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Detroit City Council Formal Session, 5/20/2025 part 1
Unknown Speaker
04:30Why?
Speaker 1
04:36Okay, good morning, everyone. Formal session for today, Tuesday May the 20th. And that's firstly South row council
Unknown Speaker
04:44member Scott Denson.
Unknown Speaker
04:47Council member Fred duhart, the third council
Unknown Speaker
04:51member Letitia Johnson, present.
Unknown Speaker
04:55Council member set Saba Romero present.
Unknown Speaker
04:59Council member Mary Walters, present.
Unknown Speaker
05:03Councilman Whitfield Callaway,
Unknown Speaker
05:07Council Member, young council
Speaker 2
05:10president for Tim James Tate and Council President Mary Sheffield, present. You have a quorum present, Madam President,
Speaker 1
05:18all right, there being a quorum present. We are in session, and we will begin with our invocation. We have joining us, Reverend Dale weathers of Renaissance Baptist Church, who is joining us virtually.
Speaker 3
05:36Amen. Thank you for this opportunity, city council, and without further ado, I would like to pray. So let's begin, Heavenly Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus. Lord, we thank you for this day, Lord that the City Council is meeting, Lord, I would like to pray for each city council member that's represented today, starting with President Sheffield. Mary Sheffield council president pro tem James Tate council member Angela Whitfield, Callaway council member Scott Benson council member Leticia Johnson council member Gabrielle Santiago Romero Council council member Fred deer Hall, the third council member Mary waters and council member Coleman, a young the second Lord, I ask that You would bless each and every one of them and their families that are represented. Not only that. Lord, I pray for their staff members that work for them. Lord, the work of city council is hard. It's a hard task, but Lord, I ask that you give them knowledge, that you give them wisdom, that they make decisions that affect the people of the city of Detroit. Lord, I just ask that you bless this meeting today, bless the participants and bless everyone that's going to partake to try to help make the city, Detroit a better place. And it's in Jesus name. I pray. Amen.
Speaker 1
07:15Amen. Alright. Thank you so much, Pastor. If you feel feel free to stay on as long as possible. If you have to jump off. We do understand to those who are joining us virtually and in person, please make sure you raise your hand for public comment as we will cut off public comment after our two presentations this morning.
Speaker 1
07:39All right, I will shut off I have the absolute pleasure of recognizing an extraordinary young man who is a student at Cass Technical High School, Mr. Simon Cyrus Woodbury, come on up. Mr. Cyrus Woodberry, you
Speaker 1
08:03Alright, Mr. Cyrus. Cyrus Woodbury is the first wrestler in cast Technical High School High school's history to win a division one state championship. Congratulations. And so we wanted to honor you, on behalf of Detroit City Council, with a Spirit of Detroit award for your 2025 mhsaa division one state championship. Congratulations. Thank you. You
Speaker 1
08:43on behalf of the Detroit City Council. This is a Spirit of Detroit award presented here with as an expression of the gratitude and the esteem of the citizens of Detroit in recognition of exceptional achievement, outstanding leadership and dedication to improving the quality of life. On behalf of Detroit City Council President Mary Sheffield, in the entire Detroit City Council, we extend our heartfelt congratulations on your historic achievement as the first wrestler in castex history to capture the mhsaa division One state championship. Your dedication. Yeah, one more time. Yeah, your dedication, both on the mat and in the classroom, reflects the very best of Detroit's emerging talent and bright future. We are all very, very proud of you, of what you've accomplished, and excited for all that lies ahead. We want you to stay focused, stay striving, and know that your city is always cheering for you. May God continue to bless you and again. Congratulations on behalf of the entire Detroit City Council. So Mr. Cyrus, did you want to say a few words? We are so excited for you. No thanks. He's 16 years old, 15. I'm 1515. On honor roll. Student.
Unknown Speaker
10:12Come on up for the principal. He's
Speaker 4
10:18scared. He's nervous. It's okay. Won his first State Championship at the age of 1515. What are you 15? Yeah, oh no. At 14, at 14, he's 15 with over a 3.5 GPA, beautiful. And he beat everyone all over the state at this age, twice. And his family, they're all wrestling. So, oh,
Unknown Speaker
10:40beautiful, alright.
Speaker 1
10:48Is this your mom? Thank you, athletic director. Athletic Director, would you want to say a few words
Speaker 4
10:55she should start I would just like to take this opportunity to thank you all for recognizing Cyrus and his accomplishments, many people don't mention or notice, wrestling is not a well versed sport, and this is bringing highlight to the sport, as well as bringing the sport to the city of Detroit to make it a better sport. Yes,
Unknown Speaker
11:14thank you. All right.
Unknown Speaker
11:18Thank you. Thank
Unknown Speaker
11:19you, Cyrus. Thank you
Speaker 4
11:21for always recognizing the students and the children of the city of Detroit. You all do this, and I don't think it's done anywhere else in the state. So thank you for all that you do. Seriously, thank you for our kids. Thank
Speaker 1
11:32you so much, and we appreciate you as well. Miss Phillips, all right, would you all mind if we do a picture with Miss Mr. Mr. Cyrus Woodbury, can we do a picture with you, sir? We want to make sure We have This. Yes, you
Speaker 1
13:12all right, congratulations again, Cyrus. We are so proud of you and keep up the amazing work that you are doing, and we will now continue with an update from the Detroit Grand Prix. We know that we are seeing a lot of construction downtown. We are gearing up for another amazing year of the Detroit Grand Prix, and so we will turn it over to Miss Letty, who will give us a presentation and update. Thank
Speaker 5
13:35you, Madam President, and good morning. Can you believe it's year three already? I feel like we just got started, you know, yesterday or first year, we didn't really know what we didn't know, right? And I think last year we were grappling with the draft as we pivoted from one event to the next, and this year starting feel like old hat so, but I do feel like we're getting stronger each year, and certainly hope each of you share in that sentiment as well. So yes, we are once again, back on the streets of downtown Detroit, May 30, 31st and June 1, so just next week, and indeed, you can see the block and fence out there. I apologize for the disruption. So here's the good news, we bought all new block and fence this year. It was worth every one of the million dollars we spent on it. It, I think looks more professional, but we, as we've discovered in our build out this year, it's much easier to drop. So I think next year we'll be able to abbreviate this timeline so it's a little less disruptive.
Speaker 1
14:33So before you continue, I'm not sure if we can get the volume a little bit louder. It's kind of hard to hear here, so if we can let her know. Okay, thank you. Go right ahead.
Speaker 5
14:44Let me continue. Okay, good deal. So if you go first page of your presentation, one of the accomplishments, if you'll remember, in 2023 is we were the first motor sport event in the world, awarded gold level certification through the Council for Responsible sports. We're very proud of that. Thank you. We're very proud of that. I was not going to let any other city in the world but the Motor City declare that first, we were able to retain it in 2024 and we're going to go ahead and strive for gold again here in 2025 the Council for Responsible sport certifies sports or major events, major sporting events, for the environmental, economic and social footprint they leave behind. So a lot of what we'll talk about today plays a big part of that gold level certification we have enjoyed fan record breaking fan attendance the last two years, 150,000 people. Those are not tickets sold. As a reminder, this event is open free to the public, which means we had more people attend for free than we sold tickets. And I think that's a pretty big accomplishment as well. We had of the tickets sold, meaning the grandstand seats about 20% out of state, out of country, attendance year one. So that's one in five wallets were entirely new dollars into our economy. But joining us last year back on track. And as a reminder, the NTT IndyCar Series is the the headliner, if you will, for this event. But joining us back on track last year was the IMSA sports car, Weather Tech Sports Car Series. They have a very strong out of country, out of state poll, and they missed Detroit. They took 2023 off. They missed Detroit return last year, and happy to report, they'll be returning here in 2025 that's important, because, again, they have such a strong out of out of state, out of country poll, I suspect will exceed 35% this year with IMSA back in the in back on track with us.
Unknown Speaker
16:43Yeah, all right, indeed.
Speaker 5
16:46So our sustainability efforts, just a quick overview of that as a reminder all of our you see the semis that move this event in and out of town, all of our tractor trailers operate on 100% 100% renewable diesel. Our race cars operate on renewable race fuel. We recycle all of our tires. We recycle all of our automotive fluids. We introduce on street circuits, which, this is a temporary street circuit here in Detroit, on street circuits, we utilize a plant based tire during one of our school engagement sessions, a child asked me if that meant squirrels could eat our skid marks. And perhaps, I'm not sure, but it was an interesting question. We and for those have attended the event, you see that we have a very robust recycling program, or for every solid waste container you see a recycling container, we engage with commercial composting. And generously, we have corporate sponsors who have worked together to offset all of the Tran or the travel emissions that's both fan and operational for the event. All this has resulted in a 64% waste diversion rate, meaning we diverted more waste than we sent to a landfill for that that we did have to send to a landfill. Kind of fun fact about the Grand Prix, the landfill that we utilize is in Lennox. It's in in Macomb County, and it is renewable energy generating landfill. So, you know, we're the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by layer, and we race around gm headquarters, at least this year. I know it's changing, but then the landfill, the power, it powers the GM Orion plant, so it really comes full circle. So we're very proud of those efforts. Moving on to some of our community programming. This year, we introduced more career development programming into the community programming. As you know, we've had some great success with some of our our internships, our youth internships, to give youth a peek at not just, you know, everyone wants to be a race car driver, right? There are dozens of jobs behind every driver that you see, so we've tried to be very intentional in exposing youth to those jobs this year. I think probably the most exciting addition is the motor sport correspondent program with Boys and Girls Clubs in southeastern Michigan. Our PR director, Meryl Kane is often lamenting that there just aren't any good motor sport journalists anymore. You know, if people want to cover stick and ball sports, nobody wants to cover motor sports. Well, we're the motor sports. Well, we're the Motor City, so we're going to grow them here. That's what we're going to do. So we developed an Earn and Learn program with Boys and Girls Clubs of southeastern Michigan. We have 60 youth who are selected. They come to all of our events with us whenever we have drivers in town, pit crew members in town. They've learned interviewing skills on camera, on radio, developing a podcast. They've worked with Fox Two and the free press about print and then technical production. So we've tried to expose them to just about everything. And then, you know the basics of how we kick out communications from the Grand Prix and major events. We've had some really exciting programs. I have to say this one is the one that really and you guys know, I was crying last year over our motorsport race team, and I'll get to that one. But this one's really special. We've got a great group of kids Small Business straight away. We're continuing with that this year. One thing we've seen now, after three years with small business, straightaway, we've learned some lessons, good ones, good ones, but we've also seen some businesses apply that don't necessarily make sense to activate in a motor sport event, right? We want that business to have a good experience as well. But I admire their hustle. It's clear they're looking for better product placement, and I think the Michigan Black Business Alliance does a great job mentoring small businesses and helping to work with product placement. So we're providing scholarships for some of those who applied to be part of the small business right away that maybe didn't make sense for a motor sport event, but we really want to help them continue on. So that's one of the additions we have this year. The bright hop culinary competition team. They had us a competition. And we also think and member, Santiago Romero, if I'm not mistaken, you were a hospitality intern with the event at one point. So we really thought, you know, major events are just they're a different animal. They're a different beast. And so we're working with a culinary team. We sponsor them this year, and then they'll work as interns at the event with ondiamo, who handles all of our catering. And then the DFD, or DPD, we work with the FDA too, but the DPD Explorers program, we're supporting that program this year financially, and then also, the kids are working with DPD event weekend to learn about, you know, how we keep the public safe at major events? We've continued our mobility, innovation race team this year, if you'll remember, last year, the kids qualified for Abu Dhabi, beating out every other high school and collegiate team to be the only team, and they came home champions for honoring vehicle teach the kids coding this year, still focusing on coding, drone racing team also qualified. Instead of competing as youth, they beat out every high school and collegiate team again. Yeah, indeed. And they came home pence this year. Have to say, once they got there, instead of competing at the levelers, put them at the program just continues to impress, and it's growing quite a bit this year. I won't steal Shawn Wilson's thunder, but they have a big announcement coming up at the end of this week, their digital mural program. You'll see them out on track again this year. We're continuing. With that small business straightaway I mentioned the Michigan Black Business Alliance scholarships. This year, we're also moving the straightaway right onto Woodward. It's been in Campus Martius the last couple of years, and I think people have just kind of walked around it, not through it. So we're integrating those businesses right into the regular footprint of the event. This year with Meyer Family Fun Zone, American Legion. They'll be there with them as well. So I think they'll have better experience excited. And as a reminder, there is at least one business from each respective City Council District represented race weekend. The other nice thing about pulling them onto Woodward, we have our camp, our concert in campus March this Saturday night, and now these businesses can stay open with the other vendors and capitalize on the foot traffic that comes as part of that concert as well. So it gives them more earning opportunity in small business. Straight away, it's wonderful, and we're happy to host neighborhood businesses. But as a reminder, too, this is 100% free for the business owners, so we underwrite all of the costs for them, so only going home with money in pocket, none out. Nxg youth motorsports, our youth carding program continues. Cast tech generously hosts us. Thank you. They're not here any longer, but still, thank you. Cast tech. We've introduced a 400 level program this year, which is great. So now we have a 100 200 300 400 level program, Nxg youth.org. If anyone is interested. Again, we're looking for youth ages 11 to 15. We do still have a few seats open in classes the remainder of the summer, event, weekend, track activity. I touched on this early in the presentation. Of course, we have the NTT IndyCar Series, practice and qualifying, Friday, Saturday racing, Sunday, the Indy next program, which is they're like our Toledo Mud Hens, is how I describe it. So practice and qualifying, Friday, Saturday racing, Sunday, and then the IMSA Weather Tech series racing on Saturday, so we're really happy to have them back with us. Quick math. We don't need to spend much time on that, but thought you might find it helpful, and I did email this to each of your offices too, if you wanted to circulate it for folks that may be coming downtown this year. With the generous sponsorship of the auto show, we've added a cruise night on track. That's Friday night, and it is open to the public. It's it's closed for car entries right now, but everyone can come. We had a we had an overwhelming amount of entries, so we've had to pair it back. But it is, the track is open to the public to enjoy the cars Friday evening at 636 30 to 830 Saturday night again, concert and campus. Martius Griffin is the headliner. We we being the NTT IndyCar Series started within New Media deal this year with Fox Sports. And that's important, because our coverage is much stronger. The creative is stronger. The coverage is stronger. All of our practice and qualifying is on FS one or two. All of our races are on Fox. We're already seeing the viewership has increased 60 to 80% each race. So you're going from 1.1 million to almost 2 million viewers each weekend. Their coverage of upcoming races has been much stronger. So I share all that to see. Firstly, that's a three day commercial for the city of Detroit, just like the draft was right. It's not just race day that everyone gets to see us, but it's three days. And in those three days, they look for good community coverage and stories. So I think Fox will do a wonderful job of telling the story of who we are, but having all those extra eyes on it and the commercials they'll run this weekend for the Indy 500 on Sunday, please tune in to Fox. They'll be promoting the Detroit Grand Prix. So it really is translating into stronger ticket sales out of state, out of country, ticket sales and new dollars into our local economy. Be prepared for those of you planning to come down race weekend, I would encourage you to download our app. It will certainly help with pedestrian and vehicle navigation and also, just to let you know what's going on, on track and around I've sent this QR code to each of you as well to share
Speaker 5
26:35that QR code takes you to a link to sign up for our traffic updates. I promise I don't blow up your inboxes. We send out a weekly update and then a quick reminder before the big project starts to take place, but we're almost finished. So one last thing before I conclude, we talk about the economic impact of major events, and there's something. Siemens is a great partner of ours, and they have a global convention that they've always hosted in Las Vegas. 5000 people come up, come from largely outside of North America for this convention, and they really enjoy the Detroit Grand Prix. So they decided last year to move their convention to Detroit the week following and utilize the Grand Prix as kind of the welcome event. I point that out because these are 5000 they have 5000 guests coming all from outside the state of Michigan, and they're loading in again, using Sunday as the welcome party. When you talk about economic impact, those are the things we want to see, right? We're showcasing Detroit. We're showcasing what we can do and all that we have to offer. So for Siemens to move this year is really a big deal. They've signed a five year contract. So I just want to share, you know, those are the things you won't necessarily see come out in an economic impact study, but it's a worthwhile story to share. So
Unknown Speaker
27:53happy to take any questions.
Speaker 1
27:55All right, thank you so much, Lady for the presentation. And the clerk would note, member durho. Member Pro Tem Tate. Member Santiago Romero, you already here, right? There are all present, and we'll turn it over to questions, starting with council member durho,
Speaker 6
28:09thank you, and good morning now more so just questions, but just want to give kudos or kudos is due. I think you guys do an amazing job, particularly you with the Grand Prix every year, but the entire team to see how it has just transformed as it has come downtown, a very exciting time as well. And I know one of the components that I like about it is the outreach as well into the community. I know you're not going to get into the announcement for Boys and Girls Club. Had an opportunity to talk to Sean about it. But can we talk about, like, going forward? I know when we talk about the draft, when we talk about some of these big events that come down here, we're always wonder what's going to be the lasting impression outside of the footprint? Can we talk about just, you know, what is being done thus far, and what we can expect, how this footprint, or I'm sorry, this lasting impression, continues to grow from your team.
Speaker 5
29:05So we try to and thank you for your comments. We try to be very intentional in building strategic relationships with neighborhood based organizations. Detroit youth boxing gym, we donated a race engine, a much older one for proprietary reasons, right? But then we're teaching kids how to turn wrenches on this race engine. We're doing that with Detroit youth boxing gym leading the program. Boys and Girls Clubs are leading a lot of our programs. We're doing that because, firstly, they're the connection to the community, but in our absence, right? Because we're not on the ground year round, we know that these these programs can continue on. We didn't want to stand anything up that was just independently, the Chevrolet, Detroit Grand Prix presented by layer and I think, to the topic of sustainable programming, that's really the key to it. But in the defense of other major events, especially stick and ball sports, Temple events, as we call them, right like the draft. It's hard when you're you're in and then you're out, because you don't always know those relationships. We're here on a continuous basis, so I feel like we have somewhat a leg up to that extent. But I do think it's important that you work through community organizations, to touch the community and not try to hold that close to your best
Speaker 6
30:21Hugh. And just to follow up, I would say again, those public private partnerships are instrumental and continue to push our city forward, but also our community for I did want to thank you again, personally from conversations we had about just the interest of getting more black and brown drivers and getting them engaged started at an early age through a lot of these groups and community programs that exist, and so I wanted to thank you personally for that as well. Lady, thank you. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
30:50Any additional questions or comments,
Speaker 1
30:53okay, if not, thank you so much. Lady, we appreciate you and all that you and the team are doing, and we're looking forward to another successful and exciting year for the Detroit Grand Prix. Amen. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for being here. Okay, alright, we are also going to cut off our public comment for this morning, and we will now turn it over to a our bell out annual update. Those who are with us can please join us.
Unknown Speaker
31:28Public Comment man will Be after Our presentation. I
Unknown Speaker
33:26somebody online, he's here.
Speaker 1
33:37Okay, do we have copies of the verb? And let's just pass those out overseas that way.
