameless plug. So if you were to want to come down to media services and get a consultation to assist with enhancing your social media presence, we do offer those so and shout out to Deandre. He was one that was in the screen mask going through the neighborhood. So great idea. Good job, DeAndre. You got a shout out today.

That was And thank and thank you. We are working to increase our social media presence. You got to hire folks that are younger than you, that know better than you. So that's that's how we've been able to do that, and got a great team, but they'll be looking to consult with you as well. Miss burns, but yes, I'm sorry the accessibility question.

Floor is yours.

Hello. So in regards to the accessibility for the citizens with who are disabled, we do have ear pieces that they are able to request in the event of their in the presence of Council, they can request those we also do have, we have spent funding to resource the

excuse me for a second

through the chair, the city of Detroit offers an ADA compliant listening device to assist hearing impaired citizens during public sessions. This device is available upon request to ensure everyone can fully participate in community meetings and discussions. In addition to this accommodation, closed captions are implemented to provide real time text a spoken dialog during live meetings and transcribe recorded sessions. These meetings are accessible through various platforms, including cable television, the official city of Detroit website and popular social media channels. These measures ensure compliance with the Americans with Disability Act regulations promoting inclusive, inclusive, inclusivity and equal access to public information for all citizens. Director Thomas works heavily on this, so that's my answer that I have currently. But if you wanted to have an in depth discussion, you could submit that in writing or Dr Thomas will follow up with you after this hearing okay

and not through you, Mr. President, pardon me. I would absolutely love to have that follow up conversation. I know we have made strides to ensure that we have ASL interpreters during council meetings. We have them as well. I don't know what the opposite side of this zoom looks like, because I don't watch it. I'm actually at the table, but I think you know, again, that is helpful. I've seen it sometimes ASL interpreters, sometimes on the Zoom meeting, sometimes not. And so if we could, you know, have that, I think that would be great, as well as closed captioning, which, as I'm speaking right now is right at the bottom of the screen, which is cool, but we want to just make sure that we're doing everything that we can to be as inclusive, which I know is our goals of yours as well, but in any way we need to, you know, push that forward. I think that's important. And so with that, Mr. President, I'm just going to make a motion to put the Media Services budget regarding accessibility. Let me say that into Executive Session, right

colleagues, there's a motion on the floor. Any objections Seeing none that action shall be taken. Miss bonds, the director

burns. I apologize. Additionally, one thing that I think Council Member Santiago Romero will be happy to hear. We are also in conversations with do it on how we can increase language access on social media during the live broadcast, we realized that we needed to have that during the Southwest flood, so we are working on that too as well. So we hope to have that in place within the next 90 days that we can identify that software so accessibility all around for our disability community, but also for those that don't have English as the first

language. Thank you, Mr. President, again, I want to thank you for that. I can't ask another question, but, or did I only ask one? I think I only asked one. I made a statement. More so, but if I could just say this, I'll just I'll make a statement. You know, the utilization of that equipment is so important. I know we got some for our office the aisle, which is during our zoom meetings. Now what you know, whether we do our disability task force meetings or some of our other meetings that we may hybrid, we're able to broadcast that with just just these little tools and so but I did want to say I appreciate how far we have come. I wanted to put that on the record. When we first came in here, I can remember that we did not see closed caption up there on every session of Council. We did not have ASL interpreters at every council meeting. We did not have some of these things. And so I think they're they're really important, and I appreciate your commitment to keep pushing that forward. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you

so much. Member Young,

thank you, Mr. Chair, excellent presentation. You have me and Hello, no questions.

Thank you so much. And thank you all for the work that you do. We appreciate you. We rely on you. And again, thank you for showing off the good stuff that we're doing in Detroit. Thank

you. And again, to the Media Services staff, I appreciate your trust, your dedication and your loyalty to the city and to the work that you do. I know this has not been easy for us, but I am so proud of you, and your approval rating here shows that you do good work every day. So keep up the work, the good work, media services,

thank you so much. Thank you. This will now close out the budget hearing for media services. We shall now enter into the budget hearing for the Charles H Wright Museum of African American History. Will the presenters please come forward. You

Good afternoon, good afternoon.

Please introduce yourselves for the record, and you may proceed.

Good afternoon. I'm Neil Barclay. I have the great privilege of being the president and chief executive officer of the Charles H Wright Museum. To my right is Jeffrey Anderson. He's the Executive Vice President of the museum. He's primarily charged with the maintenance and upkeep of our capital projects, of which, you know, we have one big one the building. And then to my left is Marcus Miller, who's the newest member of our staff. Marcus is the right to CFO

you know, we've had the great privilege of talking, I think, to most of you or your staffs, about the needs of the Wright Museum at this time. No doubt you have been reading about the challenges that we've had and reading about in the media the challenges we've had with our military effort. Just to recap on that, the right

did get closer to you, close. I think

it's my stomach.

No, no. It was, it was it was turned this way. It wasn't necessarily in front of us. That was not what I was saying.

All right, at any rate,

much better. There we go.

