doing tonight? Am I good? Glad to hear it, colleagues. Are we good to go? Anybody need a lead? A minute? We good? 702. Ladies and gentlemen. And gentlemen. Recording in progress. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, it's my pleasure to welcome you back to city council. This is tonight's meeting. Is our in person and virtual regular meeting scheduled for Monday, August 19, 2024 at 7pm as far as opening ceremonies, I'm going to do a divergent from divergent position from my normal meetings. I want to remind people we have not met in the past six weeks, there has been a lot that's happened in the community. I want to remind our guests here that citizens participation has two sections. The one, the first section, is for agenda items. The second section of citizens participation is for open ended topics. Just want to make that clear, this is our regular meeting. I don't know a lot has happened in the community, but tonight is our regular business meeting. So thank you very much for joining us here as well. Madam, Deputy Kirk, please call the roll. Councilman AFI, Councilwoman Martin, Councilwoman Manica, yes. Council Pro Tem Robinson, Council President Thomas here. Thank you very much. Members of city council, you have had access to the agenda. I believe you have also heard from our department heads, as far as making modifications for the agenda, at this time, I'll turn the floor over to you so that we can move on to Item three, that is the approval of the agenda. Mr. President, yes. Thank you. Director Clyburn had a couple requests. He asked that three requests, actually, he asked that item V i c, which is a sale of 309 tuxedo being moved to the next council workshop, and that two items be removed, those being item VIB, which is the AP Udi agreement, and item VII A, which is the north and Woodward community coalition donation that those to be removed. So then again, so we're talking about Item six A, the resolution to approve the Highland Park housing
community, limited division dividend Housing Association, no, that stays, but, but 6b would be removed. 6b 6c would be removed, but placed on the agenda for the next workshop, and then seven a be removed.
Okay, so Council, you have heard from our legal advisor here, 666,
B and 6c Correct. Miss Manick has questions for Yes, ma'am, go right ahead. Before that, can I just to clarify 6b and C and then seven A. That's a recommendation, correct? Okay, those three being removed with C being sent to the next workshop. Okay, okay, we'll work that out. Miss Manica, your hand up in regards to a motion, I move to approve the agenda with the removal in community development of six, DMC, and then in recreation seven, eight. We have a motion on the floor from Councilman Manica to approve tonight's agenda with the following amendments, the removal of items 6b, and C, and also the removal of item seven A. Do we have support?
Absolutely? Support from Madam proton, please go right ahead with your questions. Why are we moving?
Um, so director Clyburn, I guess you can answer the questions for Item six and then for the recreation department. Where is that coming from? The city's
administration? I see
a
reason? Why we're removing seven as well? Seven, eight?
Okay,
this is a donation from Northeastern Woodward community, coalition,
six,
BNC, seven, a six.
It.
That's Item 6c the request from the CD directors to move that property sale, the private property sale to a workshop.
Additional questions and Deputy Clerk, would you please call the roll on approval of the agenda? Councilman Shafi Yes, Councilwoman Martin,
Councilwoman Manica Yes, council Pro Tem Robinson, yes. Council President Thomas Yes. Motion carries next Under Item four is the approval of the proposed minutes. We have four sets of minutes, the workshop from July 15, the regular meeting from July 15, the special meeting from july 26 and the special meeting, virtual and person for both of these special meetings for August 13, city council, what is your pleasure? We'll do these one at a time, yes on in person and virtual workshop meeting for July 15, 2024, city council, what's your pleasure? I move to approve the minutes
for in person and virtual workshop meeting, July 15, 2024, Chair for support. Questions. Concerned dissent, Madam Deputy Clerk, would you call the roll on the in person and virtual workshop meeting for July 15? Councilman shaffy Yes. Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman Manica Yes. Council Pro Tem Robinson Yes. Council President Thomas Yes. Motion carries moving on to in person and virtual regular meeting for July 15, 2024 City Council. Wish pleasure, I moved to approve the in person and virtual regular meeting for July 15. 2024 chair for support, questions, concerns, dissent. Madam Deputy Clerk, would you please call the roll for the in person and virtual regular meeting minutes for July 15, council minutes? Councilman Shafi Yes, Councilwoman Martin Yes, Councilwoman Manica Yes. Council Pro Tem Robinson
Yes, Council President Thomas Yes. Motion carries moving on to the in person and virtual special meeting for july 26 2024 City Council. What is your pleasure?