Unknown Speaker
33:55Never underestimate technology to
Speaker 7
33:59be complicated, so I always have a paper backup. I did email a copy of the presentation as well. You should be getting a paper copy. So I apologize for any technical difficulties on our behalf, but I did want to thank you for inviting us to talk about Belle Isle, especially the year in review of 2024, significant changes, significant improvements, and just a ton of stuff going on at Belle on the last year, a lot of things that we have been able to celebrate and a lot of things that we have not celebrated. So I wanted to 
talk about a little bit about number one, the Belle Isle Advisory Committee, going to your slide two. First off, this has been the entire year with Megan Elliot as the president of the Belle Isle Conservancy. So it's been a wonderful transition with her, and I appreciate her partnership. I appreciate her insight and her connections with the community. She has since taken over the role of the chair of the Belle Isle Advisory Committee. And so, again, just stellar leader, wonderful person. And again, a great partner. We got several new members of the Belle Isle conservative or, excuse me, of the Belle Isle Advisory Committee. Some of these members are here, and I want to recognize their hard work. I want to recognize the fact that they're there, engaging with the community, letting us know their thoughts, letting us know what they hear from the community, and helping us to improve what we do every day on Belle Isle. I want to encourage the public, and I want to encourage everyone to please join us for the remaining meetings that we have, they're listed on the slide. I will make sure that I say we always want folks to come in person. It's a great opportunity to connect with you both before and after the meeting, but you are welcome at all times to join us as we make them all hybrid meetings. So please come out. Let us know what you think. Let us answer your questions
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talk about a little bit about number one, the Belle Isle Advisory Committee, going to your slide two. First off, this has been the entire year with Megan Elliot as the president of the Belle Isle Conservancy. So it's been a wonderful transition with her, and I appreciate her partnership. I appreciate her insight and her connections with the community. She has since taken over the role of the chair of the Belle Isle Advisory Committee. And so, again, just stellar leader, wonderful person. And again, a great partner. We got several new members of the Belle Isle conservative or, excuse me, of the Belle Isle Advisory Committee. Some of these members are here, and I want to recognize their hard work. I want to recognize the fact that they're there, engaging with the community, letting us know their thoughts, letting us know what they hear from the community, and helping us to improve what we do every day on Belle Isle. I want to encourage the public, and I want to encourage everyone to please join us for the remaining meetings that we have, they're listed on the slide. I will make sure that I say we always want folks to come in person. It's a great opportunity to connect with you both before and after the meeting, but you are welcome at all times to join us as we make them all hybrid meetings. So please come out. Let us know what you think. Let us answer your questions Unknown Speaker
36:31as we know. Belle Isle is a partnership.
Speaker 7
36:35We 
can't operate Belle Isle without the city of Detroit. We can't operate Belle Isle without our police agencies, the Detroit Police, the Michigan State Police, our DNR Conservation Officers, do an excellent job of making sure that the public is safe on Belle Isle. Our MDOT partners that help us not only take care of their responsibility, which is the roads on Belle Isle, but consistently coordinate with us to add parking in places that we need. Parking, consistently help us with maintaining sidewalks and making sure that access for all to Belle Isle is not only available, but convenient. I'll point out to some of the improvements that they've instituted in the last year, a $2.2 million project in resurfacing the roadways, improving the bike lanes, adding a two way bike lane, and adding some delineators to make it a little bit safer for folks to come on to Belle Isle. And then lastly, the Belle Isle Conservancy. The Belle Isle Conservancy has been a great partner, both with running the aquarium, helping us with community engagement, and today was the first day that I was able to turn keys over to Megan and her team to join us at our offices at Belle Isle, at our headquarters building. So it's an exciting day for all of us. And to that point, our park staff is working hard every day. We're fully staffed this year, save one position that we're working on right now. Our accounting assistant is new. Our general office assistant has been with us quite some time. Has been promoted to a lead we have nine park rangers, two lead Rangers, and our horticulturalist team that works with us. We have 27 state workers that are working with us in the summer capacity, and we jointly fund that volunteer position with the Belle Isle Conservancy.
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can't operate Belle Isle without the city of Detroit. We can't operate Belle Isle without our police agencies, the Detroit Police, the Michigan State Police, our DNR Conservation Officers, do an excellent job of making sure that the public is safe on Belle Isle. Our MDOT partners that help us not only take care of their responsibility, which is the roads on Belle Isle, but consistently coordinate with us to add parking in places that we need. Parking, consistently help us with maintaining sidewalks and making sure that access for all to Belle Isle is not only available, but convenient. I'll point out to some of the improvements that they've instituted in the last year, a $2.2 million project in resurfacing the roadways, improving the bike lanes, adding a two way bike lane, and adding some delineators to make it a little bit safer for folks to come on to Belle Isle. And then lastly, the Belle Isle Conservancy. The Belle Isle Conservancy has been a great partner, both with running the aquarium, helping us with community engagement, and today was the first day that I was able to turn keys over to Megan and her team to join us at our offices at Belle Isle, at our headquarters building. So it's an exciting day for all of us. And to that point, our park staff is working hard every day. We're fully staffed this year, save one position that we're working on right now. Our accounting assistant is new. Our general office assistant has been with us quite some time. Has been promoted to a lead we have nine park rangers, two lead Rangers, and our horticulturalist team that works with us. We have 27 state workers that are working with us in the summer capacity, and we jointly fund that volunteer position with the Belle Isle Conservancy. Unknown Speaker
38:41When I mentioned earlier
Speaker 7
38:44the one vacancy we have, and I'm sorry if I struggle a little bit with this, but unfortunately, I do have to say that Mr. Cares Floyd passed away this past December. He was our park manager for most the entire time that Belle Isle has been run for the state, 39 years of experience with the Michigan DNR. I've known him my entire I've known him my entire 30 years with the Parks and Recreation division, not just as a colleague, but as a friend. When I first started my career, I knew Karis, I got the opportunity to work 
with him doing training, and did not think someday that we'd be working together again. He's had significant health issues the last year, and unfortunately passed away in December. So certainly a change that we all have struggled with, and we will never be able to replace him. As I said, he's been out for over a year now, and I've really, selfishly not moved forward with posting the job and replacing Charis. I just it, just, I can't do it. But unfortunately,
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with him doing training, and did not think someday that we'd be working together again. He's had significant health issues the last year, and unfortunately passed away in December. So certainly a change that we all have struggled with, and we will never be able to replace him. As I said, he's been out for over a year now, and I've really, selfishly not moved forward with posting the job and replacing Charis. I just it, just, I can't do it. But unfortunately, Unknown Speaker
40:05in December, we were
Speaker 7
40:10so his his position has been posted as of yesterday. So I'd like to encourage folks to explore that opportunity. But anybody that that applies for the job. Needs to know that they have some pretty big shoes to fill in his absence and and I'm sorry for for sounding bad about you know, whatever, I'm having our time with that, but we do have several job opportunities every year, starting with our summer team, like I said, we've we filled those positions at Belle Isle. We fill those positions at Milliken State Park. Any current and permanent job opportunities will be listed on the website. On the slide,
Unknown Speaker
40:56government jobs.com
Speaker 7
40:58that's 
where you'll find. Any current vacancies, any current opportunities that appear both at Belle Isle and in the entire DNR. But I did want to highlight one program of success when it comes to employment. So I believe previously, we've talked about our Summer Youth Employment Program and how the program was created to engage young adults, to give young people an opportunity where they can with a community based group, join our team, learn what working in parks and recreation was all about. Get to know Belle Isle a little bit better, get to know the state park system a little bit better and be mentored by some of our team. This past year, we added secondary six week job shadowing program to that. It's called leaf which is leading environmental apprentices into the future. We developed the program so that people would have the opportunity to have real job experience, one on one with the park staff. It's great to come out as a group. It's great to do a service project. We love the youth groups that do that, and we wanted to give folks another step in that process. So since that implementation, one of our permanent park rangers at Belle Isle is a graduate of the youth employment program. Two of my summer employees at Millikan State Park are three summer employees at Belle Isle, and the outdoor adventure Center has six employees. So really excited about the first year of that program. We're really excited about continuing that they don't just get the experience of being a park ranger and learning how to fix things and learning how to take care of the lawn and learning how to greet visitors, but they got first hand experience with our scientists at the conservatory learning horticultural techniques. They got interpretation experience with the outdoor adventure center staff. And so I think it's a really great program. And I just wanted to highlight that my last couple of slides are just numbers, so I don't want to talk too long about it, but currently we estimate our visitors to be over 5.3 million for 2024 and although that looks like a step down from the year before, it didn't feel like it. We were busy. We were always busy. We were consistently doing our best to keep up with the flow of folks coming in and giving 
people better opportunities to get onto the island. You'll see some of the numbers for some of our partners, including the Belle Isle aquarium. The Conservatory is now reopened. We were only open for one month in 2024 we reopened in December 4. We had almost 20,000 visitors in that one month. So I think everybody missed their Conservatory, and I'm excited that it's back open. Our other partners, the Dawson and the Belle Isle Nature Center, also saw increases of significance. So people are coming to Belle Isle. They're enjoying what we have, and it's a great thing to see. My last slide is about the Belle Isle boathouse, which I'm sure lots of folks are going to have questions about. As you know, we asked for development proposals to not only redevelop the boathouse, but also to reimagine it, make it a public space on the island. And so we reviewed those proposals, and we selected one that we thought was not only exactly what we asked for, but had the realistic ability to to work, to be possible. So as of right now, we are in the legal step, which is a little bit above my knowledge, but we're meeting with city legal officials and state legal officials, because obviously the development company is going to need a lease of a length that is beyond what the DNR has in their initial timeframe left. So the idea would be to try to figure out what works for the city and for the state and that the developer can continue. So with that, I'm going to step away and introduce Lieutenant Cisco for the legal review. You
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where you'll find. Any current vacancies, any current opportunities that appear both at Belle Isle and in the entire DNR. But I did want to highlight one program of success when it comes to employment. So I believe previously, we've talked about our Summer Youth Employment Program and how the program was created to engage young adults, to give young people an opportunity where they can with a community based group, join our team, learn what working in parks and recreation was all about. Get to know Belle Isle a little bit better, get to know the state park system a little bit better and be mentored by some of our team. This past year, we added secondary six week job shadowing program to that. It's called leaf which is leading environmental apprentices into the future. We developed the program so that people would have the opportunity to have real job experience, one on one with the park staff. It's great to come out as a group. It's great to do a service project. We love the youth groups that do that, and we wanted to give folks another step in that process. So since that implementation, one of our permanent park rangers at Belle Isle is a graduate of the youth employment program. Two of my summer employees at Millikan State Park are three summer employees at Belle Isle, and the outdoor adventure Center has six employees. So really excited about the first year of that program. We're really excited about continuing that they don't just get the experience of being a park ranger and learning how to fix things and learning how to take care of the lawn and learning how to greet visitors, but they got first hand experience with our scientists at the conservatory learning horticultural techniques. They got interpretation experience with the outdoor adventure center staff. And so I think it's a really great program. And I just wanted to highlight that my last couple of slides are just numbers, so I don't want to talk too long about it, but currently we estimate our visitors to be over 5.3 million for 2024 and although that looks like a step down from the year before, it didn't feel like it. We were busy. We were always busy. We were consistently doing our best to keep up with the flow of folks coming in and giving 
+1
people better opportunities to get onto the island. You'll see some of the numbers for some of our partners, including the Belle Isle aquarium. The Conservatory is now reopened. We were only open for one month in 2024 we reopened in December 4. We had almost 20,000 visitors in that one month. So I think everybody missed their Conservatory, and I'm excited that it's back open. Our other partners, the Dawson and the Belle Isle Nature Center, also saw increases of significance. So people are coming to Belle Isle. They're enjoying what we have, and it's a great thing to see. My last slide is about the Belle Isle boathouse, which I'm sure lots of folks are going to have questions about. As you know, we asked for development proposals to not only redevelop the boathouse, but also to reimagine it, make it a public space on the island. And so we reviewed those proposals, and we selected one that we thought was not only exactly what we asked for, but had the realistic ability to to work, to be possible. So as of right now, we are in the legal step, which is a little bit above my knowledge, but we're meeting with city legal officials and state legal officials, because obviously the development company is going to need a lease of a length that is beyond what the DNR has in their initial timeframe left. So the idea would be to try to figure out what works for the city and for the state and that the developer can continue. So with that, I'm going to step away and introduce Lieutenant Cisco for the legal review. You Unknown Speaker
45:43thank you Tom, she's present. Hope to do anything.
Speaker 8
45:47Good 
morning, Madam President and city council. Thank you for having us today. I'm Todd siskiy, Lieutenant for law division. Proud to lead, to lead our law team. For Belle Isle, like to give you the stats for what we looked at for the year in review. If you look at this chart, you can see that the flow of it is we have more public contacts than we do arrest. So we contacted 15,548 people. And you know, we only issued 552, citations, and on the arrest side, it was 32 so it handled quite a few complaints. 381, so we do have a touch to a lot of people, and a lot of folks come up to our officers windows, ask questions, those sorts of things, and that's where the contacts come in that isn't cars that we stopped or that sort of thing. So as you can tell, we do have an impact on the public, but our contacts way exceed all the other things. Next slide, please. So when we talk about safety, the biggest issue that we do see recurring out there is the speed. And I know it's hard for folks, but 25 is the established speed limit around the entire island. It even starts at the bridge. We have worked with parks. They've done a great job putting a lot of these enforcement signs up that will clock your speed to give people a heads up. They're not cheap by any means, but we've tried to focus that to slow folks down, because with so many people in the visitorship, we want everybody to be safe out there. So we've tasked our training staff to actually teach more of our officers radar and LIDAR use. So in this past year, we've equipped and outfitted several other officers with these devices and the proper training to enforce that speed limit out there. So
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morning, Madam President and city council. Thank you for having us today. I'm Todd siskiy, Lieutenant for law division. Proud to lead, to lead our law team. For Belle Isle, like to give you the stats for what we looked at for the year in review. If you look at this chart, you can see that the flow of it is we have more public contacts than we do arrest. So we contacted 15,548 people. And you know, we only issued 552, citations, and on the arrest side, it was 32 so it handled quite a few complaints. 381, so we do have a touch to a lot of people, and a lot of folks come up to our officers windows, ask questions, those sorts of things, and that's where the contacts come in that isn't cars that we stopped or that sort of thing. So as you can tell, we do have an impact on the public, but our contacts way exceed all the other things. Next slide, please. So when we talk about safety, the biggest issue that we do see recurring out there is the speed. And I know it's hard for folks, but 25 is the established speed limit around the entire island. It even starts at the bridge. We have worked with parks. They've done a great job putting a lot of these enforcement signs up that will clock your speed to give people a heads up. They're not cheap by any means, but we've tried to focus that to slow folks down, because with so many people in the visitorship, we want everybody to be safe out there. So we've tasked our training staff to actually teach more of our officers radar and LIDAR use. So in this past year, we've equipped and outfitted several other officers with these devices and the proper training to enforce that speed limit out there. So Unknown Speaker
47:51next slide please.
Speaker 8
47:55We 
do continue our community policing engagements where we can find the we do. We do a lot Metro you days, one of our favorite events that we do every year with that deep screw long standing, it's just a really great program. We're glad to interact with the children out there in any kind of capacity that we can as Parks has put different things together through the years with the healthy kids. We've also tried to engage in those as well. Next slide, please. Belle Isle Park has a harvest festival every year. It stopped during COVID and it came back, and it's a great Fall Fest. And we try and implement into that to help out, to do things, and that's another great outreach opportunity we have. And then one last one, I think again, next slide is our continued stuff and truck. This helps support the sergeant Santa program for Detroit Police Department. We aren't in partnership with Chief medicine back when he was the deputy chief, and we're very proud to keep running that strong. And all the toys that are collected through our outdoor adventure center, through the park bins, where we put our bins 
out, all toys go to that program, and they're supported locally with the children Detroit. And it's a, it's a, it's a thing that's really near and dear to our hearts. I can't say enough about that program. I appreciate DPD and chief medicine for linking us together with that one last thing, and I know Tom had brought this up, but we work together to keep ll safe, and that isn't just us. We look for the partnership with DPD, and we also look with our co sponsors, Michigan State Police. One final thing I want to bring up from law division is this is this will be my last city council meeting, and I appreciate what I've been able to do. It's time for me to hand the reins over and our districts getting redistricted because of the size of it. So I want to introduce the Council today. Lieutenant Damon Owens, born and raised Detroit past Cass tech grant. So pleased to have him part of the team. He's always been around. We've had him at other city council meetings. He was a sergeant and just newly promoted, so I welcome him to this he's going to do a great job for all of us to help keep the citizens safe on Belle Isle, thank You.
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do continue our community policing engagements where we can find the we do. We do a lot Metro you days, one of our favorite events that we do every year with that deep screw long standing, it's just a really great program. We're glad to interact with the children out there in any kind of capacity that we can as Parks has put different things together through the years with the healthy kids. We've also tried to engage in those as well. Next slide, please. Belle Isle Park has a harvest festival every year. It stopped during COVID and it came back, and it's a great Fall Fest. And we try and implement into that to help out, to do things, and that's another great outreach opportunity we have. And then one last one, I think again, next slide is our continued stuff and truck. This helps support the sergeant Santa program for Detroit Police Department. We aren't in partnership with Chief medicine back when he was the deputy chief, and we're very proud to keep running that strong. And all the toys that are collected through our outdoor adventure center, through the park bins, where we put our bins +1
out, all toys go to that program, and they're supported locally with the children Detroit. And it's a, it's a, it's a thing that's really near and dear to our hearts. I can't say enough about that program. I appreciate DPD and chief medicine for linking us together with that one last thing, and I know Tom had brought this up, but we work together to keep ll safe, and that isn't just us. We look for the partnership with DPD, and we also look with our co sponsors, Michigan State Police. One final thing I want to bring up from law division is this is this will be my last city council meeting, and I appreciate what I've been able to do. It's time for me to hand the reins over and our districts getting redistricted because of the size of it. So I want to introduce the Council today. Lieutenant Damon Owens, born and raised Detroit past Cass tech grant. So pleased to have him part of the team. He's always been around. We've had him at other city council meetings. He was a sergeant and just newly promoted, so I welcome him to this he's going to do a great job for all of us to help keep the citizens safe on Belle Isle, thank You. Unknown Speaker
50:23Turn it over to Amanda.
Speaker 9
50:41Hi, good morning. Amanda Treadwell, the urban area field planner for DNR, I'm happy to present our highlights for capital infrastructure investment in 2014 for 2024 we had a really big year last year, but first, I'll share an overview of the investment to date since 2014 for capital investment and all the operational expenditures. So since 2014 over
Unknown Speaker
51:11over 174 million, $121,000
Speaker 9
51:16has been invested in Belle Isle Park, and that's due, as Tom mentioned, to the partnerships that the DNR and Belle Isle conservancy have been leveraging to bring investment improvements to the park.