You've no doubt been reading about the challenges we've had with our millage effort, the right our board, myself were able to get legis enabling legislation, we call it, through both the House and the Senate. Late last year, it was being prepared to be signed by the governor when it was discovered that there was a typographical error in the number of the bill, not in the substance of the bill that was approved, not in the conversations that where it was talked about. And that has put us in with, I believe it's eight other bills that are being held by the house at this moment and are not being turned over to the governor for signature. That particular issue has been litigated. We judge has ruled that the house is required by the Constitution to turn over these bills to the governor by March 19, next week. However, the house feels that well, the judge also left open the process by which they would do that, because she doesn't have jurisdiction over legend, the legislative process, just the law. And so however, the house feels like they're not required to turn those over. And you may have read yesterday, this is just cause a whole series of new discussions and conversations about how we get a bill that's been approved by both houses to the governor for her signature, it expires on its own terms, March 31 so we do have some urgency. We hope that in getting this resolved. So there's that also, this year just had a just a great year of good news. This year, you know, the last couple of years, we've received transitional, what's called transitional funding from the state of Michigan. This funding was, has been given to both the DIA the library, etc, and it's meant to help an organization that is going for millage prepare for the additional both reporting requirements and the staffing that might be needed to really manage a millage. And so we received at the last two years. As of late June of last year, we were informed that we did have additional transitional funding coming. However, when the budget was published, July one, we were zeroed out about that budget. This, of course, had caused cause of some problems at the 11th hour, not having any transitional funding. We had not budgeted for what we had received the previous two years, assuming it would be less, but still, it created about a $1.2 million shortfall in the budget right at the top of our fiscal year. Fortunately, I have a very creative and innovative staff. We were able to reduce costs, etc, but did have to, by and large, finance the shortfall to the tune of about 1.2 million. So our request has been as we've talked to you all and to the staff, for the 2.6 million that we receive annually, in addition to the 1.2 million that we've had to finance this year. Anything that can be done to help that would be appreciated. We do have reserves. We do have other ways to address that, but this was certainly a shortfall that was not created by the right or its team, and we have done everything we can to mitigate the impact of that while continuing to provide what I think you see in our annual report and in the brochures that we sent off to you, a really world class series of programs, services to the community. On the capital side, we talk every year about the mechanical project that we're engaged in. This is a project that is about bringing the building that we manage on behalf of the city up to current, bring the maintenance, let's say current in the building. When I first came Jeff and I have worked together previously. We were we built the August Wilson Center for Pittsburgh. So we're familiar with museums and buildings. And when we came in, we asked the city to do an assessment of the building, because it was approaching 30 years old. And what we know about buildings, that's the point where things start to fail. And in fact, things were failing, elevators, toilets, set and the other so we had the city do an assessment. This is in 2019 at that point, they determined there was about $25 million worth of deferred maintenance on the building. What that meant is these systems within the next five to seven years would begin to fail, and that had to be addressed. So over the past several years, we've been using both the transitional funding we received, the lion's share of it. My colleagues always ask me what I've done with all that transitional funding. It's basically been spent on your building so we have, though, you know, gone through a process of continuing to address the capital needs as they have arisen. The current ask was for 5.1 million. That is the current phase. And I'll let Jeff talk a little bit more about that of what we're calling the mechanical systems replacement project. Now, not sexy stuff, obviously, but what you should know about a mechanical system in a museum is it is the critical system of a museum. Why is that? It's because the museum requires that the building be held at a certain temperature and at a certain humidity control at all times. This is where the preservation of the artwork, again, that we hold and care for on your behalf. So when we have an exhibit that comes into the building, we're actually required to report, sometimes on a daily basis, but at least on a weekly basis. What was the humidity in the gallery? What was the temperature in the gallery? Because it can result in the deterioration of artwork. It's just artwork. So this is a critical system. It's not something that we could have put off, and not that it could put aside and still be considered the world class museum that I think we all want and deserve for for Detroit, right? Let me let Jeff talk a little bit about that more. But our ask there was $5.1 million is the next phase. We realize it sounds like a lot of money, but it's a of a $25 million apple that is the next bite, if you will. So I'll let him talk about that a little bit more. We were not recommended for this funding by the Budget Office, but it's obviously a huge concern for us, and I think Jeff could probably explain why. Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone the $5.1 million capital as which I believe we shared the mechanical progress meter with you, which is dated, three, 625, the document that you have in front of you also reflects changes in the environment, as well as percentage of tariffs that we could incur, depending on how long this tariff exchange goes back and forth. So the document that you have it will show that the work in the gray shows all the work that has been completed to date and the various phases and the costs that we have expended, and so we do. Thank you for the capital contributions, along with what we spent from the state, but we are at a critical stage, and then, as you can see, when you look at the graph, the section in the White will tell you that we're about 17 or 18 months before we complete this project.

Did you have something you want to show on the screen? PowerPoint for the public?

We had said yet the we

didn't provide a PowerPoint, but we had sent for me,

but I have it looks like it probably won't. I don't think you're going to be put it up like that.