I move to approve the in person and virtual special meeting on July 26 2024 chair for support. Do we have questions, concerns or dissent? Deputy Clerk, would you please call the roll? Councilman Shafi,
Councilwoman Martin No.
Councilwoman Manica Yes. Council proton Robinson, Council President Thomas Yes. These minutes will not be a part of the official record for City Council in person and virtual special meeting for August 13, 2024 City Council. What's your pleasure?
You
This is for the August the 13th, the
council, what's pleasure? Want to
make a motion chair offer
support for the motion, questions, concerns, dissent, Madam Deputy Clerk, Councilman Shafi Yes. Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman Manica, council coach and Robinson
Council President Thomas yes. Thank you very much. Please include that in the official record. So now we're going to move on to the section of our regular meeting where we always turn the floor over to Mayor McDonald. Let me just point out that this is the only and we have had a regular town hall meeting where people are called to get like this in long term. And I think it's I didn't understand. Why not. This is one of the few requests that I asked as a new council president. That we make sure we allow an opportunity for the mayor to speak. We give the mayor the floor. This is pending whatever future arrangements or relationships that we had. It's important to give the mayor an opportunity to address the public, because it doesn't come along that often. We don't have a regular structure meeting where the mayor of the city can sit down with constituents in an official capacity, the only opportunity we would have had is the city council meeting, and I'm so glad that we included that into our early structure of our of our regular meeting, so that the mayor could come and have an opportunity to address the public on a regular basis. That being said, it's our meeting. So we're going to try and keep it to where it's the city council meeting, and the mayor is our guest, and we've given her the floor to be able to address you. I want to make sure that the citizens are aware that we don't want you to take over our meeting and use this as an opportunity to do anything other than allow the mayor to share the information with you that she wants to bring so without further ado, I will call Mayor McDonald to the floor and turn the floor over to you, ma'am, it is yours. This
is new, nice.
Alright, so first of all, good evening, citizens. Good evening to the honorable body and administrative staff that's here first.
Let me thank you all of those people will get off the national night out. It was a good time. And by all special thanks to Coco, the wonderful band, the DJ, and new committee members that work to make this event. Assistance to the HPPD and chief McMahon. You guys put on an event that citizens just think their teeth into. They said your food was good. Continue to go to the extra mile to make sure that you're engaged in the city. With this and with second, we are planning our annual youth explosion. This event will happen in September. The Youth Advisory Committee is seeking sponsors and donations for the event.
Please contact around Wilkinson, who works for the police department, or the Nario Barnes, also known as vo great,
for more information. Third, we are working diligently to move the city forward. This means following the current ordinances until at what time the city council update those, please take time look at the ordinance on the website. That's quite a few. I want to say 800 maybe, but take some time go through them also, we will be sending out an ordinance, the ordinances that affect your homes. So you will be getting a document at your door that talks about all of the ordinances for either your your council, I mean, your block club presidents. They will receive them and they'll print them out make sure that you send those two they're locked up members, because there's quite a few ordinances that affect your home. One is your barbecue and on the front door. One is garbage. Garbage can, making sure that
those lids are on the health control enrollments. There's a, there's about, I don't want to say about 14 that affect just the house, at your house, grass, weeds, all of that. So please make sure that you look at those. And I know that the city owns quite a few properties, and we are working trying to keep them down. But again, we only have six members a day in the DPW department out trying to cut down grass, trying to keep the weeds, trying to make sure that I was explaining and until we get some more funding, that's what we're working with. At one time, DPW had 30 workers, and they were union. So imagine having 30 workers and the city was beautiful, down to six, and we try and make sure
vendoring ordinances, all vendoring ordinances will be adhered to. It's an ordinance, and it must be so at this point, we're going to make sure that all of the ordinances are found until at which time the council
members upgrade those ordinances, change those ordinances or make the ordinances a better working working for the city of Last but not least. I know some of you want to hear about what happened at the food truck vendoring, but I need advisement of our legal as well as myself. I cannot address anything that might be pending or possible pending litigation, so at that point, I can't talk about any of that. So thank you. Good evening. I'm hoping that we can all start working together to move the city forward in a way that's more positive and more Thank you, ma'am.