Speaker 9
51:40So 
the amount contributed to that from last year in 2024 was $33,588,000 again, that's operational and capital investment. So now focus on the capital investment portion of that. And last year, that number was $29,393,000 or $393,000 put into Belle Isle Park. So about 78% of that capital investment was from the American Recovery Relief Act, funding granted to Belle Isle park that came out of a proposal for change the DNR submitted to the state to address some of the really key infrastructure repairs needed at the park, and I'll go into that a little more detail. But this you can see here the funding that supplemented our annual 1.2 5 million in capital outlay for Belle Isle Park and park capital outlay. Money included funding for the iron belt trail to finish the Wilson loop that'll be done this August. Additionally, we received investment from MDOT in the roads and the refer resurfacing project that Tom mentioned. I
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the amount contributed to that from last year in 2024 was $33,588,000 again, that's operational and capital investment. So now focus on the capital investment portion of that. And last year, that number was $29,393,000 or $393,000 put into Belle Isle Park. So about 78% of that capital investment was from the American Recovery Relief Act, funding granted to Belle Isle park that came out of a proposal for change the DNR submitted to the state to address some of the really key infrastructure repairs needed at the park, and I'll go into that a little more detail. But this you can see here the funding that supplemented our annual 1.2 5 million in capital outlay for Belle Isle Park and park capital outlay. Money included funding for the iron belt trail to finish the Wilson loop that'll be done this August. Additionally, we received investment from MDOT in the roads and the refer resurfacing project that Tom mentioned. I Speaker 9
53:04so the proposal for change that was submitted to state legislature for fiscal year 24 was really to address critical deferred maintenance repairs needed in the park. Two of those priority projects include heating and cooling in the aquarium and conservatory. That is a $10 million project that will bring air conditioning and ventilation to the aquarium for the first time in 120 years. So that is a critical project that you investment will serve both aquarium and conservatory. We'll also be addressing drainage around the aquarium. Think the basement, the boiler room, where this $10 million investment is going, is below the lake Tacoma Water level. So we'll be doing a significant amount of site work around the building, as we look to and make that investment there
Unknown Speaker
54:05and then for the James Scott fountain,
Speaker 9
54:10the structural investigation found that the concrete joists and decking that holds up that basin need to be replaced. It's not structurally sound as it is, and so we will be making significant work to replace that entire basin. We'll be removing the marble around the outside, re pouring that deck in that basin, and replacing with new marble. So you'll start to see some barricades go up in the next couple of weeks, as contractors mobilize to start that work, and both projects, because their ARPA, will be done by December 2026
Speaker 9
54:57two of those, I'll just Go and try to speed up. The two projects are under, well, those are getting ready, and contractors are mobilizing on the ground. We're finishing up engineering plans for zoo removals and then also improvements to several shelters around the park, priority ones being shelter eight, shelter to a Woodside shelter and stone shelter. So really looking to use these funds to stabilize our historic structures and make the park experience more enjoyable for our visitors, the last project on the ARPA funded list is a park wide strategic development plan. This is a funding a 
half a million dollar study. That is a it's a large effort. We'll be collecting all of the plans and studies that have been completed over the last 10 years and presenting this to a public to encourage participation and conversation about where we're focusing our investment for the next 10 years, and Megan will talk a little bit more about that community engagement involved with that effort, next slide. So those are our plans for this most recent round of funding. We also received $12 million in ARPA funding to finish two large roof projects. Key to any historic deferred or any maintenance for historic structures is making sure the roofs are water tight and making sure they have good HVAC systems in place to ensure the structures are stabilized. So last December, we wrapped up our conservatory dome restoration ensure that building will be stabilized for the next 100 years. And then this June, we'll be finishing up the casino roof replacement, which is complete Re Roofing of the clay tiles, addressing the drainage from the gutters down into the basement as well. Both those projects included improvements for our visitors and improving ADA accessibility throughout both the facilities. I
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half a million dollar study. That is a it's a large effort. We'll be collecting all of the plans and studies that have been completed over the last 10 years and presenting this to a public to encourage participation and conversation about where we're focusing our investment for the next 10 years, and Megan will talk a little bit more about that community engagement involved with that effort, next slide. So those are our plans for this most recent round of funding. We also received $12 million in ARPA funding to finish two large roof projects. Key to any historic deferred or any maintenance for historic structures is making sure the roofs are water tight and making sure they have good HVAC systems in place to ensure the structures are stabilized. So last December, we wrapped up our conservatory dome restoration ensure that building will be stabilized for the next 100 years. And then this June, we'll be finishing up the casino roof replacement, which is complete Re Roofing of the clay tiles, addressing the drainage from the gutters down into the basement as well. Both those projects included improvements for our visitors and improving ADA accessibility throughout both the facilities. I Speaker 9
57:26uh, 
we're also continuing to coordinate with them.to improve the roads and trails around the park. This January, we wrapped up our multi mobility study, which really helped us to look to improve access to the park and then circulation around the park. And the results of that were a list of short and long term recommendations to be phased over the next 10 years. We're starting on some of those short term projects this year with a two way cycle track around the park, implementing way finding, looking to reverse traffic flow on Central Avenue, to improve circulation there. And then, long term, some of the items which require coordination with the city and our engineering team has been having a lot of conversations throughout that engineering process with city engineering about the intersection on Jefferson and Grand Boulevard, which is a key point of traffic congestion for folks going off the park. So improvements like that will be sequenced and allow for additional recommendations, like providing a traffic protected bike traffic lane across the bridge. But certainly, some of these have to be sequenced as we roll them out in the future. Additionally, the Wilson trail is being wrapped up. We're working on the Bike Ped trail around the perimeter of the park, and then also the two way cycle track, which will follow the roadway within the park. And we were able to coordinate that implementation of that project with MDOT as they rolled out their resurfacing project. And so we're partnering with them? Well, they're striping the two way cycle track on the asphalt they did. And then degenera will pick up the rest of the cycle track on the west end of the park,
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we're also continuing to coordinate with them.to improve the roads and trails around the park. This January, we wrapped up our multi mobility study, which really helped us to look to improve access to the park and then circulation around the park. And the results of that were a list of short and long term recommendations to be phased over the next 10 years. We're starting on some of those short term projects this year with a two way cycle track around the park, implementing way finding, looking to reverse traffic flow on Central Avenue, to improve circulation there. And then, long term, some of the items which require coordination with the city and our engineering team has been having a lot of conversations throughout that engineering process with city engineering about the intersection on Jefferson and Grand Boulevard, which is a key point of traffic congestion for folks going off the park. So improvements like that will be sequenced and allow for additional recommendations, like providing a traffic protected bike traffic lane across the bridge. But certainly, some of these have to be sequenced as we roll them out in the future. Additionally, the Wilson trail is being wrapped up. We're working on the Bike Ped trail around the perimeter of the park, and then also the two way cycle track, which will follow the roadway within the park. And we were able to coordinate that implementation of that project with MDOT as they rolled out their resurfacing project. And so we're partnering with them? Well, they're striping the two way cycle track on the asphalt they did. And then degenera will pick up the rest of the cycle track on the west end of the park, Unknown Speaker
59:31next slide. And
Speaker 9
59:35then, 
of course, the third main category of projects that we're always working on is the ecological restoration in the park Belle Isle has a lot of really unique key ecological communities on it, like the 200 Acre, let me use it flat woods, that was completed last December. That project worked to restore the hydraulic hydrology in the Flatwoods, and then continue to replant the native species in Bella Park. So seeds were collected from those flat woods and native areas and plantings. And we're continuing that work with the Wilson trail and natural shoreline vegetation along the south shore, and then you can see some at the beach area as well. Next slide, all right, but well, so we've got a lot of projects wrapping up, but still gearing up for new ones this year. Some of those include, again, the way finding installation that came out of the design package specific for Belle Isle in the multi mobility study, we're looking to improve our shelters and restrooms. There's a project that will be kicking off here in the next month at the oxbow bathroom, and we'll be installing a new shelter with solar panels there to power the shelter as well, and then putting a new HVAC at the athletic shelter and fire suppression system to provide opportunities for hype athletics to program that building year round. And then as well, working with the Nature Conservancy who's funded a grant for green infrastructure parking lot that will go in the zoo area. So the removals as part of that ARPA project will make way for this recommendation out of the mobility study, which is to put parking where it's needed in the park. And then, of course, we'll be using bio retention to ensure the storm water in the lot doesn't contribute to the city drainage fees in the park. Now,
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of course, the third main category of projects that we're always working on is the ecological restoration in the park Belle Isle has a lot of really unique key ecological communities on it, like the 200 Acre, let me use it flat woods, that was completed last December. That project worked to restore the hydraulic hydrology in the Flatwoods, and then continue to replant the native species in Bella Park. So seeds were collected from those flat woods and native areas and plantings. And we're continuing that work with the Wilson trail and natural shoreline vegetation along the south shore, and then you can see some at the beach area as well. Next slide, all right, but well, so we've got a lot of projects wrapping up, but still gearing up for new ones this year. Some of those include, again, the way finding installation that came out of the design package specific for Belle Isle in the multi mobility study, we're looking to improve our shelters and restrooms. There's a project that will be kicking off here in the next month at the oxbow bathroom, and we'll be installing a new shelter with solar panels there to power the shelter as well, and then putting a new HVAC at the athletic shelter and fire suppression system to provide opportunities for hype athletics to program that building year round. And then as well, working with the Nature Conservancy who's funded a grant for green infrastructure parking lot that will go in the zoo area. So the removals as part of that ARPA project will make way for this recommendation out of the mobility study, which is to put parking where it's needed in the park. And then, of course, we'll be using bio retention to ensure the storm water in the lot doesn't contribute to the city drainage fees in the park. Now, Unknown Speaker
01:01:54now I'd like to turn it over to Megan. Thank you. Thank you
Unknown Speaker
01:02:04through the chair or to the chair back.
Speaker 10
01:02:08It 
is an absolute joy to be back in front of this honorable body. Thank you so much for having me today. As Tom mentioned, I'm rounding out just about a year at the Belle Isle Conservancy. So I've been continuing to serve all the residents of the city of Detroit, just in a new function and new way. And it's been really, really exciting. As you can see, there's a lot going on. We can turn to the next slide, please. So a lot of folks don't know that the bell Isle conservancy actually operates the Belle Isle aquarium. So about half my team are Aquarius and marine biologists who know things like what garden eels eat. So that's, you know, just a beloved community asset. In 2024 we had just over 202,000 visitors. So every weekend that we're open, there's usually about 2000 folks queuing up in line to come through that space. And it's really been amazing to see. I do want to give a shout out to the arts, culture and entrepreneurship team under Rochelle Riley, she recognized what an amazing asset this is for the city of Detroit, and together we threw a birthday party for the 100 and 20th anniversary of the aquarium, which is significant because it's the oldest operating aquarium in the entire country. This year we have seen just over 78,000 visitors to date, which is a 75% increase from this time last year. So I think we're seeing more and more folks recognize the value of that space that again, is free to the public during the summer will be open Thursdays as well as the weekend. So from Memorial Day through Labor Day, we'll have those summer Thursdays. And as Amanda mentioned, there will be construction, so you'll see a fence going up. But that does not mean we are closed, and we're going to be doing a heavy amount of communications to make sure folks know that this asset is still open. All right, we can go to the next slide please. Our keep Belle Isle beautiful initiative is not just about cleaning up trash that gets into the park and then into the waterways, but also about creating future stewards of the island and, you know, cultivating that connection with the heart of the Great Lakes ecosystem. So in 2024 we had over 1200 volunteers that cleaned up over 6000 pounds of trash. And then, to date, we've done about half of that this year with only two cleanups under our belt for the summer season. So we're we're getting out there. We're helping people connect with the island and making it look more beautiful in the process.
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is an absolute joy to be back in front of this honorable body. Thank you so much for having me today. As Tom mentioned, I'm rounding out just about a year at the Belle Isle Conservancy. So I've been continuing to serve all the residents of the city of Detroit, just in a new function and new way. And it's been really, really exciting. As you can see, there's a lot going on. We can turn to the next slide, please. So a lot of folks don't know that the bell Isle conservancy actually operates the Belle Isle aquarium. So about half my team are Aquarius and marine biologists who know things like what garden eels eat. So that's, you know, just a beloved community asset. In 2024 we had just over 202,000 visitors. So every weekend that we're open, there's usually about 2000 folks queuing up in line to come through that space. And it's really been amazing to see. I do want to give a shout out to the arts, culture and entrepreneurship team under Rochelle Riley, she recognized what an amazing asset this is for the city of Detroit, and together we threw a birthday party for the 100 and 20th anniversary of the aquarium, which is significant because it's the oldest operating aquarium in the entire country. This year we have seen just over 78,000 visitors to date, which is a 75% increase from this time last year. So I think we're seeing more and more folks recognize the value of that space that again, is free to the public during the summer will be open Thursdays as well as the weekend. So from Memorial Day through Labor Day, we'll have those summer Thursdays. And as Amanda mentioned, there will be construction, so you'll see a fence going up. But that does not mean we are closed, and we're going to be doing a heavy amount of communications to make sure folks know that this asset is still open. All right, we can go to the next slide please. Our keep Belle Isle beautiful initiative is not just about cleaning up trash that gets into the park and then into the waterways, but also about creating future stewards of the island and, you know, cultivating that connection with the heart of the Great Lakes ecosystem. So in 2024 we had over 1200 volunteers that cleaned up over 6000 pounds of trash. And then, to date, we've done about half of that this year with only two cleanups under our belt for the summer season. So we're we're getting out there. We're helping people connect with the island and making it look more beautiful in the process. Unknown Speaker
01:04:45Next slide, please
Speaker 10
01:04:50our island wide volunteer program. This is a really beautiful kind of social community aspect of the work that we do. We find a lot of folks, particularly senior citizens, that want a way to connect with other residents on the island, and being volunteers allows them to do that, and also connects them with all the other, you know, kind of age groups on the island in really meaningful ways. So we had 1345 volunteers in 2024 which was over 10,000 hours served. And then, to date, in 2025 we've had 979 volunteers. You know, the volunteers were really excited to get back into the conservatory after it reopened. And we continue to kind of get folks signing up every day. Of those over 1000 volunteers, we have about 100 that are so consistent every single week that people think that they're employees on the island. So we have a really committed core, and then a bunch of additional folks that come out. So we just can't thank those volunteers enough. All right, next slide. This is a fun one. So we have the Belle Isle gift shop that we run, and 100% of the proceeds go back to the 
island. And currently our shop features nine Detroit based businesses, and we're partnering on new products with four Detroit artists that are coming soon. So we're always looking for more partnerships in that regard. So please, if you have vendors, artists, folks and in the community that are looking to kind of sell their wares, we're always excited about that, if it if it's a Detroit based business, and especially if there's kind of a sustainable lens for how they make whatever those goods might be, because that's kind of our the second part of our mission too. All right, we can go to the next slide. This is a fun one, partnerships with the city of Detroit. So although, you know, we do everything in partnership with mdnr and the city. We've we've had some special partnerships across the last year that I just wanted to highlight. So I already called out the ACE group and all the work that they've done to lift up the aquarium, and we'll continue to partner with them on different initiatives. We've also partnered with your offices and the Department of neighborhoods on community engagement, which I'll talk a little bit more about soon. We have been having a regular cadence of meetings with the Office of mobility and innovation. They've facilitated two different robots on the island, the bee bot, which does beach cleanups, and the pixie drone, which is neither small like a pixie nor a drone in the sky. It's basically a little floating boat that gets plastics out of the waterways. That's been a fun educational component, especially for kids, to see how those technologies work and understand how they can engage with them and connect with the park in a kind of a new and exciting way. The Department of Public Works, we've had meetings with their team about both traffic flow on Jefferson and kind of long term rethinking of that intersection out of the results of the multimodal mobility study. So they've been great partners, and continue to be. And we can look at kind of future grant opportunities to figure out that intersection and those improvements. B seed has been a great partner too, in the permitting process for things that the state doesn't permit that the city does. And then finally, the communications team, we've done a lot of cross postings to get folks out the day that the giant slide reopened, and all of those things. And that's a really fun and engaging audience that we appreciate those partnerships with the comms team. All right, so next slide is really talking about what is on the horizon. So out of the multimodal mobility study, we found that 61% of folks their primary destination on the island is to come to the aquarium and Conservatory, and then the second destination is the beach. I think that out of the process of that study and just knowing kind of the use patterns on the island you're probably familiar with, you know, everyone drives to the island. They go to the spot they intend to go to. They'll they'll get out of their car, go to that place, get back in their car and leave the island. We want to create some opportunities to actually make the space more usable and accessible for everyone in between those moments. So if you come to start your day at the Conservatory, you could actually walk over to the gardens, walk along the canals. You could even walk to the beach. It's relatively close, but I think in all of our mental maps, it feels really far away. So in partnership with the state, we've undertaken a design effort to figure out how to create a public square that basically is the kind of central connection point. So you'll see on your on the map here, basically the heart of what we're just calling the Belle Isle Commons. We have conceptual design work that's underway right now and wrapping up this month. And then the point of doing that exercise is then to be able to turn right back around and bring it to the public and say, kind of, what do you think about this idea? So originating out of the multimodal mobility study, this is kind of the next iteration of that work to make the island feel more connected and accessible.
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island. And currently our shop features nine Detroit based businesses, and we're partnering on new products with four Detroit artists that are coming soon. So we're always looking for more partnerships in that regard. So please, if you have vendors, artists, folks and in the community that are looking to kind of sell their wares, we're always excited about that, if it if it's a Detroit based business, and especially if there's kind of a sustainable lens for how they make whatever those goods might be, because that's kind of our the second part of our mission too. All right, we can go to the next slide. This is a fun one, partnerships with the city of Detroit. So although, you know, we do everything in partnership with mdnr and the city. We've we've had some special partnerships across the last year that I just wanted to highlight. So I already called out the ACE group and all the work that they've done to lift up the aquarium, and we'll continue to partner with them on different initiatives. We've also partnered with your offices and the Department of neighborhoods on community engagement, which I'll talk a little bit more about soon. We have been having a regular cadence of meetings with the Office of mobility and innovation. They've facilitated two different robots on the island, the bee bot, which does beach cleanups, and the pixie drone, which is neither small like a pixie nor a drone in the sky. It's basically a little floating boat that gets plastics out of the waterways. That's been a fun educational component, especially for kids, to see how those technologies work and understand how they can engage with them and connect with the park in a kind of a new and exciting way. The Department of Public Works, we've had meetings with their team about both traffic flow on Jefferson and kind of long term rethinking of that intersection out of the results of the multimodal mobility study. So they've been great partners, and continue to be. And we can look at kind of future grant opportunities to figure out that intersection and those improvements. B seed has been a great partner too, in the permitting process for things that the state doesn't permit that the city does. And then finally, the communications team, we've done a lot of cross postings to get folks out the day that the giant slide reopened, and all of those things. And that's a really fun and engaging audience that we appreciate those partnerships with the comms team. All right, so next slide is really talking about what is on the horizon. So out of the multimodal mobility study, we found that 61% of folks their primary destination on the island is to come to the aquarium and Conservatory, and then the second destination is the beach. I think that out of the process of that study and just knowing kind of the use patterns on the island you're probably familiar with, you know, everyone drives to the island. They go to the spot they intend to go to. They'll they'll get out of their car, go to that place, get back in their car and leave the island. We want to create some opportunities to actually make the space more usable and accessible for everyone in between those moments. So if you come to start your day at the Conservatory, you could actually walk over to the gardens, walk along the canals. You could even walk to the beach. It's relatively close, but I think in all of our mental maps, it feels really far away. So in partnership with the state, we've undertaken a design effort to figure out how to create a public square that basically is the kind of central connection point. So you'll see on your on the map here, basically the heart of what we're just calling the Belle Isle Commons. We have conceptual design work that's underway right now and wrapping up this month. And then the point of doing that exercise is then to be able to turn right back around and bring it to the public and say, kind of, what do you think about this idea? So originating out of the multimodal mobility study, this is kind of the next iteration of that work to make the island feel more connected and accessible. Unknown Speaker
01:10:05If we can go to the next slide,
Speaker 10
01:10:09that 
engagement nestles within a broader strategy that Amanda alluded to, which is the bell Isle strategic improvement plan. So really what this looks like is kind of assessing a lot of the park buildings that we've heard from residents they want to see improved or reopened, and then identifying priorities among residents. So it's kind of like a participatory budgeting exercise. You know, we have all these assets that are amazing. What is the next thing we need to focus on? And how should we line up and coalesce behind? You know, a very large set of things, and figure out those priorities together. So we will be running community engagement across the summer and then continuing that planning process, which will wrap in 2026 because, as Amanda mentioned, it's ARPA funded, which gets me to my next slide. Well, actually, this is just a title. It says Belle Isle in the neighborhoods. But the point being that we don't want to rely on folks coming out to the island to hear input from everyone. We want to come out to where you are, and especially for the folks that aren't coming out to the island. We need to hear from you about why. So we're, we're going to be launching an initiative that you can see on this map, we anticipate will touch 1000s of residents through setting up, tabling at some major events, and then also coming to every kind of scale of of engagement opportunity. So this is our strategy for for June, July and August, and you'll see kind of each of the the events listed beneath, but the ask, really, that we have for you all, is just put us on your calendars where you know we're we're ready to to hear from folks and want to hear what their priorities are for the island. And we've built up a big team that consists of our staff at the Belle Isle Conservancy, the mdnr team, our consultant teams, working with us on the plan, as well as all those really committed volunteers that we work with every day. And so we really want to just be in every corner of the city hearing from folks. And so if you could please share that message as broadly as possible, we would very much appreciate it.