Yeah, steps, so you want To these are just, I

all right, sir, you may proceed. Thank

you. Okay, so when you look at the graph, it shows you the various phases. There are eight phases, and some phases have multiple layers within the phases. The section in gray shows you all the work that has been completed to date at the costs that have been expended. So right now, we are at a very critical stage, because where we're at, we're in Phase 4b currently, and the ask of 5.1 would result in phases 567, and some phases of eight. And why I say we're at a critical stage is because at this particular stage we've had to do pre purchases of large pieces of equipment, because they are anywhere between 13 to 17 months out. And if we didn't do the pre purchase, it would mess with the schedule of when we need to have things installed. So we have pre purchased the generator, we have pre purchased boilers, but when you look at the graph, we won't do the installation until later. So when those pieces of equipment come in, they have to be installed. Otherwise, if the project stops, you have equipment that is just sitting. Warranties go away, and then you the institution has an unequal system in place to manage the museum, and that means we would be half of the building's mechanical systems would be new, and we're still have some systems that are old in place, which is not ideal to be managing a museum. And so that's why we are at a critical stage. So any questions on the mechanical at all, and we'll wait till you finish the entire presentation. I also would like to point out that even though this is, you know, the bigger project that is going on, we have, as an institution, undertaken other capital projects that have been funded with other sources that we have secured. We just recently brought on back on the service the passenger elevator, which we did a total overhaul on that was redone and brought back online this past Wednesday. So those are funds that we secured to do that particular project, we currently have the orientation Theater, which is under construction, which is on the first floor, and that that space has not been open since the flood. And so that's a children's space. We have hope to have that finished and open later this year, in 2025 we will then in sometime in May, turn our attention to the freight elevator. And that is a modification. It is not a complete overhaul, such as the passenger elevator, so we are continuing to look for avenues to secure funding and get other projects done, but I did want to make you aware of those particular things that are also happening within the institution from a capital standpoint.

Thank you. All right, so those are that's a really

hit your mic please

at the bottom, so that is the completion of our Ask Before today, we'd be happy to entertain any questions that you might have. I know that several of you, though, did send questions you should have. Most of them back now, if you don't, you will shortly. Some of them just came yesterday, so we're still working on them. Yeah. All right,

so you know I was going to save him for last, because I know he's probably about the biggest supporter at this council table, and it's based on the works, not just the heart and soul, but the works member, Benson. Any questions? All

right, thank you, and thank you all for being here today. Mr. Chair, I see the clerk is Madam Clerk

check and we received that document that you received for the clerk's office for filing.

We'll make sure you have

a copy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I want to thank the Charles H Wright staff, Mr. Anderson and Mr. Barkley and our new CFO and so I'm not sure people remember the fiscal status of the museum about 10 years ago. And so these are the conversations that we weren't having. We weren't having conversations about new boilers. We weren't having conversations about $20 million capital investments, infrastructure upgrades, because we just didn't have the leadership at that time. Since that transition, we have a leadership that has been able to grow our budget. We've been able to grow staff. We have world class staff. We now have designations as a world class Museum, and this is critical when it comes to the management of our assets, and the Charles H Wright Museum is an asset of the city of Detroit. What you see before you is the management team and management and leadership matters. And so under this new leadership, we've also now endeavored to find a way to have sustainable financial support, because while we give annually from the City of Detroit's general fund, it's just not sustainable. The vagaries of our ability to support our own asset unfortunately go up and down, and to have proper management of this asset, we need to have a sustainable, routine and predictable revenue stream. And so not only is that millage for the Charles H right, it's also for the Detroit Historical Museum, of which we own as well, and both, unfortunately, have fallen into disrepair over the years from lack of maintenance and deferred maintenance. So I'm just really glad to see what we have here today. Unfortunately, we were derailed at the last minute, and we've been working hard. We meet almost every Friday and have the last, I want to say, four years, four years to get to this point. We meet every Friday morning, at about 8am to have a conversation about how this is moving and how this is going. And we've seen fits and starts. We've had, we've had a step back, we've also always been able to move forward, and now we're at a point where we're almost there, and looking forward to having the support. And the polling indicates that we have regional support for these two assets, our city asset, but a regional cultural asset and something that generates traffic and tourism for the city of Detroit, and the better we get, the more people we can have coming into the city of Detroit to see and view our assets. And while people talk about our history, we're often seen as being second hand. But our sister history is American history, and it matters. I want to make sure that our story is being told and it's being told by us, which is also critical, and that's what we have here today. So I want to make sure. I'm going to make a motion to put $5.1 million into a one time expenditure for the Charles H Wright Museum of African American

History. Colleagues, there's a motion on the floor. Any objections Seeing none that action shall be taken.

And then I just want to refresh the ask for operational support. Is how much 1.2 million, okay? And that's a direct result of the shortfall from the transitional funding, correct? Okay? And so my next motion is to put a one is to put a one time operational support modification to the budget of 1.3 1.3 to $1.2 million into the budget. Three.

You already heard it. You already heard

it cuz there's what's the number again? $1.2 million right? There's a motion on the floor colleagues seeing no objections, that action shall be taken. Alright? Thank