Okay, so folks, this is citizens participation as it relates to items specifically on the agenda. If there's something on the agenda, whether there's something you just want to get off your chest. I'll give you your two minutes to do. So if we don't have any pre council meeting agenda items for citizens comment, we can move straight into the meeting, but as always, we will set time aside. Got a little louder time and that is we have anyone who wants to address items that are on the agenda. If there's an item on the agenda that you would like to address, I'm asked for to please step into the center aisle and move towards the podium. We'll take you in the order in which you appear, and if you'll be kind enough to state your name and what agenda item that we're going to discuss and move forward from there. My name is garland Hardiman, and I want to discuss item number five, bid opening for water main service line replacement project. Yes, sir. I'm assuming that this item is on the agenda, because I do have a specific issue. I purchased a property in 98 Brighton, and there's no water line there, so they removed the water lines for homes that were vacant, and they installed
new water lines for people who were currently occupying their units. So I wanted to find out if there is going to be money available to now address properties that are currently occupied, and how much money was spent on the original from the original grant, how much money was given to the city, how much money was spent for household on the original grant, because I was told that the money was now gone and they were not going to do my property.
It's new. Get shipped without a couple screws. Okay, yeah, screw in it. Alright. So I was told that the money had already been spent. It was no longer any money. They weren't going to do my property, and they asked me for almost $7,000 to install a line. And I said, I'm not doing that. I hire my own person before I pay you guys $7,000 so it's interesting, this is on the agenda. That's why I wanted to meet with my council member, because I've already spent about $50,000 improving this property. It was a total mess when I purchased it. I'm probably going to be into 120,000 by the time I'm finished. So I'm trying to improve property to Highland Park. I just spoke with your director, DPW about a blighted property right behind mine, and so we can get that cleaned up. So I'm here for the long term. I live just two miles away in Detroit, Russell woods, but I'm committed to Highland Park to do what I can to help to improve the city and to make my property one of the premier properties in the city. Okay, so just this is my first time seeing you. Typically, when you ask a question like that, there's somebody on this side of the line that's writing some information down. Okay, a question about water lines, more than likely you have to call MCA. They, since the directors are here, if you were to call them or to show up, fill out a questionnaire, that would be the most appropriate way for you to get your question answered. We don't typically answer the questions for the people that are asking them. As a city council, we're voting on things that are brought to our table, but the people with the capacity to answer your questions, you mentioned them, DPW, potentially the water department, so you could follow up with them, either with the phone call or an in person at their office. Okay, that way you can get the answers. I want to make sure that you know where to get the answers to the great questions that you ask, and I do. Thank you for appearing tonight. Well, thank you for allowing me to speak. I was telling you a DPW director that I grew up in Detroit, but I spent 25 years of my life in Los Angeles as a Los Angeles police officer, but also was council member and Mayor of Englewood, California for 12 years. Okay, so I'm familiar with the process, and hopefully we know we can work together and get some things done. Alright, thank you so much, sir. Thank you everyone for night.
I did speak with the DPW director today. We had a nice conversation. Alright, okay, thank you so much. It's turned Johnson, how are you? I'm fine. Thank you Good evening, Council. Charlene Turner Johnson here I'm representing the Agenda Item number seven. I think it's number seven, the last item on the agenda. The last one the communication from the pastors, the residents and city leaders. I just wanted to read a little bit of the letter that we sent you got your time. So on behalf of the 50, almost 50, residents who signed this letter, We the undersigned community leaders, pastors and residents of Highland Park write to you with a unified voice to express our deep concern and earnest request that each council member uphold the duties and responsibilities entrusted to you by the citizens of our community, first, we want to acknowledge and commend those council members who are diligently carrying out their responsibilities as outlined in the city's charter, your commitment to serving our community, your preparation for council meetings and your respectful and professional conduct do not go unnoticed. We you set a commendable example for all. However, we recognize that there are areas where improvement is needed, we respectfully ask that all council members number one, diligently prepare for council meetings.