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engagement nestles within a broader strategy that Amanda alluded to, which is the bell Isle strategic improvement plan. So really what this looks like is kind of assessing a lot of the park buildings that we've heard from residents they want to see improved or reopened, and then identifying priorities among residents. So it's kind of like a participatory budgeting exercise. You know, we have all these assets that are amazing. What is the next thing we need to focus on? And how should we line up and coalesce behind? You know, a very large set of things, and figure out those priorities together. So we will be running community engagement across the summer and then continuing that planning process, which will wrap in 2026 because, as Amanda mentioned, it's ARPA funded, which gets me to my next slide. Well, actually, this is just a title. It says Belle Isle in the neighborhoods. But the point being that we don't want to rely on folks coming out to the island to hear input from everyone. We want to come out to where you are, and especially for the folks that aren't coming out to the island. We need to hear from you about why. So we're, we're going to be launching an initiative that you can see on this map, we anticipate will touch 1000s of residents through setting up, tabling at some major events, and then also coming to every kind of scale of of engagement opportunity. So this is our strategy for for June, July and August, and you'll see kind of each of the the events listed beneath, but the ask, really, that we have for you all, is just put us on your calendars where you know we're we're ready to to hear from folks and want to hear what their priorities are for the island. And we've built up a big team that consists of our staff at the Belle Isle Conservancy, the mdnr team, our consultant teams, working with us on the plan, as well as all those really committed volunteers that we work with every day. And so we really want to just be in every corner of the city hearing from folks. And so if you could please share that message as broadly as possible, we would very much appreciate it. Unknown Speaker
01:12:23That's what that the ask is.
Speaker 10
01:12:27And with that, I believe that wraps our presentation, so I'll sit back down unless there are further questions. Okay,
Speaker 1
01:12:33thank you so much for the presentation, to everyone who presented. Thank you all for a very thorough presentation, and we will open it up to questions from colleagues, comments from colleagues. I see council member Calloway. We'll start with you.
Speaker 11
01:12:46Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and good morning everyone. So I'll invite you to district two to our virtual call on June the 16th. I can give you my office number, and we can give you that webinar contact information is at 530 Monday, the 16th of June, and the number is two to 445, 35 and if that is a good time for you, I'll make sure that I put it in my monthly newsletter and alert all the residents in district two. So if that's agreeable with your schedule, just let us know today. And thank you so much. I have a few questions, do you have blue recycle bins? First of all, congratulations, Lieutenant, on your promotion. Congratulations and thank you for your service. Do we have blue recycle bins on the island?
Unknown Speaker
01:13:39Because I see 6000 pounds of trash,
Speaker 7
01:13:42yes, so that's actually something we're working on. Right now. We have a 10 yard recycled dumpster at the park, and so park staff have been sort of doing a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to recycling. And so some of the things you're going to see with those shelter improvements and with those restroom improvements is better identified recycling opportunities,
Speaker 11
01:14:04yeah, so you are considering putting blue cycle recycle bins out for folks who visit, so the trash is just not everywhere, and then it's kind of separated out, and that'll make your job and the workers jobs easier, correct? Okay, thank you so much for that. I'm excited about the employment program for the young adults, the six week program. Are there Detroiters involved in a program that we hire? Any?
Speaker 7
01:14:29Yes, actually, many, almost all of the employees that were hired out of that program are Detroiters. We partnered with three different Detroit agencies for the leaf program, and about seven different with the Summer Youth Employment Program. So they really are city focused groups. That's
Speaker 11
01:14:51wonderful. Thank you. With the historic boathouse built in 1902 but the Detroit Boat Club was founded in 1839 did any of the $23 million that you got in arpa? Did that come from the state? Was that a direct funding from the state through arpa?
Speaker 7
01:15:09Yeah, the the ARPA dollars were allocated to Belle Isle directly from from the state program? Yes,
Speaker 11
01:15:16so did any of the $23 million because I didn't see it in here get devoted to the restoration and preservation of the Detroit historic Detroit boat house.
Speaker 7
01:15:27No, none of the money was able to be allocated to that. I believe one of the issues that we ran into is you had to have a plan absolutely submitted by the end of last year where it included design, having a contractor on site, so that money didn't however, that significant investment would free up significant amount of money to be able to operate in a partnership with that group. Now I don't know what that number looks like, and I don't know what the ask is yet. We're trying to get to whether this is possible to happen before we look into that. But there are certainly opportunities for the state to partner. We've explored things like filling in the two pools that were part of that program, which really don't fit with the proposal that was sent to us,
Speaker 11
01:16:20all right, and then thank you for that, and then for the to the casino and the boathouse. Do they have state and national historic designation? I
Speaker 9
01:16:45here, not a long answer, but yes, Belle Isle Park is on the National Historic list of registered Historic Places. So okay, it's a Island wide designation. There's over 55 contributing resources in Belle Isle, as you all know from the wonderful historic structures and monuments around
Speaker 11
01:17:05the park. Okay, excuse me, this is going to be for you again through the chair. So the the structures, the physical structures, are not necessarily historic. If they don't have that plaque. Is it just for the entire island, or I'm just talking about for funding purposes. Yeah, through the national and the state historic.
Speaker 9
01:17:24Yeah, it is unique that, like, each structure doesn't have its own specific designation. It's Island wide, so it encompasses the buildings and the landscape between the buildings. So it's, it's very comprehensive, and then when we're making any modifications to the island, we are considering not just the structures themselves, but the landscape and sight lines and views from the park.
Unknown Speaker
01:17:51You might
Speaker 11
01:17:53want to stay through the chair the James Scott fountain. I remember just reading a couple few years ago that it had received a lot of funding for restoration. So is this another round of funding to to make some repairs to the scout funds, because they've been closed not operational for years, so when it started operating, I was excited. Now, is it going to be not operational for a period of time? So these further repairs can be made
Speaker 7
01:18:18correct? So the initial funding that we received and was implemented were mechanical improvements in the operating zone. So new electrical that went into the fountain, new controls, new pump controls and that kind of stuff. We didn't know we were going to get the additional money to be able to support the concerns that came out of a study we did where that lower bowl is not structurally sound. And so if you think about we're putting 10s of 1000s of gallons of water in that bowl, and those beams and those supports underneath have basically no ground underneath them, so all that pressure is on that very old concrete. And again, not something that's convenient, and it's unfortunate that we have to close it while we operate that. But that entire lower bowl will be removed, all that will be filled in because
Speaker 11
01:19:13through the chair. Because I remember watching the documentary with the guy underneath the fountain. He took us through the entire under workings of that fountain. So I thought that happened repaired. Okay. Um, thank you so much for that. And what about the flooding? Because I visit Bell quite often. What about the flooding as you're going toward the aquarium? Lots of flooding. I thought a lot. I thought last summer I saw a lot of fish, dead fish along that pathway, um, because I don't know what happened with the water rescinding or coming back. I don't know. I can't even describe what I saw, and it was just a lot of dead fish. As I was traveling on my bike going to the aquarium, I had to get off my bike because there was so much flooding that I had to walk around all the flooding because I couldn't ride my bike through all that water back over there. I don't know what the street now. I'm glad we're getting signage, because I don't know what street I was on. I was just heading toward the aquarium.
Speaker 7
01:20:09Well, some of the flooding that you may have seen in the roadways, and some of the stuff in I'm trying to imagine the area that you're describing, maybe the strand, there were some MDOT improvements on that roadway. Whenever they do that, you'll see that they put a silt protective barrier on top of the drains from the roadways, and so that doesn't filter as fast as it would if it were not normal. They have to do that so that, obviously, the drains don't get filled with soils from when they're tearing up the road they're putting in the new roadway back down. So yeah, certainly if we get a significant rain event like that, there are going to be instances where the road will flood, it will take longer to drain. That project is complete, except for the additional work that's been done outside the roadway in that area where they're placing the new paved trail. So if that were the case, then I can imagine that's what it would be. As of right now, we're experiencing pretty low water levels in the Detroit River and at Belle Isle, to the point where when we run those pumps that feed the canals, we actually can't run them right now, there's not enough water coming up into those chambers. Okay, thank you so
Speaker 11
01:21:23much for that. I was just wondering, because I had never seen that much flooding on Belle Isle before. I have two more questions, and I'll be done the zoo structure removal. What do we mean by that we're not going to have a zoo because I know it was closed some years ago for those who don't want to go to the Royal Oak zoo in Royal Oak. What about reopening that zoo for Detroiters? Because we used to do field trips there. I don't know. I remember field trips there as as a kid, and I remember taking my kids there. I still have pictures. It would be wonderful if we had a zoo in Detroit. It would be convenient. It wasn't the largest zoo, but it was spectacular. And all the children that I know, we would have birthday parties out there, and now there's nothing. So when I saw zoo structure removal, what does that mean?
Speaker 9
01:22:13Yeah, so the Safariland zoo was run by the detroitical society, and now they're focused in their Royal Oak campus. So there is no intent to restore or bring back animal collection to the zoo area there. So we'll be removing those structures that are deteriorated they've been closed for about 20 years and removing all the infrastructure, and that land is adjacent to the what music flatwoods and the south side, and then the more recreational areas on the north side. So it's a very it's in a very unique position in the park. There's a lot of opportunities to provide complimentary natural recreation, expand those trails. We did a study with MSU landscape students and the National Charette Institute. The students prepared some ideas for how to reprogram the space, and that came out of conversations they had with young adult groups like healthy kids that the DNR works with a lot on the park. And together the Healthy Kids and the MSU students came up with some interesting ideas for how to repurpose that. And then the national charrette Institute did a public survey to get input. We had over 7000 people respond to that survey, and while a lot of people are in agreement with you that it would be nice to have the zoo back there, the consensus was that additional nature trails would complement the experience so but zoo history on Belle Isle is fascinating. You know that safarland Zoo was the fifth zoo in the park over a course of different zoos. So thank you through
Speaker 11
01:24:08the Chair. Thank you. And that's to me, that's disheartening and sad and unfortunate for Detroit children, because when you go to Belle Isle, I mean, there's not a whole lot out there for children to do specifically, and that zoo was a major draw for families. And that's really sad. That's really sad that,
Speaker 11
01:24:34let me finish. Thank you so much that we can't keep the zoo on a limited type of basis, just so our children in Detroit can have access to animals and they don't have to go to Royal Oak. But, you know, I understand, but that's very, very unfortunate that we've allowed it to just fall in disrepair like we've done, the boathouse, the casinos up and running. But I have a lot of other questions that I'll send. But that's very, very that's very, very sad that we're robbing our children of the opportunity to go to a Detroit zoo in in Detroit, and you can go to Toledo. You can go to other cities, Chicago, Atlanta, they have Grand Rapids has a zoo. They don't have to go to the suburbs to get to their zoo. They have one right in their own community. So that's unfortunate. That's sad. I was hoping not to hear that. My last thing is the solar panels on the on the on the sheds. That's wonderful. What about the lighting? Because sometimes when I'm over there, some of the lighting is not working. Are we going to move towards solar around the island because some of the lights on the polls don't work. And that's my last question. And thank you, Madam
Speaker 7
01:25:44Chair, yes, to answer your question very briefly, yes. I ordered $400,000 worth of street lights that are all solar, just waiting for them to be delivered, and the staff will be putting them out.
Speaker 11
01:25:56Thank you. And that's Thank you, madam. Thank you, sir. And through the Chair, thank you. That's how solar should be used on structures and around our city, instead of using light points on using unnecessary energy. That is a wonderful example of the perfect use of solar. Thank you, Madam Chair. And
Speaker 1
01:26:16thank you, sir. Thank you. All right. Any additional questions? Council Member Santiago Romero, thank you, Madam President. I will be brief your leaf program. Have you considered working with duty Whitey to expand the opportunities for young people here?
Speaker 7
01:26:31I don't specifically run the program, but I am open to partnering with any organization that wants to enhance career opportunities for I mean, I'm not trying to be biased, but specifically city kids. I was raised in a city, not the city of Detroit, in the city of Pontiac, and 30 years with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, I've not only had a career, but a great time, and I want that opportunity to be present for everyone. So I'm certainly open, and if you're willing to connect us with those groups,
Speaker 1
01:27:04absolutely I'm all ears. Thank you. I myself going through duty. It when I was 20 something, very early in my 20s. It's incredibly helpful, and I think the more opportunities we have for young Detroiters, the better. Another quick question, I know that the aquarium is free. I absolutely love going. I was one of the people that was in your accounts. We make a donation. Though, any idea how much we are, how much we are fundraising through those donations, maybe annually,
Speaker 10
01:27:39through the chair, the hip tap donations at the door of the aquarium. I think what I can't remember off the top of my head, exactly how much we get through that process. It does result in, I want to say, close to maybe 200,000 annually, which is significant. It does take about a million dollars annually to operate the aquarium, so we are always working to solicit additional donations, not just for the aquarium, but for the whole of the island, to kind of fill those gaps of need. Thanks for the question.
Speaker 1
01:28:16Thank you. So encouraged while we go to tap and donate five $20 knowing that it takes a million to to really run, and we're about 200,000 Thank you. That's very helpful. My last question is around safety on the island, um, citations issued. Wondered what citations for? And can you explain a little bit more, what a public contacts? What does that look like? Is it someone calls you? There's an issue. What can you walk through that with us, please,
Speaker 8
01:28:40sure. Thank you for the question. Contacts on the island, that's an officer can generate that stat at any time, and a lot of that is contact from someone coming up to the vehicle to ask a question, or they had a call for service and they had contact with so many or they checked some anglers or or any of that. So that's what context kind of goes to citations written. You see that on the statistics of that, and the majority of those, when we break that down, are traffic citations. These days, we do have a lot of park regulations. Alcohol, obviously, is it's a no alcohol Park, other than by permit the officers run into that we they do try and use good judgment. If it's people that don't have a clue, they'll have them or it and say, you know, please don't do this next time. But there are repeat offenders that unfortunate, right? So then they might be cited, but by far and large, when we run the stats on that, it's all traffic related, and it really relates to what I was talking about earlier, it's being generated. So
Unknown Speaker
01:29:51any other is there one more on that? That was
Speaker 1
01:29:53it? Thank you. Appreciate it, and looking forward to having you back in d6 with us. Thank you for your work. Really appreciate it. All
Unknown Speaker
01:30:01right. Thank you, Councilman. Council member Johnson,
Speaker 4
01:30:04thank you, Madam President, and thank you all for the presentation. I have two questions. One, I was curious about the water on the island as well the flooding that you see. I would love to have a better understanding of, in totality, what's being done to keep the water off the island. Are you all using rip rap? Do you have natural shoreline? I saw the one area where you were talking about Native plantings and things of that nature. So can you just give a little bit more detail? Are you expecting the native plants just soak up all of the water. Are you doing anything in addition to that?
Speaker 7
01:30:42Yeah, so Amanda would probably be best to answer the technical questions, but whenever we redesign or whenever we work on something, we try to make sure that we're addressing that. So for example, when Amanda talked about the zoo removals, a lot of the property that the zoo sat on, especially that entrance or that service area is all hard scape. So it's asphalt that asphalt prevents the water from being able to leash back into the ground. It pools, it becomes part of the sewer system. And so when we remove that and we put not only native plantings in, yes, some of those will absorb some of the water. But we're also looking at, you know, installing a different sort of parking situation. That area, if you can recall, is between the athletic shelter, it's between the beach, it's next to kids row playground. So we're looking at repurposing some of that area for a parking lot, much like you may have seen recently, I think in the last few years, at the zoo in Royal Oak, they have a parking lot that completely is off the system. It's a semi pervious paving surface so that the water can go through it. It doesn't lay on that hard skate. So ideas like that, certainly trying to get off the grid, as it were, with water, and to funnel it to the appropriate places is always part of those design plans whenever we do improvements, so
Speaker 4
01:32:11you are experiencing more water coming from the system than the Detroit River.
Speaker 7
01:32:17Yes, absolutely. So any stormwater that is on the island does not lead directly back into the water that goes back into the system.
Speaker 4
01:32:27Okay? Thank you. Would love to work with you on green infrastructure initiatives and maybe applying for some grants to be able to implement on the island as well. The other I'm going to just kind of make a statement to give you all a thought, I had a resident reach out to me and and just share that all of our parks close at 10pm and especially those on the water that prevents nighttime fishing. So would love to have some conversations with you all, as well as GSD around how we can provide access to nighttime fishing for our residents.
Unknown Speaker
01:33:08All right. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President.
Speaker 1
01:33:10All right. Thank you discussion council member Benson,
Speaker 12
01:33:13thank you. This will be, I believe, for Miss Elliot. This is a conversation we have. I do want to make sure this gets onto the record. And so there has been a lot of conversations in the cycling community about what has been perceived or misinformation saying that cyclists are no longer welcome on the island at numbers larger than 20. And so I had a chance to ride this weekend on Bill Isle, and we were in a group larger than 20. So the rumor being that you have to have a permit to get on the island if you're in a group larger than 20. Can you address that please
Speaker 10
01:33:48through the chair? I'll just note first that I think, as you've seen throughout the presentation, the our state partners have been working incredibly hard to actually increase mobility on the island and encourage more biking with massive investments in the trail system as well as the roadway to create a better and safer experience for folks that are on bikes. So no, it is not the case that that we as a collective group are discouraging that I would like to give the opportunity to Tom to clarify the mdnr events policy and this particular circumstances where it'd be helpful for us to be coordinating around bike rides.
Speaker 7
01:34:30So first off, the the language that you mentioned, the the event of someone over 20 people, that kind of stuff. That's that's sort of boiler plate language, with event language. And so I want to stress and definitely on the record, that anything that's originating outside of Belle Isle, you're coming for a bike ride, whether it be 20 people, whether it be 150 people, we are trying to increase connectivity to bicycles, not decrease it, not make it harder, not make the system bogged down by permit processes, and that, and the Michigan DNR, in our policy, has the ability to waive that permit process for items like you mentioned. Now certainly, I would encourage anybody that's going to bring a significant number of people onto the island all at once to connect with us, so that not only can we inform you about other events that may be going on, but right now, if you were to drive over to the island, there's construction everywhere, so that can be concerning. But the roadways, the bike lanes, are open to bicycles, and they are open permit free from having an organized activity that originates outside the park. Now, if you were to bring something to the park where you're utilizing a shelter and an event space, and you're originating from the island and doing a run on the walk and asking permission to close lanes of traffic, things like that, that's where our partnership with MDOT comes in, and there is a permitting process for that,
Speaker 12
01:36:03okay? And then those who are looking to host events, cycling or family, where do they go? Our
Speaker 7
01:36:09Belle Isle events office. You can call the park office directly and be sent to them, or you can just go to the DNR website and look at Belle Isle events. Okay?