you. And I just want to say also, the ability to have leadership of this nature also means that you're building a team that is qualified and makes things happen. And so the creation, the community engagement, the Charles H Wright has been there from the beginning when it's come to financial support of the world's tallest Kwanza Canara stakeholders there, the African American the African World Festival annually. And so just having this type of leadership to bring those type of assets back to the city of Detroit. And I just want to thank Neil for developing this level of this type of team, and our, our general our store, the museum store, has been awarded many times for being the best museum store in the region. And so we also have to compete. And so when we're competing with high with high end and larger institutions. Just let you know what we're doing here in the city of Detroit. This is a sense of pride, and it's ours, and it's not just for African Americans in the city. It's for everybody in the scene. I really want to stress that, and this is a challenge. I am a member of the Charles H Wright museum African American history. And here's the next question, how many of my colleagues are members, and how many of our leaders are members as well? There we go. So I'm hoping that people start to think about that also. This is how we support our assets. I want to thank my colleagues who are members. And think about it, we have membership levels from the very large you can become a member of the Presidential round table as well. I think it's a $10,000 $5,000 input, not not saying you have to do that, but if you wanted to, you could. But we also have $5 memberships as well. And so we have something for everybody. And we have a the gamut when it comes to different benefits that come with membership. If you're a family member, you have access to other museums in my family, and I would take advantage of that. We go to the Cranbrook museum, we go to the DIA we go to other museums throughout the region and throughout the country. You can go to the Natural History Museum in Chicago, which cost $35 per person for free based on our reciprocal membership. So these are the benefits of membership, and these are the benefits of residency of the city of Detroit. And I am on my soapbox. I am a proud trustee of the Charles H Wright museum African American history history, which also means that I am a cheerleader for that museum, and I want to make sure that we continue the incremental steps of improvement to make us the best African American History and the African American history that Smithsonian pattern itself after in Washington, DC. So just want to make sure that's clear as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair, just the

thing I would add to and we mentioned this to what Scott is saying. You don't have to take our word for it, right? Several years ago, about three or four years ago now, the Ford Foundation looked at the entire cultural sector, bipoc organizations in particular, and and identify 20 organizations without whom the culture of the United States would have been changed forever, right? 20 organizations. One of them is the Charles Wright Michigan. A second one, by the way, is the Arab American museum, right? Another jewel in Southeast Michigan, but in the museum world, this is considered the icon, one of the oldest, one of the first, one of the largest, and I think should be a source of pride for Detroit.

Thank you so much. And I do think member Benson, you have one additional motion. No,

not a motion. I just want to add with this last statement, and so this is also part of being a board member. There are standards. And I know we've heard people come down, well, we shouldn't do this. And you have to do that if you want a world class Museum. It costs money, the Charles H Wright, the heat, the staff, it's not free. And I want to remind people there is a financial obligation if you're a board member, to either, either have to give or get. I'm an humble public servant, so I get but there is a financial obligation that has to be met by every board member, or you cannot be there. And so that just has to be remembered as well. And so when people talk about, well, you shouldn't have that when we didn't have that, we didn't have money we had we were hand to mouth. We're no longer there. So I just want to remind colleagues that as well, if you want to be the top then you have to run harder than what you did before, and people are always going to chase you. And you have to go after these resources, and you have to have people who can help you go after those resources. Thank you. Thank

you. Member Young,

thank you. Excellent presentation. I just have a real quick question, and I'm done from my understanding, when you were talking about the money that you need for the capital improvements, basically what this is just reimbursement. This is money that you've already spent. Is money you already pre purchased, right? So basically, we're just kind of reimbursing you first for expenses

on the capital side. No, it's not reimbursement, okay? It's actually what we need. We have been able to pre purchase the generator and boilers, because of the lead time we had to be pre purchased, but we didn't have to pay for them until they actually are received. Oh, okay, would fall within the phases and they asked that's in front of you?

Well, no, okay, so I just want to make sure, other than that, I have no questions answer. Presentation. Thank you. Thank

you. Member. Santiago Romero,

thank you, Mr. President, through you to our museum. Hello. Good to see you all again. We've met about your ask, I mean, full support of the motion. So thank you for the work that you've done. I also really appreciate you opening your doors to me my staff, for our retreats, for our our field days, where we just go out and enjoy the assets that we have here in the city. So thank you. Really appreciate the attractions that you have. The expeditions are beautiful, and wondering if there is anything that you can share with us about what's to come about, any and any new, exciting features, and also wondering what we're doing to attract Detroiters to be a part of the museum, either by staff or artists, because I always see the benefit of us making sure that Detroiters are part of this process.

That are that may live in Southfield, but all, most of us live in the city of Detroit. I do, for example. So that's an important part of the work that we do, having people that live and work here, both have lived here. Historically, this is our 60th anniversary, so not to be forgotten, this institution was founded 60 years ago this year, in fact, this past weekend, we celebrated that 60th year anniversary with a community wide party. We had over 1000 people in the museum this past Saturday, the official birthday was Tuesday, the 10th, but it was really an exciting time to remember just how this organization. Let's find it founded and where it is that 60th anniversary on April 4, will open with an exhibition called luminosity. And what it looks at are Detroit based artists and the contributions that they have made to the region. So it's 60 plus artists. We were trying to shoot for 60 to make it cute for marketing, but I think it's a little few more 81 pieces in the exhibition, but it really looks at the work of a wide variety of young, old, emerging, very successful artists that have lived and worked in Detroit and this entire year, where we're dedicated to a theme called Legacy, which looks at what it is that we are attempting to pull forward into the present moment about our history, our culture, this great city, and why it matters today, right? And so, as you can imagine, from where we sit, this is a very troubling time, right? But we have our history to inform us how people in the past, our ancestors, have responded to these challenges, and we're happy to be able to bring them up in the work that we're doing. We have an exhibit that's dedicated to Charles Wright. People don't all know how influential he was here in Detroit. We have a program called the right babies where people who were actually born or birthed by Dr Wright are asked to come back and celebrate their connection to him and to the museum. It's an amazing group of people who were actually birthed by Charles Wright. That's kind of a who's who list. October 11 is our 60th anniversary Gala. We hope to raise money again for the operations moving forward, but again, it'll be an opportunity for us to look at what this organization has meant and has been able to do for 60 years. We gave you a brochure. The brochures are now going to come out on a regular schedule. They'll be available right before, typically, the African World Festival in July that'll cover the period July one to December 31 and then in December, a brochure will come out that looks at Martin Luther King Day through the end of our fiscal year, which is June 30. It's not all contracted, so I can't tell you everything that's in it, but it promises to be a really exciting season.