Number two, display appropriate decorum. Number three, show common courtesy and respect. And number four, prioritize the city's best interest. We have a little explanation under each of those items, so we hope that you will read them, and we respectfully ask that you comply with them. We close the letter by saying we believe that adherence to these principles will enhance the council's ability to govern effectively foster public trust and promote a positive, forward thinking environment in Highland Park, we urge you to consider our request seriously and act in the best interest of the residents you serve. Thank you for your attention to this important matter. We remain hopeful that together we can work towards a more prosperous and harmonious future for all citizens of Highland Park. And the letter is signed, first of all by Bishop Lewis Evans, who is the president of the pastors and ministers fellowship, and also by almost 50 residents who were gathered together in a meeting specifically to discuss city issues and how we can work more closely with city council and with city organizations to promote a more prosperous and effective Highland Park. So we thank you for your consideration of the letter, and we hope that you will agree with the principles that we ask in this letter. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Ma'am, yes. Charmaine Robinson was at that meeting. Thank you. All right, I don't see anyone else approaching the podium, so I'm going to take that as my cue to move into our regular meeting, starting with item five. This is a bid opening. This is the 2023, water main and sewer line replacement project, contract number W, as in whale, D, as in dog,
202301, grant number ARP, 7633, dash, 01, Madam Clerk has the opening bids for us, and she will begin that process. Excuse me, I'm sorry I need a motion on the floor. So get this. These bids open.
I move to have the bid opening for the 2023 water main and service line replacement project. Contract number WD, 202301,
grant number ARP, 763301, we have a motion on the floor for the Oh to begin the bid. Opening from Councilman Manica. Do we have support? Chair? Offer support?
Questions concerned dissent. Mister Shafi, opening for
the for the master
mister
Garrett designed, working
on the design since May that so this is water improvements that part of the gravity that we've been receiving every year. So the service of that
we've been receiving regular water main distribution.
Madam pro tem, okay, so the motion is out to begin. We have a motion from Miss Manica supported by the chair. Would you please call the roll to open the bidding? Councilman Shafi Yes. Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman Manica Yes. Council Pro Tem Robinson Yes. Council President Thomas, yep. Motion carries open away. I
once these bids are open, these packages are going to be handed over to the administration to filter through and provide us with feedback on any information related to the bids and whether or not the candidates are appropriate. That will be a decision made within the administration's wheelhouse. The first
bid comes from bittergare contractors Incorporated, B, I D, I G, A, R, E,
there in Plymouth, Michigan,
phase one. They have a bid price of $6,945,430
again, the price for the first bid for the first phase 6,000,945 $6,945,430
the bid for phase two, 6400 40,643
Oh, my apologies. 6 million, 6,440,006 6,440,643
for a total project price of $13,386,073
again, total project price, $13,386,073 $6,073
applause,
the next bid is from LGC Global there then
put their address close by, but the second
bid is from LGC global phase 1l.
Is in Lincoln, GM in Georgia.
The bid for the for phase one, 4,771,288 $71,288.38
again,
$4,771,288.38
phase two, 4,000,002
Oh, thank you. $4,012,261.00
and two cent again. $4,012,261 $12,261.02
for a total project price of 8,783,500
$550,550.01
nine cent. Again, total project price, $8,783,560.01
where are they? Okay? They have put the address any of the immediate sheets. I
envelope,
summary, okay,
seven. Their address is, 7310,
Woodward Avenue, again, 7310, Woodward Avenue, Suite
500 city, Detroit. City, Detroit, yes, Detroit. 202, I.
Yes, 500 sweet, 500 I
the next bid is from brico. Brico excavating, b r i, c, c o, brick O, B R, I, C, C O, their address, 21201, 21201 Myers and Oak Park, again, that address, 21201, Myers in Oak Park, you
the cost for phase one $5,752,377
again bid for phase One $5,752,377
the price for phase two, $6,813,055
6,813,050 813,055
for a total project price of $12,565,432
again, total project price, $12,565,432
$1,432
we had
a total of four bids. Our final bid is from major contracting group, 1222, Greenfield, major M,
a, J, O, R, contracting Group incorporated 12222, Greenfield in Detroit.
Thank you, ma'am. You.