Speaker 12
01:36:17And so the reason I really wanted to bring this up, I wanted to make sure that when you have loads of misinformation and they're not addressed, that just continues to fester. And so I wanted to make it very clear that people are still welcome to come on the island. If you have a group of 50, you're riding the to the island from off the island, doing a couple laps and leaving that you are still welcome to come without having to have a permit. And so I think that type of clarification is critical. And thank you for that today. Yes,
Speaker 7
01:36:42and not only Welcome to but encouraged to our connection with the Detroit River Walk that's open now, our connection with Gabriel Richard Park, our addition of two way bike lanes, and in some of those cases, you'll see delineators that keep you safe. We encourage that, and that's all part of that multi mobility study. And what we're trying to do, we're trying to get people to think of different ways to get to Belle Isle, and if that be bikes, terrific. That's what we're looking for.
Unknown Speaker
01:37:12Fantastic. Thank you,
Unknown Speaker
01:37:15great. Thank you council member Young, thank
Speaker 13
01:37:17you, Madam President. As the presentation Good to see about here. As always, I wanted to ask, you know, a lot of questions I already have been asked. I just want to kind of ask about the lighting situation. There have been times where I've gone the island pitch black, and I know that you said that you had solar power, you know, waiting for the lights to be delivered. Is there anything that you're going to do in the interim to be able to deal with that, because I think that the island closed at 10, and I might be telling myself, but I snuck on the island a couple times when I probably was gonna be on there, but when I snug on there like it is pitch black, like you can't see anything at night at all. And so I just want to, is there anything in the interim that we are going to do to be able to alleviate that, until you come up with a lighting plan. And with this lighting plan, you kind of tell me, like, how expansive that's going to be. Do you know how many lights you're going to have? You know where you're going to place them? Are there going to be any blind spots? And if so, why? Why not? Well,
Speaker 7
01:38:18the street lights, specifically, there's 207 street lights on Belle Isle. Okay, and so when I quoted that $400,000 that is every bit of that money for those 207 street lights, they've already been ordered. I'm hoping that they're not caught up somewhere where we're getting delays. But they've been ordered. They've already been paid for. So we're waiting. We're waiting for these lights. In the interim, I did last year purchase 43 of those. I won't call them street lights, because they're not as bright and as powerful as what these new ones will be, but we installed 43 of them. Were on the island, focused on parking areas, focused on intersections of the roadways to make it at least interim, we safer on Belle island the evenings, but certainly you're going to see a gigantic difference once we get all those lighting projects done. In addition, we're looking at standards for other opportunities of lighting, which include bollard lighting for hiking trails. It includes parking lot lights. It includes building lights. So certainly developing a comprehensive plan for all those areas, but first and foremost, focusing on those street lights for not just traffic safety, but, you know, so that we don't have accidents
Unknown Speaker
01:39:36out on the island. So that's
Speaker 13
01:39:38excellent. And then I wanted to ask you a question twofold. Well, it's not gonna be a smooth segway, what I'm talking about. But first of all, I want to ask about like bathrooms. Is there going to be any investment having more bathrooms? There are these going to be permanent? Are these going to be poor products? And then there's going to be any investment in terms of cleaning the bathrooms, because there's been some instances where I've gone into the bathroom, and let's just say there's been some unexpected visitors waiting for me there while I'm engaging in the practice of that. Are we going to deal with that at all? And how are we going to deal with that and make sure these bathrooms are clean for people to be able to use them, and are we going to expand that footprint? Then there's no smooth way to make this segue. But secondly, I want to say about the issue of, forgive me, because you shouldn't combine these two things together. But in terms of food trucks and in terms of eating, in terms of vendors, do we allow people to be able to vend on the island? I've seen some people who come in and vent on the island. I just want to know, who are these folks? Are they Detroiters? Primarily, what kind of food service? What kind of services provided? Is it just food? Is it clothes? Is the other type of things that they can sell on the island? You know, what are we doing in terms of that aspect? What are the demographics of that? Okay,
Speaker 7
01:41:05well, I'll address the restrooms first. So Amanda mentioned the ARPA dollars that are going to be used for restroom improvements. Before we can think about expanding opportunities for restrooms, we have to take care of what we have and make sure that it's it's updated. And by updated, I mean, you know, we want Belle Isle to be the standard that other parks look to, not us trying to catch up. So when we talk about shelter eight and shelter two, we're not just talking about the shelters. There are restrooms attached to those buildings, and that will be part of that comprehensive improvement the oxbow restrooms that are just before the Yacht Club in between that and the golf course will be redone this year, and then any additional ARPA dollars left over from the fountain and the other two big projects will be utilized for restrooms. So we're definitely focused all on board with that. I will tell you that I just this year, spent about $12,000 on upgrading to facilities heat so that we can extend the season of those restrooms a little bit, because, as you know, many of those restrooms are not heated. So sunset restrooms got new heaters installed in them, and so did the kids row restrooms. I still can't run them when it's zero degrees outside, right? But they will keep it so that I can run them in November, which is, is huge. As you know, people still want to get outside, even when it's cold. So So that's the first and then to to address the second one. I think it's, it's great that Megan's still up here, because she is seeking a partnership right now to expand what's offered at Belle Isle. I know when I first got to Belle Isle a few years ago, we didn't have any machines, so we have vending machines. Now on the island, we have seven food trucks through our contract, and more opportunities if you contact street eats, which is the vendor that runs our food trucks on Belle Isle. So they have food trucks, they have ice cream, they have lemonade, things like that. But we really want to not only have them focus on expanding opportunities for other people to come in, but also expand the variety the locations, but most importantly, the consistency. So you need to be able to go there and know that you'll be able to get something to drink. And so this year, they've implemented a QR code ordering system where they're going to be placing them on the tables. You can find out by scanning that QR code, what food trucks are open when, and they're thinking about working on delivery to where you are from them. So really exciting opportunity. And then secondly, the opportunity to sell things other than food is something that Megan's working on with them.
Speaker 10
01:43:40Yeah. Yeah. So through the chair, one of the partnerships we've worked on with that specific vendor, we heard from residents that they wanted more convenience items at the beach. So we actually applied to be the Belle Isle Conservancy, applied to be a vendor with, like, a subcontractor with this vendor, to be able to provide, you know, basic convenience items at the beach, whether that's, you know, sunscreen, bags of ice, anything that residents have asked for to make that trip a little bit easier for them and more comfortable. And then moving forward, figuring out that kind of consistency plan. We have also invited the vendor to speak in front of the BiPAC committee so that we have consistency and delivering that message of what folks can reliably access when they're on the island, because it is very essential.
Speaker 13
01:44:24Okay, excellent. And this is my final question. I just wanted to add, I know we're pressing time, but I just wanted to add just a simple question, just some dates. Do we have a date of when Scott fountain will be on again, and do we have a date for the boathouse when that will be open.
Speaker 7
01:44:42I don't have a date for the boathouse. The boathouse is still a plan that's working its way through the legal process. You have a projection we want at least. The developer would like to at least partially stabilize the roof before the end of this, you know, this season. So he'd really like to get in there this fall. Okay, to do that through dredging or something like, well, just just stabilizing the roof so no more degradation occurs. So that would be that. And then the fountain is, unfortunately, going to be closed until 2027 I mean, it's gonna take all of that work to remove that solar bowl, fill it in, replace the marble pieces and that. But as usual, I'm going to shoot for Mother's Day or before Mother's Day. You
Unknown Speaker
01:45:28can't do that any faster, man,
Speaker 7
01:45:31I'm not doing it. Okay, okay, okay, alright.
Speaker 13
01:45:36My constituents do not want to hear that, but I appreciate thank you for your President.
Speaker 11
01:45:40Thank you. Member Young. Member Callaway, thank you so much. As you can see, we all love Bella and through the chair to member young, hopefully we'll have the Merrill fountain up and running before 2027 for your for your pleasure, who owns the assets on Belle Isle does the state, although you're leasing for 100 years, who owns the assets, like the fountain and the zoo, well, the former zoo, but particularly the James Scott fountain, who owns that? Whose asset does it belong to
Speaker 7
01:46:15the people of the city of Detroit? The City of Detroit owns, owns Belle Isle.
Speaker 11
01:46:20Okay, so we, you're leasing the state is leasing Detroiters own bailout. So we own all the assets, that's correct. So the James Scott fountain is owned by we, the taxpayers of Detroit. You're removing Marvel. Where are you? Why are you removing it, and where are you moving it to? How are you going to dispose of? Because you shouldn't be moving the Marvel, because it can't be replaced. I know that for a fact, because we have white Italian Marvel. I've done the research. Um, that built the that was used to build the Merrill fountain, which was built in 1903 which is older than the James Scott fountain. So once you remove that marble, you're only going to get a replication of the marble, of the original margin Mark marble. So why are you removing marble, and where are you moving it to? I'll
Speaker 7
01:47:17let Amanda address it specifically, but the marble is is going to be reused wherever it can be. So
Speaker 9
01:47:27the James Scott Memorial Fountain marble is Vermont marble. When we did the ADA ramp, we found marble from the same quarry that the original found was from, and we're working with Chrisman to again, replace the marble there. So the original intent was not to have to bring new marble in. Obviously, we want to restore it, and we want to preserve as much as we can when we had the masonry experts come in. Unfortunately, when marble is very soft stone, so you can see the degradation of the marble. And when we they'll very carefully cut it. You know, we want as little vibration to that historic bound as possible. They will remove it very carefully. But even so, we're told that it would it's literally disintegrate the way it's weathered. So I'm happy to show you around, and we could walk the phone and look at that. But the surplus marble we're looking to coordinate with CCS and their sculpture faculty and repurpose some of that marble there. It can be chair. You say the marble is, it's not a it's, it's in very bad shape that's not going to be able to read, be restored, and so we'll have to put get new marble to replace the exterior perimeter marble there,
Unknown Speaker
01:49:02yeah, just the outside. Okay,
Speaker 11
01:49:04because I know the marble that's that was used to build the Merle fountain is still in place, except for the pieces that were stolen, and so I didn't know that marble can like starting to dissolve or because I thought it was such a hard material, although you said it's soft, but it's very heavy and it's durable and lasts forever, for centuries. I mean, if you go to some museums around the country, that marble is still intact from the very first day it was installed. So I'm just curious to curious as to why you are removing and not trying to restore. I've just never heard of it dissolving or falling apart.
Speaker 9
01:49:41And for it is marble is a very soft material. And the water and the fountain seeping through the, you know, the when there's moisture in there, and throughout the winter, the freeze thaw the moisture, and that soft stone has caused it to it, you know, it reduce its integrity. And so when we cut it apart, to take it off, they are already assuming that we won't be able to restore it, and because we have to be, you know, this marble is a long lead item. It takes a very long time to pour. It takes a long time to sculpt it and has to be very carefully restored. It's enough circle, and so each piece has to be very carefully match the piece that it's replacing the long lead item. It's not something that we can anticipate or we'll take it out and then hope for the best. And we are being proactive. We're working with very experienced masons, people who work with this material a lot, and it is a significant cost. It's a significant lead item, and we are only doing it because it's a necessity.
Unknown Speaker
01:50:59Through the Chair, through
Speaker 10
01:51:02the chair. I was just going to recommend that we could share the original investigation documentation from the state, so that you can see firsthand all the work that was put in. And I will also note that Lisa dechary is in the audience, and we have worked with her. She attends every BiPAC meeting and and we can also communicate with her offices as well about the process. Thank
Speaker 11
01:51:22you. Thank you so much for that. Are we also working with our preservation team, the city's preservation team, like Janice Chapman? Perhaps because,
Speaker 9
01:51:32yes, we have coordinated with Janice Chapman in the past on fountain repairs. And we are also coordinating with our state historic architect on DNR, Ron McKay, who has worked with for many decades and is on our project team, working very closely with that okay, through
Speaker 11
01:51:52the chair. So I'm just asking, I don't know if the law department is here any I don't know through the chair, because we're talking about an asset. We're talking about marble. We're talking about something that's been there for forever, and so if the city owns it, and now you are kind of, you said you're going to repair it, but you're removing some parts of it, the city should have a say. So since if the asset belongs to the city, so I guess that would be a legal question. Through the Chair to Mr. Anderson, we're happy to the city, and they're taking things out and removing, you know, under the guise of repair,
Speaker 14
01:52:28through the chair, Graham Anderson, law department of that, I think I understand the whole question council member Calloway. And if it is an asset of the city of Detroit, that is something that we absolutely would need to consider that, but we'd be happy if we could get that question in writing, to write a full legal opinion. I don't have all the research and knowledge at my fingertips right now. Don't want to say anything that's incorrect, but obviously I know we'd be happy to work together to make sure we do everything right and cross all our t's and dot our I's want to make sure things are done properly. Thank you. Thank
Speaker 11
01:53:00you. Thank you. Thank you through the Chair, thank you. Thank you very much. All right, thank
Speaker 1
01:53:04you. Member Callaway, thank you. All right, that will conclude the presentation. Thank you all so much for being here. We will follow up with additional questions offline, but thank you for the presentation and the work that you all do. All right, have a great day. Thank you so much. You
Speaker 1
01:53:23all right, the Journal of the session of Tuesday May the sixth will be approved. There being no reconsideration or unfinished business. You will proceed to the budget Finance and Audit standing committee for the budget Finance and Audit, standing committee
Speaker 15
01:53:38for reports from various city departments. The four reports
Speaker 1
01:53:41will be referred to the budget, Finance and Audit standing committee
Unknown Speaker
01:53:49for the internal operations, standing committee
Speaker 15
01:53:51six reports from various state departments. These six
Speaker 1
01:53:55reports will be referred to the internal operations, standing committee for the Neighborhood and Community Services. Standing Committee,
Speaker 15
01:54:02three reports from various city departments. The three reports
Speaker 1
01:54:06will be referred to the Neighborhood and Community Services standing committee, for the public, excuse me for the Planning and Economic Development standing committee,
Speaker 15
01:54:14a report from the historic designation advisory board. The
Speaker 1
01:54:19report will be referred to the Planning and Economic Development standing committee for the public health and safety standing committee,
Speaker 15
01:54:2611 reports from various city departments. The
Speaker 1
01:54:3011 reports will be referred to the public health and safety standing committee. We will now move to the voting action matters under other matters. There are no items madam president under communications from the mayor and other governmental officials and agencies. There
Unknown Speaker
01:54:45are no items. Madam President, okay,
Speaker 1
01:54:46we will call for public comment. And we have a total of 52 individuals who are here and like to make public comment, both in person and online. And so we will do a minute and a half for public comment. Alright? Miss Morris,
Speaker 15
01:55:02good morning, everyone. Tawana Morris, precinct delegate 413, barge McFarland Neighborhood Association member. I have a complaint for the Motor City makeover, and I will give the report to all of you. I'll have it emailed to you. My council person, deer Hall does not know this, but you will, I did give an office, the office, a copy of the complaint that I filed this morning with department Neighborhood Services. Aaron Harris, she's the director, and the situation was, I worked with the Motor City makeover for many years, and this particular time was awful. The Andrea Alexa, excuse me. Alexis Davis, which is in district seven, manager. I went to get the items that I had requested and I filed. I did everything I was supposed to. It wasn't there the flowers that I have that I needed wasn't there. The tree that I requested wasn't there. And I took a whole week and spent my money for our neighborhood association for the less fortunate they didn't get so I do have a full request for you. All
Speaker 1
01:56:43right. Thank you so much. Miss Morris, and you said you sent that to all of the council members as well. You said you had some information that you were sending to all Yes,
Unknown Speaker
01:56:52ma'am, yes, ma'am, okay.
Speaker 15
01:56:56My council person wasn't in this morning early when i Okay? Okay,
Unknown Speaker
01:57:01Council Member Dural,
Unknown Speaker
01:57:03thank you, and
Unknown Speaker
01:57:05good to see you this morning. This morning, we will definitely, and,
Speaker 15
01:57:08you know, I mean, I'm active all the time, yeah,
Speaker 6
01:57:11absolutely. And so we will look into it. We'll have a discussion with the Department of neighborhoods as well as Lexi and kind of find out what has happened to that. And my team will get back to you ASA, okay,
Speaker 15
01:57:22and I'm truly embarrassed to the senior citizens, 90 years old in the community I wasn't able to do their flowers this year.
Speaker 6
01:57:30Okay, well, we'll work something out and even follow back up, and maybe we'll come out on another day with the team and put some of those flowers out with you. Okay, very nice. Alright, thank you. Thank you. Thank
Unknown Speaker
01:57:40you so much. Miss Morrison,
Speaker 1
01:57:43Miss Betty Lyons, followed by Melissa Love
Speaker 15
01:57:48y'all couldn't find two black folks to speak for Belle Isle. I mean, this is Belle Isle. Come on, at least two black people. Okay? Yesterday, the 19th was Max Malcolm x1's 100 birthday, a great man, a great black man. Bring his name up. Thanks to the young lady last week who warned me, because you warned me. That's probably why it didn't happen. Mister Cunningham, y'all give millions of dollars every week to these people who don't give to Detroit. Don't give him nothing used give him a new van. This is a person who gives and gives and gives while taking care of his mother. Stop being so stand stingy and giving money to people who don't care about Detroit. Again, I'm going to bring up that $600 million the money that belongs to the Detroit people, the Property Tax Justice people that coalition, they disappear. They don't call you back. I've called them for three weeks. They don't call me. They're not transparent. They're not telling us what's going on. Romero, she gives out that millions of dollars, like it's her money. That ain't her money. She and young and the rest of y'all get that money back to the Detroit resident who it belongs to you. All.
Speaker 1
01:59:23Melissa love, followed by Tarika Sanders, followed by Mr. Cunningham.
Unknown Speaker
01:59:29Good morning.
Unknown Speaker
01:59:32Thank you for the ASL interpreter. My
Speaker 16
01:59:34name is Melissa love, I'm here because I never cheated in the I'm sorry I never voted in the August 20 the November 2020 election, or the August 2024 election. I'm here to show and tell people that I am the evidence. I will continue to come down, and I will continue to
Unknown Speaker
01:59:56call also
Speaker 16
02:00:00to the to the public, in person and online, Monday through Thursday, you can come and say your public comment between the same hours that you can on Tuesday every day, Monday through Thursday, please come say your public comment also, I will continue to fight for the children, the elderly and the disabled. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
02:00:31Good morning. Good morning.
Speaker 15
02:00:34I'm here because I feel like it's very unfair that Detroit wants to take my house at 14964,
Unknown Speaker
02:00:43rosemary and my lot.