Amazing. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you. Member. Callaway, yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon. Thank you for being here. Elizabeth Catlett know her, know her work I did, and it is National Women's History Month, an African American and Mexican sculptor and graphic artist best known for her depictions of the black American experience in the 20th century. Her grandparents were enslaved. She got her education from Howard University. She married and went over to Mexico and started sculpting and just absorbed that culture. Had an opportunity to visit her exhibit at the National Gallery of the arts in DC this week, while I was there for the National League of Cities conference for black elected officials. And I'm hoping, sir, you'll bring that exhibit to Detroit. They would love to, I hope you will, sir, an amazing, amazing exhibit. That being said, I want to thank you for allowing me to bring all my senior citizens on a regular basis to the museum. I had them all lined up, paying their fees for those who didn't have their membership. I made sure that they had their money with them, and we had a long line. I don't know if you all were there, but I'm sure you heard about it. And the only drawback was the elevator wasn't working. And I tell you that all the time that elevator was not working. I had like 50 senior citizens there, you know, and they needed that elevator so they weren't able to enjoy the upper levels. So I was very, very disappointed. So how's that elevator now, the one that is accessible to visitors,

so the the elevator is done. I believe we today had sent to your office photographs of the elevator, both the exterior interior, so that project is completed. Is it a total overhaul? I think everyone will be pleased about the final project. Yeah.

Thank you so much, because I had multiple trips there over the summer, and d dot provided my transportation. And I have another question, what about a cafeteria? I know you guys had a banquet area, but we didn't have access. We had to go back to the bus and eat our food on the bus. So have you all changed that? Because I was embarrassed. We thought we'd be able to access one of the rooms to have our lunch, right? But we were forced to go back on the bus, and that happened to all of the groups that I brought there last summer. So has that changed? Will we have access this spring and summer when I bring my when I bring my seniors.

So there are two space there. Sorry about that. There are two spaces within the Wright museum that are utilized for both rental and to support groups that are coming in, school groups as well as senior groups. And so what could have happened is, is that those spaces may have been booked for rental purposes that weren't available. And so the spaces are going to be the right community room, which is the larger of the of the two, and it can hold somewhere close to 200 people. And then the Latimer, which is the other space, which can hold about 100 and so those spaces are available for groups. The only downside is, after already rented by an outside group, a community group that has already booked that space for whatever their event is, okay,

I'll share my base with you for our future visits with my seniors. And lastly, thank you so much for that they have dia. I think they have a store in one of the suburban malls. I would love to see you guys open a store in a suburban mall or in the Renaissance Center when, once it's opened, again expand. Dia has a beautiful, beautiful store, and you know where I'm talking about and I'm hoping that you guys will branch out and go into one of the suburban malls where we shop. So to come down here for for the Detroit experience, we can take that Detroit museum experience to the suburbs, and then that will entice them and appeal to them to come into the city to see what we have to offer from our museum. So have you thought about expanding to maybe the avenue of fashion? It doesn't it could be a pop up, right? And that also entices people and appeals to people to, you know, find out more about what you offer. But I'd like to hear your take on Dias having a suburban store, and then also their Inside Out program, because I keep asking about that, bringing them, you know, the museum to the community some of your pieces, they may it could be replicas. It doesn't have to be the actual pieces, but they could be replicas for some of our children to see, who may not have an opportunity to come to the museum, but we can bring the museum experience to them. So that's two questions in one Sure.

I mean, they're all great suggestions that can be done with more resources. Basically, resources. We're compared to the DIA a lot, as you can imagine. And I always remind people that the right has 50 employees and the DIA has over 200 so this is a difference in capacity, right? However, to your point, first of all, the right store, as I think was mentioned, has been voted the best museum store in the Southeast Michigan three years in a row. So we have the best museum store notwithstanding how beautiful the dias is, however, what we are doing to your point, couple things, we are doing more work in the community, and have several programs that are scheduled for community centers. Love to work with the Council on where those could be housed. For sure, we also have though an ad campaign at the airport that talks about the museum. So if you've gone through the museum, the museum have gone through the airport recently. You will see signage directing people and to go to the Wright museum as they come to this region. So those are two things that we're doing. The replica program is something that we talk about a lot. And you know, our collection is not DIA's collection is almost all art. You know, ours are things like Rosa Parks effects or the letters of Malcolm X, or things like that that are not, don't lend themselves as much to, you know, the kind of thing you're talking about. But as we grow that collection, that is something we would love to do. No question,

yeah. Oh, thank you. And through the chair to you, and thank you so much for that. I was in Dearborn not so long ago, and they had the Inside Out program from the DIA. They didn't have the actual Oh, you never do Yeah, yeah. They all they did was take a picture of and had it in a glass case. So I'm hoping we can do that. It's just a temporary installation showing some of the work. It doesn't have to be the actual art. It could be a picture of the art with a description, which will then, in turn, have a positive return, because what will happen is that's going to entice them to come and actually see the actual piece, right? So that's what I'm talking about. I'm not actually talking about the actual pieces going, yeah. So, um, thank you so much. Yeah,

we were talking about the store, I guess is it called Somerset, the luxury mall that we have, yes? So in downtown Detroit, there is a store that's adjacent to one of the Marriott properties, and that store has various artists from around the region. And there is product in that store from the DIA and there's product from the Charles H Wright, and we've been doing that for the last two years, and primarily around the holidays, you'll see a lot of product from the store in that space.