The price for phase one, 6,790,002 $790,295
$6,790,295
phase two, 8,399,462
again, $8,399,462
for a total project price of $15,189,757
again, 15,000,189 $15,189,757
and those are all of the bids. Okay? Thank you very much, members of council, I'm sure you can get detailed information from the clerk's office on the bids that came in the name of companies, addresses, as well as the total bid amount, and then it'll be handed over to the city's administration to move forward after this time. So moving on to item six under community development. This is the resolution to approve the Highland Park. Housing Communities, limited dividend, Housing Association, LLC payment in lieu of tax pilot, the tax exempt ordinance. This is item six, eight members of council. What is your pleasure on item six? Eight, the people in the audience. We had two workshops on this pilot related to creating a framework. We have a motion on the floor from Councilman shopping, but this is to and a second from Miss Manning. This is to improve. What am I doing? Questions, concerns, dissent,
hey, I'm shocked. Uh, Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll on item six, eight? Councilman Shafi Yes. Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman Manica. Council Pro Tem Robinson, no. Council President
Thomas Yes. Motion carries,
okay. Moving on to item seven under recreation. This is a resolution to accept the Council of Michigan Foundation's CMF Department of Natural Resources, DNR spark grant for $982,700 City Council. What's your pleasure?
I moved to accept, I'm sorry. I moved to approve the resolution to accept the Council of Michigan Foundation, CMF, Department of Natural Resources, DNR spark grant of $982,700
we have a motion on the floor from Councilman Manica to to approve the resolution to accept the sick this council of Michigan, foundation, Department of Natural Resources, Spark grant seconded by Councilman OSHA. Questions concerns, dissent, Madam Deputy Clerk, would you please call the roll on item seven eight, Councilman shaffy, Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman Manica Yes. Council Pro Tem Robinson Yes. Council President time Yes. Motion carries moving on to item 7b this is a resolution to issue an RFP for the implementation of an 494,000 congressionally congressional directed spending grant for fiscal year 2023 sponsored by Councilwoman Rashida tlai City Council. What is your pleasure? I move to approve the resolution to issue an RFP for the implementation of a 494,000 congressional directed spending grant for fiscal year, 2023 sponsored by Congresswoman Rashida to lead council we have a motion on the floor for Item 7b a resolution to issue RFP for the implementation of the $494,000 correction directed spending grant made by Councilwoman, seconded by Councilman Sharpie. Questions, concerns or dissent. Madam, Deputy Kirk, please call the roll. Councilman ashafi, Councilwoman Martin, Councilwoman Manica. Council Pro Tem Robinson, yes. Council President Thomas, Yes. Motion carries moving on to Item eight under the seat.
Go.
Okay, so this is this, okay, okay, the B is the B is the B. Okay. Uh, Council,
the clerk has just brought it to my attention that once we accept it, once we open the bidding process and we moved on, I need a motion on the floor to refer those bids or to turn those bids over to the water department in order for us to be a motion to accept those bids. Okay?
Now so that will be, we just to be in proper order. Now we're just going to go in our agenda. This can come at any No, you've done it already. Okay? It just needs to be voted on to refer to water for their so under item under item five, we have a motion made by Councilman Shafi to refer the bid, the open bids, to the water department. And that recommendation, the further recommendation, this was seconded by Councilwoman Manica on the
matter of item five. Since we have this motion on the floor. Would you call the roll on Mr.
Shafis motion for item five? Councilman Shafi Yes, Councilwoman Martin Yes, Councilwoman Manica Yes. Council proton Robinson Yes. Council President Thomas Yes. Motion carries. Let the record show that city council made
kind of bridged our agenda here to revisit item five to make sure that we close it out. Thank you very much.
We want to Item eight under our senior Department. This is a resolution reviewing and approving the Detroit area for agency, Detroit area agency on
aging proposed fiscal year 2025, annual implementation plan City Council. What is your pleasure for Item eight,
we have a motion to approve from Council pro tem. That motion was seconded by Councilman el Shafi. Do we have questions, concerns or dissent? Call the
roll. Councilman Shafi Yes. Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman Manica Yes. Council proton Robinson Yes. Council President Thomas Yes. Motion carries okay for item nine, outside communication, we have a letter from the president
of the Highland Park, pastors Association, administers fellowship. This is an item that we can receive and file City Council. What is your pleasure on how we deal with Item nine of the outside communication? File? We have a motion on the floor from Councilman oshafi to receive and file the item in the outside communication. Do we have support? Have support from Councilwoman Martin, questions concerning dissent, Madam de Clerk, would you please call the roll? Councilman Shafi Yes. Councilwoman Martin, yes. Councilwoman Manica Yes. Council Pro Tem Robinson, yes. Council President Thomas, yes, the Motion carries, so imma pause before we get into citizen participation. And
we are 45 minutes into our meeting and we have finished our business. That is proof that we can do this again. I don't know what we all had, same gust of fresh air, water, juice, whatever it is, whatever we had before we got here today. We need to
have that before every meeting. Despite whatever our personal Animus is, we managed to get the city's business attended to in 45 minutes,
and that is worth applauding.