Speaker 15
02:00:46I'm a senior citizen. I'm over 70 years old. I went and priced different houses in competitive for mine, and they don't want to give me enough money to purchase another house that's equivalent to it, and I'm too old to take out a mortgage. I don't work, so I want to use my house for a foster care home for kids that's in the system. And I feel that it's just a shame that they want to use intimate domain to steal my house and my property for no reason. I found out that Detroit already have enough property to do they solar project. So why are they continuing to try to do this to people for no reason? I don't appreciate this, and I've been in Detroit all of my life. I know you, you and her, and I've been to y'all different things, and it seemed like talking to y'all personally. Y'all fine, but I don't understand this stuff. I don't want them to take my house. I don't I don't think money is worth everything, and they want to give you crumbs. They don't really they want you to do be outdoors, Lord, and I'm not going to be outdoors
Speaker 1
02:02:10for my own house. Thank you, Miss Thomas, pardon me. I was saying thank you for coming down and thank you for speaking up. And we don't want your home to be taken either. And so you gave us, excuse me. Excuse me. You gave us your address. I can work with you. You said it was 11467,
Unknown Speaker
02:02:26Rose Yeah. 14964,
Unknown Speaker
02:02:28Rosemere, rosemary,
Speaker 15
02:02:30and they already done. Put the lot in court, and that's just horrible. Okay, alright,
Speaker 1
02:02:36so if you don't mind, before you step away, we can get your information to reach out to law and the administration to see exactly what is going on, and then we'll also connect you with both of the council member members at large as well too.
Unknown Speaker
02:02:47I appreciate it.
Unknown Speaker
02:02:51Okay? Thank you.
Speaker 1
02:02:52You're welcome. Thank you so much. Yes, member Jones,
Speaker 4
02:03:04he is in District Four. One of my team members is that she'll, she'll grab her contact information to make sure that we connect okay with the department. Thank
Speaker 1
02:03:12you. Thank you. Thank you. Member Johnson, Mr. Cohen Cunningham, followed by Kia Mathis, followed by samika Strader, good morning,
Speaker 17
02:03:30good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, 31344491143134449114, that number was made so you can remember it on Facebook, not enemy. My vehicle has went down where I give out free rides. Half our ride have have cost rise for the disabled seniors. Every day I give out bus tickets at the bus stops. I got some text messages from people who don't normally speak, but they will stream, and the streaming is down. So I don't know who's in charge of that, but they say streaming is down.
Unknown Speaker
02:04:09I try to help everyone in our community. The
Unknown Speaker
02:04:12bus service is still lack luster.
Speaker 17
02:04:15Thank everyone for their donations. I had a large one yesterday going towards a new vehicle. It's three $500 I have saved up. It's not a lot, but being as poor as I am, that is a lot, and God is trying to do something. There was a great ride along with the council president, Mary Sheffield. The people responded back and was very appreciative, and they wanted to say thank you to the Council on President who took time out of her schedule this week, we'll have a ride along with Pastor Kinloch, and hopefully all candidates and all incumbents will do another bus ride along if they can remember the number to reach out to get the cash app or the information. 313-444-9112, 4449112, thank you. Thank you
Speaker 1
02:05:05so much. Mr. Cunningham Harris,
Speaker 4
02:05:15good morning. Good morning, everybody. My name is Kia Mathis for Detroit people's platforms, housing justice team. We are a community based racial justice organizing group that centers majority black Detroit. Our members represents tenor tenants, home owners under the UN house, property owners and households impacted with disabilities. We recently spoke to about a little over 1000 households and people identified that more than jobs and career and more than public safety concerns are is affordable housing that is the most important to their quality of life. Now we believe that everyone should have safe, accessible, affordable housing, and we're far from that goal. You know, the loss of over 100,000 black Detroit residents of the past several years, it's been avoidable. Our city is not meeting the needs because we have been subsidizing the wrong type of housing. So as a result of those discussions, our team is here today to talk about an equitable solution our housing crisis. You know, our housing justice team decided today to join 1000s of renters and homeowners across 17 cities and also the nation's capital, raising a united call for permanent affordability and housing justice. We are speaking to every Detroit resident, the housing professionals, every candidate and all Detroit leaders that we expect housing to be accessible to all. We expect housing to be for people and not profit. We expect housing that's equitable and sustainable. This is what we call social housing now. Social Housing is a is an idea that can that connects community land, trust, the equity, limited equity, cooperatives, public health for
Unknown Speaker
02:06:53the Shared Equity models. Thank you.
Speaker 16
02:07:04Good morning. Good morning. My name is Tamika stratter. I am with volunteer and the counselor with DPP Detroit people's platform. We are advocacy, and today I bring an issue of the city acknowledged displacement and pretend we are helpless to negotiate specific outcomes for sensitive tax incentive development. The city charters asserts that is government responsibility to ensure decent housing for all residents. What is the opportunity for uphold housing with multiple children, households living with disability and households with lower incomes. Myself, I am an advocate with that. I am a single mother with four children, and it is hard for me to get housing replacement, especially when it has a stipulation on income and telling me that my credit score doesn't meet sufficient housing. It's not like I can't make it. I can make it. But far as me being a city of Detroit, I feel as though my city is failing me because I am a resident here, and my children goes to school here. It's not like my children are failing the city as well. They are upcoming doctors and lawyers and advocates for musicians. So with that being said, it's like I'm not chosen to get proper housing for my children, but yet I'm forced to live the life of destitute for others. That's not fair for me or my family. I
Speaker 18
02:08:47can. My name is Lauren Lincoln, and I live in District Six. Today, I'm here with the Detroit people's platform as part of the National Day of Action for housing to speak on the best practices of social housing. The 2018 foreclosure crisis demonstrated how speculators and bad actors preyed on our city. The prioritization of partnerships with for profit entities produces profit at the expense of people, even when the housing does not comply with legal standards. We struggle in a system of temporary affordability with minimal accessibility and sustainability standards, slum Lords profit from rent increases and evictions as we struggle with underfunded programs and unlivable conditions, this is a manufactured crisis. It is imperative that we prioritize and plan for community wealth building that can help repair years of predatory land practices and wealth extraction from our community. We are challenged to identify best practices that encompass good policy, operations and financing. If we look to other cities for examples of how to implement social housing in 2023 the Seattle social social housing public Development Authority was approved by voters with the mission to develop own lease and maintain mixed income housing that is permanently affordable, owned as an asset forever and designed for people price out of market rate housing in Detroit, we can include the retention of public ownership adaptive reuse projects. Detroiters need permanent affordability. Thank you.
Speaker 15
02:10:35Miss Ross Stewart, good morning, Councilman. Council President Mary Sheffield and all other council members. My name is Rosella Stewart. I live in district five, and I am with Detroit people's platform housing and transit justice team. As a central writer, I know that efficiency improves quality of life. Social Housing removes housing from respective market and therefore cut out the need for profit. Housing, similar to public transportation, is, in my opinion, a public service. A public service should come with protection for all residents rely on affordable housing a public service it should be adequate so it can function properly. Social Housing is about building a better future, a future where everyone has a state, stable, affordable home in the neighborhood of their choosing. Social Housing can create equity owners and is healthy and sustainable. We can stop cost burden. Some Detroiters spent most of the budget on household expenses, housing deficit, not enough housing that is being built for families and low incomes. Housing speculation, inflated rental and purchases costs, which causes foreclosure. But we can win housing security neighborhoods, but Detroiters invest our tax dollars in permanent and affordable housing, accessible house for mixed incomes, opportunity for community control and ownership of land and buildings, and if we do prioritize the well being of our neighborhoods and households, it forces us to seek alternatives to profit driven housing options and address Detroit housing prices. I thank you for listening, and you have a safe and blessed day. And please, let's get more housing at that 30% AFI,
Unknown Speaker
02:12:11single dwelling homes.
Speaker 15
02:12:22Pamela, Dawson, good afternoon, council members. My name is Pamela Dawson. I am a second generation Detroit. And my mother was born in Detroit in 1922 and I was born in 1950 I am a district two resident. I'm also a member of Detroit people's platform and the Michigan poor people's campaign, I have learned how beneficial and necessary creating a supportive interest infrastructure is through my participation in grandparents raising grandkids again. This is the organization where we get thrust into the role of being a parent. I am 74 and I'm raising a four year old. So we are in need of caregivers, of growing children we are helping to raise in ages. We are need housing to be permanently affordable. Most of us have incomes far less than when we were younger, yet the responsibility remains the same. Therefore, I support a city where people are the priority, governance is shared, and where ownership and housing stability is a reality for men and women at my age, seniors are lower income residents. Many of us are a part of disabled community in Detroit, housing costs overly burdened by demographic a real housing plan where we can comfortably afford our housing costs, financially support our grandchildren and give to our neighborhood initiatives. Social Housing has foundations of self determination because it's affordable. Thank you. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
02:14:03Next up is Joanne Adams.
Unknown Speaker
02:14:08Joanne Adams, I don't see her
Speaker 19
02:14:12anymore. Following Joanne Adams will be Lacey
Speaker 4
02:14:15Dawson. Morning, Good afternoon, public service. How are you this afternoon? Doing well. Thank you. I am Lacey Dawson. I am a member of the Detroit people's platform Housing Committee. Very proud member, and I want to thank them for the work that they do. I live in district one as well. We said today, through almost two hours of planning around Belle Isle and Belle Isle, I love them, and I think that I live, and I know, actually, that I live in a city that when things need to get done, they can get done. We're a very innovative and courageous city, and I would challenge that. If we can talk about Bella the way that we did, we can talk about housing, if we can talk about fish, we can talk about little Felicia and making certain that her and her family are secure. If we can talk about Marvel, we can talk about Marvin to make sure that Marvin has secure housing. Everything in the city is valuable, including the residents and the people that live and are the least of these so as Detroit is a space being very creative, we are number one in almost everything we need to figure out this housing situation and social housing should be investigated. There are ramifications in our budget that if it's not a moral budget is not a budget. So as we sit, as we look, as we get ready to vote this year, make certain that number one on your agenda is the people that live here in the housing that we need. Thank you. Next up.
Unknown Speaker
02:15:48Next up was Anne Gette.
Speaker 20
02:15:56Good morning members of city council. My name is Anne Goulet. I'm a licensed architect, property owners, rep and development specialist. I spoke to you last month about four low cost, high impact organizational initiatives to address complaints about the city's work performance and use of taxpayer money related to property and real estate. One of these initiatives is to create an Office of the Public Advocate. A public advocate works to reduce bureaucratic red tape and to address complaints about governmental actions that are contrary to its mission statements or detrimental or harmful to the public. Detroit does not have a public advocate. The Michigan Office of Consumer Protection is basically useless to us. The local media is most certainly useless. I'm hopeful that city council will be useful in my matter today. About three weeks ago, I became aware that the city is trying to liquidate 22 acres of people owned parkland in district one to a private developer without following correct processes and procedures. The city has previously liquidated other land in other districts. They are well known for their poor decision making related to property development, including spending $94 million in ARPA recovery funds for us to demolish one building, and spending two years willing solar energy facility operators to install their products on property the city doesn't even own. Other cities have dedicated and professionally run departments of design and construction so that their property development remains lawful, helpful and beneficial to the community.
Unknown Speaker
02:17:34Who can I meet with to discuss this? Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
02:17:40Thank you. Will you be referring me to somebody?
Speaker 19
02:17:43Someone will be, will be speaking with you? Yes, ma'am. Before you leave, I'm district one, so yes, it's important to Okay. Thank you so much. Don't leave. All right. Quentin Johnson, are
Speaker 21
02:17:56you doing? Quentin Johnson, I would like to say that we need to support the affordable housing to help prevent homelessness and stop the rate of homeless, and help with the mental health performance, to also to make sure that they are safe and they are thinking safe and doing safe. Affordable housing will also help bring people together for the community, and that's it. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 19
02:18:27Next up is Steven, excuse me. Lee Shelton, go back.
Speaker 3
02:18:34No. Thank you. Well, first of all about this housing, the city of Detroit needs to declare crises, a state of emergency for housing. This will open up many avenues to get the resources that's needed to address this very serious
Unknown Speaker
02:18:56issue and problem.
Speaker 3
02:18:59Also, the city of Detroit could do more for its residents, including providing low income housing to meet the needs of the city, if it would stop out the black tax Detroit is suffering under what we call the black tax, whether it's in the assessor's office overcharging people on their property taxes, whether it's Wayne County Treasurers offer charging huge, usurious, excessive interest rates and foreclosing on people's properties, or whether it's the issuance of these improper and illegal municipal bonds with high users interest rates the City Council, as well as the residents, we have to be aware, get ahead of the curve, and stop trying to put the farm animals back in the barn after the bond, the bond doors have been left wide open. Get ahead of the curve. I've been coming down here for years explaining how the ocfo office have been charging too much interest, far too much interest on these municipal bonds. And not only that, once the bombs are issued, you're not spending it. The money to buy posts like it's supposed to be spent on the resident. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
02:20:17Next speaker is Katia Moreno,
Unknown Speaker
02:20:22good morning. It might be afternoon. I'm not
Speaker 22
02:20:26afternoon, so I'm calling in regards to situation we're having in Pingree Park. I represent, I'm a park champion for the greening of Detroit. It's my second year. I'm also the director of a junior block club and a block club so residents come to us as block clubs to deal with situations. For four years, I have been asked to continue to help a situation with an organization using our park. They use it supposedly, three times a week, from 530 to 730 without permits, hundreds of participants. We have bathroom situations with participants peeing in residence, yards or just openly in the park because there's no bathrooms. Ambulances are being denied for our residents. Fire trucks can't get down. Heaven forbid something happened to their participant, because they wouldn't be able to get down. Bus stops are being blocked, so busses aren't able to stop pick up people. It just it's been a nightmare for four years. We've had several meetings over four years with all the community leaders, GSD, BPD, Mayor's office, the team finally got a permit, and on the permit that we got last week, it says they're now going to be there every single day during peak times of the park, so that no one else basically can use the park. I'm just here as an advocate to for all the other voices that come to us and the block clubs to see if we can finally maybe come to resolution. I mean, I think in general, this organization needs to be moved to another park that facilitates their needs.
Speaker 19
02:22:00Thank you. Thanks. Our next speaker will be Edith oil.
Unknown Speaker
02:22:08Good afternoon.
Speaker 15
02:22:11I'm down here to speak about the Pingree Park situation. My family has been living on Fisher and Canfield since 1942 I'm a community leader there, and I also work for Mac development, and we have helped have that park redone. We have a football team that is there cussing our seniors out. They've cursed me out. They're parking in people's driveways. We had a meeting with GSD last week. An hour after that meeting, they were back parking in driveways. We have an elderly citizen that lives across from the park. Someone parked in his handicapped spot, and when he asked them to move, when he returned home, he got cursed out. We had representatives from our city council person's office there, and they did not represent us. They sided with the team and told us we hated children. We love children, but nobody, nobody's children or adults should have the right to disrespect our elderly neighbors. Two occasions, they could not get ambulances in to remove when they call for ambulance, and myself and Katie got a call from a hysterical child, adult child worried about their mother. We had this meeting, and nothing. Admiral was worked out, and now they're going to be there every day at the park. And my question is, when do we get to use the park? When do our kids get to use the park? Thank you. Miss Ford, does anyone also and I will keep speaking up. They told me I shouldn't speak to people the same amount
Unknown Speaker
02:23:57of time. You're always welcome to come.
Unknown Speaker
02:24:01Miss Joanne Warren,
Speaker 18
02:24:13good afternoon. Now I never said that on the council. You all had an easy job, but very politely, this solar thing really slipped big time. Now see this? This is the addressing climate change in Detroit. Document says it was done in 2019 updated in 2021 This is Exhibit A why no one should vote for Mike Duggan for governor, because he doesn't keep his word, and the city didn't either, because it says as a city action that the city would look to do do an RFP for doing solar on city owned sites and facilities with large surface areas. There's nothing here that talks about eminent domain also. It also says we want Detroiters to know how we're working towards our goal. So I would like to request our financial people to come and explain all of the financial benefits under the inflation Reduction Act, which is what influenced this vote. I remember member waters. That's why the vote was rushed on phase number two because you are afraid that Trump could take the money away. Now the other thing is taking a look at, for anybody who doesn't believe the city should be taking people's private property when it's got plenty of land, please to call Detroit solar scam. 3132304, 313-230-4742, you don't need there's a there's a legal dumping in my area, in his high gentrification area, you could have done better. You should have done better. It's a violation of the charter to be destroying residential neighborhoods when you should be putting in homes like like.
Speaker 19
02:26:00Thank you, Miss Ward Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
02:26:06Aaron McCluskey,
Speaker 8
02:26:08good afternoon. I wish that Mary Sheffield was still here. The ARPA money that was part of the Biden administration post COVID to help cities and local communities with a huge tranche of federal funds, over a billion dollars that Detroit received is running out and will run out in 2026 in addition the credit that you guys were receiving from the receivership will also end. So there's a pretty big financial cliff that will have to do a lot more with a lot less, 800 million less. I love podcasts, and the only thing I love more Is it a good Detroit podcast. I listened to a podcast last weekend called Daily Detroit, which, by the way, the future mayor did a great interview on this interview was with the Super insightful Anika Goss of Detroit, future city. I remember Detroit future city when I first moved to Detroit 12 years ago. It was just getting started as Detroit works under Bing, and it made the news in a less than flattering way when they suggested moving residents out of sparsely populated neighborhoods that downsize Detroit. As a college student actually studying sustainability and urban planning and civil engineering, I own three lots in poletown, now owned by vesico oil as a buffer, and my neighbors, Betty and Claudette, were interviewed by time, which caused the city to back down in that narrative, at least for a while. Fast forward 15 years, the city is marching forward with that agenda. Conrad mallet brags about relocating 150 homeowners already the solar project was $12 million excess from this from a sursky last week. My ear Duggan let it slip that it's actually 25 million for the same amount of money. You guys could have bought five to 10 times as much land outside of the city, and you could have had enough power for low income people, all the schools, the queue line, bunch more than you're doing right now. So yes, you should have done so much better, as they say, decisions in haste. Make waste Detroit, solar scam.com, next
Speaker 19
02:27:48speaker is Walter Brown. Mr. Walter Brown, and again, the reason why I'm making sure that we all have the same amount of times, that's what the Open Meetings acts require. Mr. Walter Brown, floor, shores,
Unknown Speaker
02:28:01good day or good rising.
Speaker 23
02:28:05I'm here today, maybe to reflect back on about 37 years ago, myself, my two children, we were on the site of what was promised to be waste to energy, earn the trash. Get energy for Detroit. And that time administrations the pressure on, let's do it. Drink some Kool Aid. We build a incinerator. People listen to the experts. The experts said, now I'm just a citizen, but at one time I had, I mean, I was an electrical inspector for the city of Detroit. People's the city Detroit, depended upon me to use my knowledge and history and electrical construction and codes to make sure when they went to a building, the life safety systems worked. I had the power to make it all happen. Now I'm a citizen, I'm retired, I'm trying to live a dream where I always wanted to farm, and so I bought a vacant lot, I don't know, 1015 years ago to butt up against mine. And I always dreamt up to get this block. Nobody wants to live here. We've got drug houses, prostitution, 24/7, etc, so I figure I'm going to grow food, teach children, etc. Now.
Unknown Speaker
02:29:38Thank you, Chair.
Speaker 19
02:29:41I miss, miss Warwick. Please not do that. Please don't do that.
Unknown Speaker
02:29:47Thank you. Member Bucha, thank
Speaker 11
02:29:49you. Thank you. Mr. Chair, Mr. Grula, Mr. Controller. Thank you for all that you've done on the east side of Woodward. You've done some amazing things on your block. You have? Yes, you have. I've been there, and I know you don't want, yeah, well, you're just a citizen, but you're an amazing citizen. I've been over to the property. I love the art gallery. I love the food that you grow over there, the fruit, all the beautification that you've done and development on that one block. I thank you for sticking and staying on in an area there's people just gave up on they stopped thinking about it. But now you're on the map, there's going to be some new planning and development over there. I will not be your council person when it starts happening, but at least we were together. We were able to plant the seeds that is going to be the new district three. But I appreciate all that you've done while I have been your council person. And I know for a fact, starting in 2022 we started planting those seeds. So continue the great work that you're doing over there. It's been amazing, and I will always stay in touch with you. Absolutely.