Awesome. That is wonderful news. And don't forget jazz on the app. You were there with us last year. I helped you get a lot of memberships. It's August 2, which is my birthday, so I'll see you jazz on the app, August 2. Thank you mister

Thank you member Johnson. Thank

you, Mr. Chair, good afternoon. How are you doing? Well and yourself,

I'm here, okay.

I know we had the conversation as well about the capital improvements and the Ask relative to that, I just want to say thank you to you all for maintaining and improving the museum, because it does mean so much to Detroit and Detroiters. But through you, Mr. Chair to Mr. Donnie Johnson, the supplemental appropriation request that we have before us includes 4.4 million for facility improvements. Are any of those dollars earmarked for the Charles H Wright

through the chair to council member Johnson, yes, ma'am, of the 4.4 million in the supplemental three 3.4 million of that is for the Charles Wright Museum.

Thank you for that. And I thought I recall that, and I'm not sure if that will help to reduce the ask that you provided to us. Okay, I'm seeing heads nodding.

I believe information. I

believe the supplemental that Donnie is referring to was part of the fiscal 25 budget, this year's budget, this year's budget, it is not, has nothing to do with fiscal 26 it was a fiscal 25 the current budget

got it okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you, Mr. Chair, thank

you. I have no questions to ask. At this moment, we are more than likely going to be sending some questions over. Don't have much. You guys do a great job. Thank you so much for being stewards of history. And with that, your hearing is now conclude. Gotcha. Member Benson,

two last motions. These are both for the closing resolution. The first is to use, is for the city to use its economies of scale to support all of our assets, airport, Fort, Wayne museums, 36 District Court to help drive down the cost. Motion,

there's a motion on the floor with discussion. Give us a little bit

more as the city we we have economies of scale when it comes to purchasing, when it comes to things that nature. And so we have these other entities that can also utilize those type of economies of scale to help drive down the cost of services as well as purchases. So just having requesting the city to look at how we can work together to help drive down the cost of our different institutions when it comes to economies of scale, where appropriate. And so that's my motion for closing resolution.

Thank you. Member Benson, there's a motion on the floor. Colleagues, any objections, seeing none that action shall be taken. Member Benz and then

lastly, closing resolution for both of our museums, including we have a history with the DIA as well, to develop a program where our cultural assets to locate artifacts and art within kmac, the mayor's office and City Council offices as well, which I believe will help to keep these assets in our holdings. Running center center for not only us, but our bosses who flow through these different offices, as well

as a motion on the floor Colleagues, any objection Seeing none that action shall be taken. And that is

something that's a program that can be replicated, because that's what they do in Washington, DC, the Council offices have revolving holdings within their offices and are assigned pieces of art that are hung on the walls for every council person annually, and there are stations within city hall to keep those their museum assets, front and center for City Council and the mayor's office there as well. So something that can be replicated, I think, something that's very valuable and to keep and help decorate our offices also. Councilman

Benson, I do want to, before we disband here, I do want to thank you for your work on the sustainability front, and to every member of council here, we will share with you the Charles H Wright museum was one of two museums two weeks ago that was invited By next gen, which is a company out of London, to present about our work in sustainability. And so we produced a 20 minute video which was shown to all those participants from around the world. And then after that video was shown, Neil myself, Leslie Tom, our Chief Sustainability Officer, was on the call and was fielding questions for about 30 minutes. So again, when we're talking about the Wright Museum, we're doing things that puts us on bigger stages. And so I do want to make you aware of that, and we'll share that video to make sure that you all have it as well.

Thank you so much. One last motion, Mr. Chair, and this stems something we've talked about at during a trustees meeting. Was something that my colleague, member Callaway just brought up. This is a closing resolution for the Wright museum to look into a gathering space, and something that I've suggested they have that at the DIA so a place where people can eat as well as gather to help drive bodies to the museum, and have that become a space where people hang out and gather as well and keep them there, and keep very and keep them there. So that will be for the closing resolution,

just the Museum does have and had built into the physical plant, a commercial kitchen. And the space that we mentioned, where some folks enjoy their lunch is actually that space that holds about, what 1500

the last about 100 people.

About 100 people in that space. We just have not been able to attract yet a vendor, somebody who will run it. We are looking at, though, doing pop ups in the next season to just see who might, you know, want to operate that space where they it's a completely finished commercial kitchen, right in the in the built into the building, the

motion, there's a motion on the table. Mr. Chair,

there's a motion on the floor. Colleagues, any objection Seeing none that action shall be taken. McCallum, is it a motion?