Speaker 19
02:30:49Thank you. Next speaker is Chief rising. I say
Speaker 24
02:30:54go. Say, Go. Greetings, everyone. I first want to start off by saying and defining what an ordinance is? An ordinance is a written law created and enforced by local government, such as a city council or a county government. I am here because the city the ordinance, the Northwest Ordinance, has been violated when it comes to us. Indians, article 317, 87 religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to build government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. The utmost good faith always be observed toward the Indians, their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent. The police took my automobile
Unknown Speaker
02:31:55and I needed return.
Unknown Speaker
02:31:57I'm disabled.
Speaker 24
02:31:59They didn't follow this ordinance. It's the first ordinance representing that flag. That flag is on my tribal ID.
Unknown Speaker
02:32:08I need my property return. Thank you.
Speaker 19
02:32:11Thank you. What do you know? What now, Chief risen, if you can please, What? What? What precinct that the vehicle get.
Speaker 24
02:32:21Precinct two second precinct, it was a officer named spadell, but he put vague agent jagen on a ticket. Okay, and so I ended up going to court yesterday. They tricked me into some type of jurisdiction where I asked to speak with the judge personally. We're private chief. We'll get you,
Speaker 19
02:32:40we'll get you. We get the rest of information. Thank you so much. And member waters has a member of her team was going to assist you very much. So Simone, Brian. Simone Bryant,
Unknown Speaker
02:32:52Greetings, everyone.
Speaker 2
02:32:56It's kind of hard because you as our public servants seem to be sort of letting us down. I also, as chief, have had my property stolen, and this is a safety issue. It is a problem on the streets District Two particularly the same person that wrote her a ticket, same person that stole her vehicle also stole mine. He also put the same name that a vagin on the ticket. When, in fact, I personally, three times asked him, Are you D spidale? He said, Yes, but he put someone else's name on that ticket. That is a safety public issue. I was scared for my life because my body told me something was wrong. He wouldn't call his instructor, his supervisor. He kept threatening me that if I didn't give him my address, that he was going to make me walk okay. And I was by myself. He was by himself, and he would not call his supervisor. So I need someone to help me address these issues that the people that are supposed to be protecting is actually being predatory. Because not only did that happen to me, it happened to her. So it's not as though it's just the one single issue is vast, and how far has it gone now?
Speaker 19
02:34:26Thank you, Miss Brian. I know that number one, Miss Brian, don't leave just yet. King says, what? I know you said that the vehicle was was taken from me. What were the circumstances that were announced as the reason why
Speaker 2
02:34:40the circumstances that were announced that I did not have a valid plate on my automobile. Which Michigan is a non licensed state. We do not have to have driver's license unless we are commercial vehicles.
Speaker 19
02:35:00Thank you so much. Member waters did indicate a member of our team will work with you. Thank you. Next speaker is Miss Tanya.
Unknown Speaker
02:35:10Tanya troll,
Speaker 24
02:35:12yes, I'm here with Chief rising out. I am one of the matriarchs of Lena League of Indian nations of North America. We came today to put the Council on notice, also to seek to have a meeting with the Council, as well as the mayor, which I've made several attempts to come down here to put notice that there are tribes that are operating around the municipality, in the municipality of the city of Detroit, and we are being violated over and over again because of the treaties that we operate under. And nobody comprehends. Nobody understands I've talked to several people. I've talked to your law department to get some results. I've reached out to the mayor to get a schedule so we can consult about the laws regarding and the treaties regarding the tribes that are in this city, and nobody understands it's over and above everyone's heads. And now we need to have a sit down so y'all can understand that US operating as private on tribal and trust. What are the guidelines? What are the policies, and what is the federal guidelines? According to we are recognized by the state of Michigan, but we are not recognized by the city of Detroit. We are not understood when it comes to the city of Detroit. We are not understood when it comes to the officers pulling us over. We just had our whole tribe automobiles removed from our property because we didn't have
Unknown Speaker
02:36:46tax from the state or license.
Speaker 24
02:36:50So if we can get a meeting with all of you, or whatever that's necessary to prove this, to move this forward,
Unknown Speaker
02:36:57thank you so much. We will make sure we get your information.
Unknown Speaker
02:37:01Our next speaker. Renardski, good
Speaker 13
02:37:04morning. Can I be heard? Good morning, Mr. President. I'm a resident district six and organizer with Detroit people's platform, and I'm here with my housing justice colleagues today. In terms of homes for all we can solve this crisis of lack of housing, and this crisis is due to speculation, due to the lack of new builds, because of all these onerous regulations, and a cost crisis as well too, where people are paying 15 to over two grand for shoebox apartment that does not grow and sustain families. Social housing, which can come in many forms, are permanently affordable forms of housing that are co governed by tenants and homeowners that will be able to steward the land and keep homes permanently affordable. This city needs to declare a housing crisis because of my work as a transit organizer, I come across bus riders that have no housing. I can't tell them where to go. I wouldn't dare, you know, go through the whole homeless navigating system because it's really onerous and complicated. The city can do what it needs to do, and should to be able to build new housing in the city. There's no way of getting out of it if we don't build permanently affordable social housing as well at different market levels of very low income, working class, and to income levels where these programs don't support people. You can make $1 over a certain poverty level, you're considered too rich for a program you don't have any housing. I call it the donut hole, or you have to be really super destitute, so
Unknown Speaker
02:38:39we need social housing. Thank you. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
02:38:43Next speaker is Mr. Robert Good
Speaker 25
02:38:49morning through the president. Just few things. First thing, we're here with the presentation. I was very happy to see the young man doing very well. Cyrus Woodbury, come from very good family, and we'll say that get awarded down here, and it's just a reminder that all of our children have so much potential to break new avenues we haven't met our goals yet. There's plenty more barriers to be broken in the city and in this nation. So very happy about that. Secondly, when it comes down to Bell out, I encourage everybody to look up the 26 board members on there, and as a citizen here, a citizen should be the most important title of anything in formal government. On those 26 members, we have people like Mr. Sullivan, the Gilbert Foundation, Pastor Solomon, Ken Lark. We simply tired of everybody getting on these members and being recycled in this government without really showing any type of proof of evidence of progressing just because of namesake. Don't give you the privilege of representing people and that you can't relate to or understand, and so everybody just seemed to be doing whatever they want to do, and just disregarding the community in totality. You know, I was happy to see curse Gilmore and what's going on with her disadvantaged community, and a lot of those things. But I'm a social advocate, which means social justice, social things across the board. Thank
Unknown Speaker
02:40:23you so much. Our
Speaker 19
02:40:26next speaker is ice shoulders. Yes, apologize if I mispronounced.
Speaker 6
02:40:30My name is shoulders. Hi to everybody. I'm representing the penguin Park community with the violations of the parking and everything. I've been there 48 years. We have the kids there, and the main thing we haven't is the problem is, is the parking the kids is no problem. It's the parents and everything that's standing around the park. The only thing that I'm asking the community, our members, is asking the park the capacity of the kids on the permit. It says 100 people to be at our park every day now, and we just looking at y'all, to look at it, the cars, and it has all we have been through for the last four years, that the it's just the capacity of the cars and the police. We didn't told the police and appearance, and they just hanging. But the thing is, it's a residential parking that we have in this organs organization, just to take over and all. I'm just just looking out, just trying to have the the permits, you know, like the inspector, to look over our park and to come down there for 100 people every day at your community and just look at it, and just just, and the main thing we just trying to see where they can park at to facilitate our area. And it's just like they didn't bone rush our communities leaders, none of them, they haven't talked to none of them. And they just, it's just repetition, and they modifying. It's like they modifying the permit
Speaker 19
02:42:09the precinct that you we live in. Does it have a does it have a community council
Unknown Speaker
02:42:15where they meet with the commander? No leadership. We
Speaker 6
02:42:17met with the commanders and everything. But it's like they modify, oh, it's like they modify the permit, as it go. If you look at Penguin Park community, it's just like 4020, 20 resident car sales on this, 20 parcels on here, and then you got 100
Unknown Speaker
02:42:35um, kids coming on there. And then, you know, the parents coming on
Speaker 19
02:42:38there. Gotcha so we've got some folks working on it already Okay. Information has been provided. Thank you for being here and providing additional And
Speaker 3
02:42:46Thanks so much everybody. Ms Bobby Johnson,
Speaker 15
02:42:54affordable housing is just not a social issue. It's an economical one, a health one, a moral one. When people have stable housing, they have a foundation to build a better life. Children do better in school. Adults can focus on work instead of worrying about eviction. Seniors can age with dignity, and communities can vibrant. Yet the demand for affordable housing has far exceed the demand the demand for affordable housing has far exceed our affordable housing. Meanwhile, those experiencing homelessness living in overcrowded, substandard conditions, facing deadly, daily hardships that most of us can't imagine. Jalisha will tell you next about her experience with camp, how long she's been reaching out to Cam where, when here in our community I'm meeting when out here in our community, I mean homeless, Homeless Children, seniors, families, nowhere to go. Hope we we need to create a real homeless solution and affordable housing solution for Detroit residents, remember, home is more than just four walls or a roof. It's where children grow, where families come together, where memories are made. Yet many Detroit residents, like jalisha still their basic needs remain out of reach. In the city of Detroit, the cost of housing continues to rise while wages stay the same. People are being priced out of their neighborhoods, four stitches between rent and food, medicine and transportation. We need to do something, and
Speaker 19
02:44:31our last in person speaker is Miss Delicia, Delicia. Sheridan, apologize if I mispronounced your name.
Speaker 26
02:44:39Um, well, I've I came to speak about cam. Throughout the last five years, I have been home on and off homeless. I did go out to Oakland County, where they did provide me with a shelter for about two years. Within those two years, I was supposed to still be on a waiting list with Cam. So I've been on a waiting list for about four years with Cam now they have not called me. They just keep telling me to wait, wait, wait. Then I went over to about two days ago. I was trying to go over to the wheel Joe Wilson place or whatever, and before I got there, I asked the police, because I was about to catch the bus there. I've seen the police riding down the street, and they made me so feel so uncomfortable because they ran my name. I'm just asking for help. Why are you running my name like it had warrant that mean I can get help from the police. That's not like that didn't make me feel comfortable when I did get there. To the facility, I have five people in my family in total, they said they were full and they gave us two chairs for five of us. I was like, what do we do? Oh, this is all we have. I've been calling cam. I've been calling Michigan Works, Detroit works. I've been reaching out since about December, and then we were in school, I tried to buy a home from the land bank, um, and they told me my credit wasn't good, so it's like no help. And I've been doing since December of this last year, every day, calling, calling, calling and getting nowhere. I want to
Speaker 19
02:46:23first apologize for any challenges that you've been incurring up to this point. Sincerely from us, from the city to you, but we're also going to have someone from our teams, or I'm sure, come and speak with you to see we can make that connection and make things just a little bit better for you. So we appreciate you coming down and educating us. Thank you. All right, so that that's the end of our in person public comments, we will now go to online. Our Good afternoon. Who's our first caller
Speaker 27
02:46:57afternoon? Mr. President. First caller is phone number ending in 169
Speaker 19
02:47:03caller ending in 169 The floor is yours. You have a minute 30. General public comment, hello.
Unknown Speaker
02:47:08Can you guys hear me? Yes,
Speaker 28
02:47:12um, good afternoon. Good afternoon. Um, I just want to say thank you all for praying for brother, Cunningham. I got the info for this Zoom meeting as usual as usual from Cunningham's Facebook page, I'm really upset. I'm really angry, and, you know, I'm kind of sad that Cunningham's outreach vehicle has completely died. His transmission went out. It had over 260,000 miles on it. Some good news. Couldn't he have increased his savings in one week to $3,500 for a new used van thanks to an anonymous donation of $1,000 Um, I also want to thank Thank you. Thank you. Thank you council president Sheffield for riding the bus with Cunningham. It looks like it was a productive encounter with the bus drivers and passengers. Um, I've seen this on Cunningham's Facebook page. And yes, I know Cunningham endorses no candidate, but everyone needs to get on the bus. Um, you all can help him. You all should help him. Don't hurt him. Help him. Don't hurt him. Don't let Carmen play. You all again. Thank you for my time. Thank you
Unknown Speaker
02:48:19the next caller,
Speaker 27
02:48:23please. The next caller is Kira Ahmed, right
Speaker 19
02:48:26caller, the floor is yours. You have a minute 30 general public
Speaker 11
02:48:31comment, good, good morning. Um, I want, we want to update on that lady and her children who are looking for somewhere to stay. We want to update on the next meeting that you have, because we don't want to see what happened to the Williams family. I want to thank member Callaway for cleaning up these dump sites in district two. Thank you and thank you MEMBER Thank you Miss Betty Varner for your advocacy and resource information. It helps us completely. We appreciate you. 7.4 analysis of the IAA old study. The bottom line is just like AMI, which is a comparison of three different areas. There's one area that is rich, one that's not so rich, and then it's one that's drastically poor. The assessments in Detroit, you have the richest valued homes being under assessed, and you have the poorest valued homes being over assessed, and you have one in the middle, and then you divide it by three and say, everything, all right, no, we need the lowest value homes to be assessed correctly. Bail out. That's our that's our island. If these people can't get us a zoo, get rid of the bailout Conservancy. They're not working for the citizens of Detroit. It's our island, not theirs. They talking like it's theirs. It's not yours, it's ours.
Unknown Speaker
02:50:06Next Caller, please.
Unknown Speaker
02:50:09The next caller is William and
Speaker 19
02:50:13Davis. The floor is yours. 30. General public comment, uh,
Speaker 29
02:50:16good afternoon. Can I be heard? Yes. Did you say yes, I did, yes. Okay, first off, I like to say that the City Truck retirees need the annuity. Claw back, discontinue. There's harm in a lot of us. Also looking at your agenda. Jen, agenda item 7.1, the fiscal year 2024 25 financial report on page 14, it illustrates the fact that
Unknown Speaker
02:50:46police and fire retirees got $17.3
Speaker 29
02:50:50million more than was allocated to general fund retirees. You know, the general fund retirees, we're the ones that have annuity clawback. We're the ones that have a a pension cut. We're the ones that over 3000 bucks have died. You know, some police officers, you know, firefighters have died, but not to the same number. And you know, their fund is much better funded than ours. You know, it seems like there's a disparity in treatment, almost like it's black and white, because more of them are white. So a lot of city Detroit retirees look dim on the fact that it looks like y'all give them preferential treatment, like I give preferential treatment to millionaires and billionaires, you know. So y'all need to do more to help the city. Detroit retirees, we're looking forward to y'all doing more and finally helping us. Or perhaps we need to help change. Some of you sitting there. Have a great day.
Speaker 27
02:51:43Next Caller, please. Next caller is Steven Rimmer, Steve, remember,
Speaker 19
02:51:48the floor is yours. We have a minute 30 general public comment.
Unknown Speaker
02:51:54Hello. Can I be heard? Yes, yes.
Speaker 19
02:51:57This is Steven Rimmer from Detroit Tenant Association. I'm calling in solidarity with Detroit people's platform. Detroit needs social housing now. We need housing that is permanently affordable, publicly funded and community controlled. We need housing cooperatives on and operated by the people who live in them, not by the corporate landlords or out of state developers. Every dollar that we invest in profit driven development while Detroiters are being displaced is $1 stolen from our future. Social Housing and co ops are a path forward, a way to house our people with dignity, stability and power, but we can't even get the basics through council at this point. We can't get a zero cost ordinance passed to protect tenants who are doing everything right. How long do we have to come down here call in to beg you to protect our most vulnerable communities? How many more elders have to be evicted? How many more working families have to be pushed out of their homes? I've had multiple meetings with council President Mary Sheffield. We've had conversations. We presented her the right to renew ordinance a simple, no cost protection that prevents unjust, retaliatory eviction. It doesn't require any new money. It just requires the will to stay. If you're a tenant, paying your rent and following the rules, you have the right to stay. So why hasn't this moved Why hasn't a single other council member stepped up to carry this forward? This delay tells us everything. It tells us that protecting tenants is not a priority for this council, and it won't act on a basis, and
Unknown Speaker
02:53:26it won't act on a basic freeportation, like right to renew. How can we
Unknown Speaker
02:53:31thank you. Next Caller, please.
Unknown Speaker
02:53:34Next caller is phone number ending in 99
Speaker 19
02:53:38caller, the floor is yours. You have a minute 30 general public comment.
Speaker 30
02:53:43Yes, good afternoon to all the council members into the city of Detroit. My name is Joyce Mora with the Virginia Park community coalition within the boundaries of the Virginia Park community, aging becomes a health issue, but you keep on going. So I'm back for now my primary concern with community development, black green funds, we need a mirror that will address this zone program and take those funds and put them back to the community zone of Block Grant funds. It was Mike Duggan that came along and changed the dynamics of that those funds have helped people with growth windows and porches, and right now, I know 12 people that need to book moving on. Number two in regard to test taxes from a finance. We need a governance that will get that removed as we the residents of the city, Detroit, other cities are paying for those developments. And may I simply say that for Bill Isle, the lights, if they can petition the state for more money for lighting, we need to petition for more lighting for our community. It is the communities that need more lighting. And then, in regard to the marble that was an issue 50 years ago. They wanted that marble because of the aging, the quality of whatever but may I simply say, repair, do not replace. I yield. Thank you so much for your time. It's good to be back. I yield my time. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
02:55:03Thank you our next caller, please.
Speaker 27
02:55:06The next caller is not that. Karen caller, the
Unknown Speaker
02:55:10floor is yours. You have a minute 30. General public comment,
Unknown Speaker
02:55:13hello, hello.
Speaker 31
02:55:15Yes, I agree with everything. Joyce Moore and Mister Davis said, the model in Belle Isle, it shows a lack of upkeep. If it's to the point that they want to take it and actually, they'll just probably take it and put it elsewhere. I don't think marble deteriorates like that. A Mason would know how to restore that marble. So, like everything else, they just want to take what's correct taxpayers and put it elsewhere, some other city, somewhere else. I think we should maintain our own parks that flooding on the island. Now I work for the public lighting department from 1983 to 2009 so that flooding is not normal. More than likely, one of the pump houses was out of service, but there's not anyone with the information and with the knowledge to know how to get that water off the island. Of course, when you had the races out there, there was no complaints about the flooding on the island. So I think there's something that can be done, and you should probably try to consult someone who has the expertise to know how to take care of that problem, and so you need to, somebody needs to check those pump houses, those power substations on a regular basis, because it'll get you don't get any indication when they go out of power. So that's why you're getting all that flooding, especially on the east end of the island. That's not a big, big thing to do, but it has to be done. $462 a dollars since 2012 13, that's $3.20 a day. You try to live it on.
Speaker 27
02:56:52Thank you. Next Caller, please. Next caller is Sherry Smith, alright. Sherry Smith,
Unknown Speaker
02:56:58the floor is yours. You have a minute 30. General public comment,
Speaker 32
02:57:01good morning, mabbie Hurt Yes, good morning. My name is Sherry Smith, and I'm the chair of the Detroit tenants rights commission. I'm here on behalf of the Commission in support of prioritizing permanently affordable housing options for Detroit residents. We have far too many residents, like the young woman who just spoke a few moments ago who are homeless or at imminent risk of homelessness, and so we are asking that the city government take action now. Thank you. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
02:57:27Next Caller, please.