Mr. Chair, sir. I have couple chefs that are really popular there in district two, and I would love to connect them to you, because I often go to the DIA I have meetings there, and I go to their Kresge cafe and in the atrium, and it's very beautiful. So I'll make sure you get that information, and maybe they can start doing pop ups in your I stay there longer when there's food there, you know, a cup of coffee, coffee and please, pie leaves to a salad later, before you know it, I'm there all the way through lunch. So, yeah,

you know, restaurants and museums are not private centers. They are actually installed for that very purpose. They do keep people in the building longer, keep them there looking at more things, and it allows them to have a full day if they want to, because they can stop and have lunch. And so it's a reason that they exist, and I think probably the reason it was built into our building when it was designed.

Thank you so much for the presentation today, and all the best. Thank you so much. And this closes out our budget hearing for the Wright museum. We will now go to public comment. If there's anyone from the public who'd like to speak, please raise your hand now, if there's anyone from the public who would like to speak, please raise your hand now, going once, going twice, going three times. The collection of public comments, if now concluded, alright, how many callers do we have? Online? Good

afternoon. Oh, good afternoon. President Tate, there are 10 callers online, yeah, I

was going to expand with stick with that one minute. Alright, we're going to give everyone a minute public comment

for today, our first caller is we see you all right. Caller, the floor

is yours. You have a minute public comment?

Good afternoon and through the chair. May I be heard? Yes. Carolyn Hughes at the public hearing. It seems as though we want to finance everything. Why? First of all, why is this black Historical Museum separated from all the rest of the museums? I thought you had a hearing on the museums already. I want to know why this is separated out from the other museums. I think that we should do. We deserve more than a minute to say after two public hearings, actually four, and we've only gotten two minutes to speak on it, Mr. Der Hall, is because we have a right to question the people that we pay, and this is the time for us to do it at budget season. Thank you.

Next Caller, please. The next caller is Betty a Varner,

yes. Betty a Varner, the floor is yours. We're going to get that clock up first. There you go. It's Betty a Varner, the floor is yours. You have a minute general public comment? Okay?

I hope I'm not breaking the rules because I wasn't able to listen to the entire communication when y'all were talking about what you were going to do in regards to our public comment, but I would like to say that if you could please allocate money for a program that will help communities organizations with their projects to improve their neighborhoods. Also, with that program, allocate moneys to help people the organization to pay their fundings for their 501, c3, and also continue please allocate monies for the senior citizen Accessibility Program and the Detroit accessibility program. I don't know if it's the proper terminology, but the seniors and people with disabilities we need help in keeping what we can stay in our homes to be handicapped accessible.

Thank you so much. Next Caller, please. Our next caller is William M Davis. Mr. William M Davis, the floor is yours. You have a

minute Good afternoon. Can I be heard? Yes. Okay. First off, health department. I think the health department should be expanded. I think it should be in a different location. I think we shouldn't have to pay the, you know, the park, to go visit the Health Department. So it's a it's a pale shadow of what it used to be media services. I think media services should be expanded like I think that every time there's a board of police commission meeting, people should be able to see that and see that live. That would help reduce some of the tension and possible progress that we're going to be having, because I know I'm older than everybody's there. I remember even we have Barton cable. You know, they had more expanded services than what currently is available, because they would even sometimes view community meetings from community organizations like the BART my father, neighborhood association. I'm Vice President. We have a meeting later on today, also the charge right museum. I think it's an excellent place. In fact, I have a senior membership, and I think the city Detroit could do a better job of marketing all of our assets. Thank you.

Thank you. Next Caller, please. Our

next caller is, got public comment, all right? Caller,

the floor is yours. General public comment. You caller, are you there? Let's put that caller at the end of the queue, please. We'll go

the next caller. All right, our next caller is Chris with a K, Chris with

a K. Floor is yours. You have a minute general public comment? Hi.

I appreciate that. This was brought up by council already, and I just wanted to reiterate the request for continued dedication for disability access in the media department, prioritize accessibility of public information, particularly in the digital and print newsletters and announcements that are sometimes inaccessible, Asking that media services work with the Office of Disability affairs to implement accessible communication practices, including screen reader friendly newsletters and PDFs large print options and captioning services for virtual meeting, and that those documented practices are used to provide accessibility training For other departments and for City Council. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next Caller, please. Next we have Cindy Dara. Cindy Dara,

the floor is yours. General public comment,

Hello, yes, I got six. I went to the Wright museum on Martin Luther King Day Two years in a row. And last year I went real late, because when I called, they were closed on Monday, normally and see Martin Luther King Day stories on Monday. So they were closed on Monday. And so I found out this year by complaining again to them that they should have their phone lines open on Martin Luther King Day case, somebody calls to find out what they're what's going on, and it turns out that they don't pay for phone service on Monday. I said, Well, you know, just on Martin Luther King's Day, make a deal with whoever you're paying for your phone that you're going to have phones on Martin Luther King say, that's my recommendation. I wasn't too impressed with that management part.

Thank you. Next Caller,

please. Next is Marguerite Scarlet, Maddox, Miss Margaret,

Maddox Scarlet, the floor is yours. General public comment,

okay, thank you.

Thank you. Like immediate services. What about the recording? The recording needs to be closed captioning and

it elevators.