Speaker 27
02:57:31Next caller is Sonia Brown, alright.
Speaker 19
02:57:36Call him. The floor is yours. You have a minute 30 general public comment.
Unknown Speaker
02:57:39May I be heard.
Speaker 33
02:57:42May I be heard? Yes, good afternoon. If the caller previously did not touch your heart in reference to what this homeless situation or unhoused it is now being declared, does not open your eyes to this homeless situation putting a stop to our our residents being evicted, then I don't know what else we'll do. We all know the status here. We need to stop these evictions and make sure we've gotten everyone in the city of Detroit in some form of home. We can do this. I know we can. That's my first issue with this problem. My second issue is the fact that you know that they're going to many of these shelters, and they're not getting these issues resolved. They're being placed back out here repeatedly to try to find other means we can no longer continue to allow this to take place. My next complaint is with this lifeline water replacement, the fact that they are leaving these yards, these streets, these these sidewalks tore up. This is so unsafe. If they're replacing these lines, they're digging up our city streets, and they're digging up our sidewalks. They should be required to replace that immediately. Those things should not be left for weeks at a time that is such a safety issue. Are disabled, aren't able to go down the streets or the sidewalks with walkers and or wheelchairs. I'm still waiting on you, Councilman to set up that meeting with myself, you and the water department, I'd like to know we can get these things resolved immediately. Thank you so much Iraq.
Unknown Speaker
02:59:19Next Caller, please.
Speaker 27
02:59:22Next caller is, hey, shagan,
Unknown Speaker
02:59:25yes, hello. Can
Unknown Speaker
02:59:28you hear me? I can.
Speaker 34
02:59:30Thank you honorable council members. I'm speaking in support of the language access ordinance. My name is high Gosh again, and I live and work in districts five and six. I'm also co chair of the Detroit City Council immigration Task Force. I'm Vice Chair of Governor Whitmer Michigan immigrants and refugees Council. I'm a rep for the Metro AFL CIO. I direct the collaboration of the largest ethnic newspapers in the region, and I'm a Wayne State University professor. All these responsibilities allow me to interact with a great many of our cities and states immigrant communities, and I can tell you that one of the most critical needs across the board is language access, whether it's the Bengali, Latino, Arab or West African communities, from Mexican town to Bangla town, engaging with our city meaningfully and accurately requires language access. This isn't only about civil rights or safety in emergencies or only about economic investments or population growth, it is all of those, but it is also about respect and dignity, and it is the right thing to do in a Detroit where we care for all our neighbors. Council members, please take the lead on this. I urge you to pass the ordinance. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
03:01:02Okay, who do we have next in the queue?
Unknown Speaker
03:01:05The next caller is Lisa Franklin. Arm
Unknown Speaker
03:01:07is Franklin. Two minutes. Good
Speaker 35
03:01:10morning. Thank you. Good morning to everyone. Lisa Franklin warriors on wheels, and I'm calling for two reasons. I'm in support with Detroit people's platform and social housing here in the city of Detroit, but I wanted to give a shout out to the Detroit Chevrolet Grand Prix organization. Through Rena shanman warriors on wheels was able to desensitize the volunteers last year with sensitivity training and disability awareness, but in the city of Detroit, we need better options for people with disabilities in housing. And so today, I'm in support with my colleagues at Detroit people's platform who have researched this from other cities around the country, and so in order for us to have publicly owned and governed by the people, accessible, permanently affordable housing, we would like to see social housing brought to the city of Detroit. Thank you and I yield the rest of my time. Have a good day. All
Unknown Speaker
03:02:18right. Thank you. Who do we have next?
Speaker 27
03:02:24Apologies I was muted. The next caller is Betty a Varner.
Speaker 31
03:02:29Good afternoon to all within the sound of my voice, I'm Betty a Varner, president of DeSoto Ellsworth black Association yesterday when I spoke about our fantastic Motor City makeover successes. I neglected to mention that Deputy Mayor Mrs. Howard came by and also our district manager, Miss Davis, the district manager for district seven came by. I had a wonderful conversation with the deputy mayor and the district manager. We took some pictures. Also, as I mentioned yesterday, our honorable council member, Doha, came by. Our community liaison person, Mrs. Lockett, who's part of his team, his media person, also the City of Detroit's media person, came by, did an interview, and we took pictures, and we broke bread together, and it was a wonderful time. And especially the GM volunteers, oh my god, they worked so hard. Beautiful flower garden. They worked hard there, and we well, they did. I did, and I'm not able, but they cleared out the land that we are in the process of purchasing from the land bank for vacant lots that was wooded. So it was a success. We still need our landscaping boat.
Speaker 13
03:04:03Thank you, Miss Barnes, before I just want to say I made a mistake. I said two minutes is one minute and 30 seconds. I apologize. Charge that to my head, not my heart. I am so sorry. Go ahead first protest.
Unknown Speaker
03:04:13Thank you so much, sir. Next Caller, please.
Unknown Speaker
03:04:17Next caller is phone number ending in 434,
Speaker 19
03:04:20caller ending in 434, the floor is yours. General public
Unknown Speaker
03:04:24comment, can you hear me? Yes.
Speaker 28
03:04:27Oh, yes. Hey, I just wanted to say you just recently, you know, I was wearing my Detroit shirt in another city, and I just want to say to the House, President, thank you for everything that you're doing, because what you're doing is emoting from you and the world loves you. What you do for the city of Detroit is magnanimous. You're a great person. You're outstanding. Your track record is outstanding. I'm sure that the people's bill when it passed, oh my god. Applause. Continuing on property tax reform ordinance, industry standards board responsible contracting you really hold Detroit down. I really hope Detroit remain honest with you and let you know that you are a great leader. I appreciate you. I stand up for you. I champion you every day, and I just want you to succeed, be great at everything you do. I congratulate you on everything that you stand for. You make Detroit a monumental city to the rest of the world, and congratulate yourself for being spectacular. You came in young. You were not deterred. You were not moved by any of the negative naysayers that thought you couldn't do it. Continue. Continue, continue. You make me so proud to be a resident of Detroit. Born here, raised here, man, I feel good being in Detroit because of you council president and all you done. You came in young you know all those other staff.
Speaker 27
03:06:03Thank you. Next Caller, please. Next caller, Steven Haring,
Unknown Speaker
03:06:09we heard Yes.
Speaker 36
03:06:11So I just first want to say the Detroit people spectrum really hasn't done anything in the affordable housing crisis. You know, they spent hundreds of 1000s stuff, millions in these useless billboards and going after developments and other stuff. But you know, the biggest issue when no one's really mentioned is the cost of construction and labor. That's really holding back the affordable housing. And we are doing better. We did sign that affordable housing pilot ordinance, which is great, and the Detroit people's platform did speak against that, but you know, it definitely is an issue in the city. We do have, you know, we're not as bad as other cities, that's for sure. But you know, I think it's getting a lot better. I think Mike Duggan has been great when it comes to affordable housing and really getting people and probably better than any of the previous mayors. And, you know, I really think that, you know, regarding the evictions, I know these eviction defense you know, I understand, you know, there has been a lot of injustice evictions, but one thing is, when people don't pay their bills, they should be evicted. You know, that's the bottom line, man, you know, I know a lot of people don't believe that, but you know, that's the way it works in society. I yield the rest of my time,
Unknown Speaker
03:07:46please. The next caller is Cindy Dara, all right. Cindy
Unknown Speaker
03:07:50Darragh, floor is yours. You have a minute? There's general public comment.
Unknown Speaker
03:07:58Cindy Dara, are you there? I
Unknown Speaker
03:08:03Are you there? Miss dar
Speaker 19
03:08:07Ari, we can put ms dar at the end of the queue and go to the next caller, please.
Unknown Speaker
03:08:12The next caller is Luella zudi.
Unknown Speaker
03:08:15All right, Luella, good afternoon. Good
Speaker 37
03:08:18afternoon, everybody. I'm Louella Pizzuti, and I live in brightmoor. I support deep Detroit people's platforms, social housing demands. We can and must do better. In addition, the HUD, CDBG, Dr grant will bring much needed investment to Detroit and bright more, but I'm asking you to closely monitor D, w, s, DS, use of these funds in brightmoor, in bright more, dw, SD, behaves as if the people here are nothing more than obstacles in the way of them, using a so called blank canvas in whatever way works for their narrow goals, this approach has resulted In under compensating under compensating neighbors when taking their property quietly, reneging on community agreements and obliterating a native plants meadow that was 30 years and countless volunteer hours in the making, please put safeguards in place to compel DWSD to conduct meaningful community engagement. So these funds and this project can not only improve green stormwater infrastructure, but also spark economic growth and foster neighborhood stability. Thank you so much. Next Caller, please. The next caller is Aaron. Caller, the floor is yours. You have a minute 30 general public comment May I be heard? Yes. Hello.
Speaker 38
03:09:47My name is Karen Cardenas, and I'm speaking today about the language access ordinance. I'm a part of a statewide Latino focused and led organization called me poder, and we're working to strengthen the voice of the Michigan Latinx community. I myself have been a Detroit resident for over 11 years now. I believe in supporting the civil rights of all Detroiters, and I want to ensure that my immigrant family members, friends and neighbors have equal access to city services and programs. Please pass the crucial ordinance so we can make sure that all residents can participate in city programs, attend meetings where resident feedback is sought, and receive critical safety information in a language that they can understand. I really urge you to join the ranks of other major cities nationwide and pass this language access ordinance today. Thank you so much.
Unknown Speaker
03:10:38Next Caller,
Unknown Speaker
03:10:40please the next
Speaker 27
03:10:43apologies, the next caller is Mac Farr,
Speaker 39
03:10:49good afternoon. Can you guys hear me? Yes, yes. So my name is Mac far and I live in pinker park as well. I wanted to talk to you guys about the Seminoles, which is the football team that has basically taken possession of Pickler Park, what Ty shoulders, Katie Moreno Alice Tonita Ford have referred to in terms of the impact. They are real. We have had blocked ambulances. We have had parents begin altercations with residents. They have parked people into their driveways. And you know, over the course of the past year, we've been attempting to work with lots of different city agencies on this, the municipal parking department, the Detroit Police Department, the ombudsman's office, the General Services Department, like, if you name a city of Detroit agency, we have contacted them at the end of the day. This isn't us being petty. This park is not set up to sustain 100 kids coming there five times a week. They're also honestly, sort of feels like there's an element of spite at play here, once we ended up really surfacing this issue and asking the city to move the league, the city doubled down on its stance and actually increase the frequency of its use. So there's other places for this league to go. It should not be in Angry Park. Please. Please help us and move this way to a better look.
Speaker 27
03:12:28Next Caller, please. Next caller is Tyson Gersh,
Unknown Speaker
03:12:33hi. Can you hear me? Yes, floor is yours. Cool.
Speaker 40
03:12:36Thanks. I just wanted to call in and voice just serious concern about what's happening with the solar Neighborhoods Initiative. I don't live anywhere near any of those neighborhoods. I don't own property there, but as a citizen, just kind of watching it from a distance. I'm just like in complete shock that this is proceeding the way it's proceeding. I mean, like ground level solar is a temporary land use and change, like doing a text amendment to the zoning ordinance to designate solar as a utility, and then using it as the basis of necessity for eminent domain takings is just, I mean, like, if it's not just giving red flags to you guys, I think we're in trouble, you know, with the new administration. Kind of thought our biggest constitutional crisis was going to come from above, but it seems like it's coming right here at home. You guys cannot just take people's property. And I know there's a lot of propaganda and narrative being spun to kind of minimize what's happening here, but you know, if this stuff goes through unchallenged, it just permanently lowers the imminent domain standard across the state of Michigan. And that is not something that is good for the citizens of our state, certainly not good for the citizens of Detroit.
Speaker 27
03:14:11Next Caller, please. The next caller is Christine's iPhone.
Speaker 10
03:14:18Good afternoon, council members. Can I be heard? Yes, great. This is Christine survey. I lead policy engagement and communications at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center. We at Mark are delighted to see City Council proceed with a language access ordinance to ensure that all Detroiters have meaningful access to essential city services. This is in keeping with protections outlined by title six of the Civil Rights Act, and helps limit the City of Detroit's legal liability for failures to prevent discrimination based on national origin. It ensures that all Detroiters will be able to benefit from city programs and services regardless of their English language proficiency. It codifies current practices and guarantees a basic level of language services in coordination across city departments. So this is a really important commitment to enable Detroiters of all backgrounds to fully participate in, benefit from and contribute to civic life in the city of Detroit. I also serve as a co chair of the Detroit immigration Task Force, and we really welcome this ordinance. We have advocated for an ordinance for 10 years, so it is truly a day long and coming, and we urge council to please pass the language access ordinance and ensure that city services are more evenly provided across city departments for all those who need them. Thank you so much.
Speaker 27
03:15:51Next Caller, please the next caller, we see you. Call
Speaker 19
03:15:56it the floor is yours. We have a minute 30 July public comment.
Speaker 41
03:16:01Good afternoon, and through the Chair, may I be heard.
Unknown Speaker
03:16:09Yes, thank you. Council
Speaker 41
03:16:15Pro Tem solar, dial, 313-230-4742, it. If we must insist that this body act, we will do what we need to do to make sure that you do the right thing by residents dealing with the solar Yes, we are talking about housing. And the young lady that spoke that told you she had contacted cam. Now we need to call into review Tara and Miss Snyder, the HRD people. They are the ones that run these programs. And so now we're going to try to find out, you know, circle through and find out where the cracks are, because this woman is another person like the Williams family asking for help, and there is no help, and we've spent a lot of money the language access ordinance. I don't have anything against it, but there are federal laws around this, and those are where the violations must come from. The city cannot take liabilities, and we must do a fiscal impact study before we start okay okaying ordinances. And the 348 million that came for disaster recovery, that money was earmarked for the 5000 residents in the area where the where the storm impacted. It's not some Bonanza fun for you all to do what you want to do. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
03:17:47Next Caller, please.
Unknown Speaker
03:17:48Next caller is Julia, alright.
Unknown Speaker
03:17:52Caller, the floor is yours. You have a minute 30 general public comment,
Speaker 42
03:17:55Hi, good morning, good afternoon. Can I be heard? Yes. Okay. So thank you, honorable city council members. I am speaking today about the language access ordinance as well. Currently, some city departments provide translation and some do not. Some staff are aware of the city's language services, while others are not. This ordinance would ensure each department has a language access plan, and a designated staff member responsible for executing this plan, this will ensure language access is more evenly provided across city departments for residents who need it. And I also urge you to pass this ordinance today. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
03:18:40Thank you. Next
Speaker 27
03:18:41Caller, please. Next caller is Mr. Rue, Mr. Real. All right,
Speaker 19
03:18:47Ruben, James Crowley Jr, the floor is yours. A minute 30. General public comment,
Speaker 43
03:18:53hey, Ari, listen up carefully. This afternoon, I want to speak about political careers here in Detroit City. Political careers, Angela Whitfield, Callaway, Scott Benson, James E Tate Junior. Fred deer Hall, political careers, Janice Winfrey and Gina Avery Walker been over there cheating in Detroit elections for years and years and years and years, and I can prove it and demonstrate it, but I already told you I tried to appear before council to bring forth the information. There is no ballot with Mary Elaine Beckman signature on it over at the Detroit Department of Elections, not her real one. They know it. They need to be immediately removed from that office, in that position. That's Gina Avery Walker and Janice Winfrey immediately before the Detroit 2025, local elections. I don't know what I gotta do yet, but Nene want what she want. And James, take you in the way. Fred Doha, you in the way. Scott Benson, you on the way. Angela Whitfield, Callaway you in the way. And I missed the route. And if you didn't know, you can find out very easily. I'm a known individual around Detroit City.
Speaker 27
03:20:27Next Caller, please. The next caller is Mikko a Williams. Miko
Speaker 19
03:20:31a Williams, the floor is yours. I made it 30 general public comment. Hello.
Unknown Speaker
03:20:43We can hear you. Sound like you're underwater.
Unknown Speaker
03:20:47Oh, hold on one second.
Speaker 13
03:20:49Okay, sorry about that. Yes. Hi. My name is mik Williams. I'm a resident taxpayer district five. Shout out to all the housing advocates that are working hard to provide low income housing and represent for access to establish housing to not be taken away from us by private developers, corporate and outside developers. It is such a shame that we are still faced with people coming down to the city council, begging for housing, and they've gone through cam, and there needs to be investigation to Cam. I've been calling for that for over three years, ever since they got that money, and nothing has happened. You know, I'm very disappointed once again, that we are still talking about access to housing where black people are 70% renters, 27% low, low, low home ownership. When we had over 70% home ownership, I can't buy a house. I don't have the money to buy a house. It won't give me the capital buy a house, and all the city programs are filled with stipulations to prevent me from buying a house, you could argue, oh, shout out to all the housing advocates the grassroots. But what about the ones that were here for the fast track development on affordable housing? They're not here. Mayor Duggan, slaves and puppets aren't here to advocate for affordable housing. Where are they? It's very telling. And Belle Isle is the People's Park. It could have been a park of greatness instead of slum.
Unknown Speaker
03:22:25Next Caller, please.
Speaker 27
03:22:27The last caller who would raise their hand before public comment been cut off is Cindy Yara, yeah,
Speaker 44
03:22:37I want to talk about Scott fountain. I worked at Scott fountain in between, I think about 2003 we fixed all the lights and but we except for underwater lights on half of that on the the lowest pool. That's where those underwater lights were. Well, my foreman did not let us spend time re piping the galvanized pipe that had the galvanized pipe had rusted out, so the water was going into the pipe running back down into the basement. There was a big flood area where they kept trying to store the water that would leak back down the electrical gear wasn't always working. I used to get some contact cleaner and spray it into the electrical cabinets and then say abracadabran and start working, because it get the moisture out of the cabinets, but they need to raise all of the any type of electrical equipment should be raised on unit strut, high above the floor, so that if any flood happens, either in a swimming pool area or down in those basements, that it doesn't get ruined. But the I think you can repair wood, and you might be able to repair abatronas for wood, but you should research to see if you can't repair
Speaker 19
03:24:12There we go. Thank you so much, and it takes it to the end of public comment. All right, we'll now go into our agenda.
Unknown Speaker
03:24:26Like to like
Unknown Speaker
03:24:31to recess to The Call of The chair. I
Speaker 19
03:26:20I would now like to call back to order the formal session. I'm clerk. Will you please call the roll?
Unknown Speaker
03:26:38Council member Scott Benson,
Speaker 24
03:26:41Council Member Fred on third present. Council member Leticia Johnson, present council member Gabriella Santiago Romero, present council member Mary waters.
Unknown Speaker
03:26:52Council member Angela Whitfield Callaway
Unknown Speaker
03:26:55council member Coleman Young a second here,
Speaker 2
03:26:59council president pro tem James Tate here. Council. President, Mary Sheffield,
Unknown Speaker
03:27:06mister. President, you have a quorum present. Thank
Speaker 19
03:27:08you. We have a quorum present, which means we're now back in session. We'll go into the agenda now under the standing committee reports for the budget, Finance and Audit standing committee from the Office of contracting and procurement. Council,
Speaker 15
03:27:22A resolution line item 17.1
Unknown Speaker
03:27:29Contract Number 6007006
Speaker 24
03:27:32100% city funding to provide electronic.