The elevator working correctly because now when, when, when we use the elevators. You

because I left outside because the enemy did more sleep. So I

mean upper level,

we

just

IT services, Please make sure that the equipment directly The so

nice services for those hardest down, please. We need to figure out a way to communicate with each other during

the Thank you. Thank you, Miss mano. Next

Caller, please. Next caller is Steven hawring,

general public comment.

Can I be heard? Yes, awesome. I want to apologize to come so member young. I did not mean to offend him at all. His father was a great mayor who rebuilt the downtown so we didn't even need a Renaissance Center, and I bet he would have wanted the Renaissance Center to be more integrated into downtown, which this current proposal does. So I just want to apologize. I did not mean to offend you. Lastly, I want to thank this council and the mayor for the increase in need on and just hope in the next five years that at least it can be double what it is now. You know, currently, some routes are better. I don't really take it as much as some of the other advocates do, but when I do the Woodward one is I was on time. Same with the Jefferson I typically take it to get to both foods or the Maya, and it's very

Thank you. Is black bag. Ruben

James Crowley Jr, floor is yours. General public comment.

James E Tate Junior, well, as you know by now, the Detroit tapes are real, and y'all down there voting on million dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, couple billion dollars worth of people's money, the city's money, and y'all cheated in every last one of y'all because Janice Winfrey and Gina Avery Walker been over there at the Department of Elections, doing absentee ballot fraud for years, years, and y'all been voting for millions and billions of dollars. James Tate, Mary Sheffield, Scott Benson, y'all been there the longest voting on untold billions of dollars approving illicit allocations of money. The city is corrupt, and Mimi won't what she won't.

All right, next caller, please. Next is Ronald Foster. Ronald Foster, the floor

is yours. Good

afternoon. Um, just wanted to say that this budget season, I think that Rotel being pretty fair as the chair exercise a lot of patience, which is something that can't be purchased, just recognizing that. But overall, I think City Council been doing a good job asking the questions, appropriate questions. But I ask you all just to keep in mind the mayor is leaving, and even with the fourth quarter administrative changes here, you still represent 600,000 plus people. That's always important to remember. He's been here for 12 years, and so it appears from the outside that there's still some comforts, as if things are the way they they have been accustomed to being. I just ask you all to just to be aware of that and keep that in mind. And all you guys is decision making, that the council has to gavel and that whatever projections administration may or may not have fiscal years over in July and so our decisions have to be made on.

Thank you so much, sir. Next is calling user three.

Call in. User three, floor is yours. Can I be heard? Yes, ma'am.

Greetings. Thank you so much. I heard earlier where individuals made the comment that many of us talk about the same issues and we're not given an opportunity to address when you're having the different meetings, such as health. I would have loved to address these Fairchilds to make sure that she is aware that many times when you try to bring health concerns to her, often, her employees will pretty much cock block it. And even in housing revitalization with Julie Snyder, when you bring issues to her in her office, she never responds, but will lie and promise that she is public comment is needed to ask these questions from these people while they are present.

Thank you so much. Next Caller,

please. That was our final caller, so we will go back to got public comment. Alright. Caller,

are you there? Yeah, good afternoon. Can you hear me? Yes, ma'am, yeah. I too, find it just a total tragedy and resident disrespectful not to have more public comment in the budget. Even last year, charity Dean was shocked at how public comment was being held, and said when she was the head of Creo she would stay and listen and try and respond to the residents, because the charter does say this, Detroit is a service organization subordinate to the residents, and it just seems like Duggan uses this as his private real estate firm. The Law Department is his private law department. Many of us had hopes for this council, and we're all saying we need a new one, except for maybe member Callaway, Julie Snyder, said that North End landing was consistent with the master plan. No, it's not. I wrote her about that to explain her position. She refuses to answer another

Thank you. Thanks, Caller, please. I think that's it. Alright, colleagues, that brings us to the end of our public comments and the end of our budget hearings. I always want to say public hearing, budget hearings for today. Mr. Whitaker, you have anything you want to add before we close out? Sir,

no, I don't. I don't know whether or not analytic power, Dr powers might have some comments but, but I don't have any, okay, all right,

is it related to things we talked about earlier?

It may be. I don't know if you want to. You have talked, yeah, I've had

a conversation with her, and we'll forego that additional conversation until Monday, as needed. Member Benson, before, yeah,

I just wanted to add that today. Why perusing the clerk's web page? There is a statement regarding voter fraud there and a report that was submitted to everybody. So that is public and it's on the clerk's web page, a simple Google search on election fraud. Detroit City Clerk's Office should bring it up. But if you go to elections department, it is online. That report is there. Thank you. Thank you.

Member, Santiago Romero,

the report that I mentioned that I read correctly. Thank you. I read it. I we have access to it, and you read it. Thank you,

absolutely colleagues. Can I, can I get a motion to miss Maddock was absolutely correct. I, in the past, had seen this closed caption for our recorded videos. You know, some days you're doing 12 different things. You want to watch a city council hearing, and if you have the volume down, you're stuck. All you're doing is looking all these beautiful faces on the screen, but you can't hear, don't know what is being said. So colleague saying a motion to add to Executive Session, and I'm not sure where we'll go, but adding closed captions to or the ability for closed caption to recorded videos motion. See no objections. that action shall be taken, thank you so much. And if there are no objections, colleagues, you know, is there a motion to adjourn. Oh. Objection. This meeting is adjourned.