So members of council,
anybody need a break? Because we all know, once we get into citizens participation, we hear what we doing? Everybody, yeah, I'm hoping the chair is open for for three minutes, three minutes, five minutes.
All those in favor. Okay, so we're going to take a short break, ladies and gentlemen, because we want to make sure that you get our full focus during citizen participation. Rarely is this room this full. So citizens participation can take, I'm going to go ahead and put in two minutes 30 seconds, give everybody a little extra something. As well as our council affairs, we have not had a meeting in five, almost six years, something like that. Yeah, so
opportunity
for y'all to area ourselves out. We're going to Do the same, Ladies Gentlemen,
come check them.
It's
not a bad idea.
Yeah, I think that
would be a good idea, even if, if the questions were read out loud, there's a there's some merit to saying it out loud so people feel as if they're being heard, if nothing else, that their question is addressed in the public forum. A half dozen people might have the same question. They might have same questions, but then there might be some unique questions as well. Wait till he comes back.
Yeah, just
to hand him off.
Very good. Next Car, Sure. The
up. I mean, I didn't see
you.
Is
No money,
okay, all
right.
Thank you very much. Members of Council, uh, chair, we're entertaining a motion to reconvene our meeting. I move to reconvene. Second all those in favor, aye, 747, we're reconvening our regular so right now we're going to move into citizens participation. This is the portion of the program where any citizen, a resident of Highland Park or a friend of the community, can come up to the podium and address us. This is an opportunity for you to participate. Please don't put a heavy weight on us to respond to you. Members of city council May, during their council affairs, try to address their question if they had a capacity and or they may ask you a question to refer you to someone who can answer your questions. So at this time, we will go ahead and open up the floor if you would like to address the community. The podium is there for you. The only thing I ask that you do is when you step up to the podium, if you just introduce yourself for the record and adhere to the two minute time frame. It's going to be two minutes and a couple little sprinkles in there today, just because. So if you would please feel free to join us at the podium, and I will not start the timer until you've introduced yourself. Thank you. Hi. I'm Lisa stelarski, a resident of
Lisa stellarski, resident of the Third District, and hi this evening, Council, I did a little research on the tree farm property, and I just wanted to let people know what I found out about it, so people know we're we're going to vote on whether or not we want to sell parcel 1524100021,
which we own in Rochester Hills. And I just wanted you guys to know that we used to own maybe 4044, 40 to 45 acres up there. Now we own point seven acres, parcel zero to zero. It looks like we lost that property in a lawsuit in 2011 and it was turned over to city of Rochester Hills. That was about maybe 11 or 12 acres we also had, let's see, in 2013 we sold property 049, to Sunoco pipeline, and I was Wondering if we needed a referendum for that because, well, it's just not clear to me how we're selling properties and whether or not we need enough referendum for that type of property. Then we also the bulk of the property, about 32 acres, is property 050, and that was sold in 22 November of 22 to Elvis and BU and what's interesting is, about a decade before that, another property developer wanted to buy that property, and they found groundwater contamination migrating volatile methane gas and also metals that are buried in with the trees on that property. And so that developer did not ultimately develop the property, and that's why a decade later, we were selling it to the logos. Now they want to sell the property to a developer
called UTC I forget what that stands for, but they're actually a housing developer as well, and and they're they're asking for our remaining property, zero to one, that point seven acres that we
sell it to them for $6,000 so I just wanted to give people a background on what has happened to that property so far. And I don't have too many details yet, but I will get more details on this. Thank you. Thank you. Applause.
Good evening Council. Good evening citizens of Highland Park, my fellow polar bears, this microphone is not going to go, so I'm going to go down like this. Okay, name Sir, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. I'm really give me your name, discombobulated. My name is Juan Shannon. Thank you. And I am a born and raised citizen of the historic city of Highland Park, Michigan.
I said I was not going to be here for tonight because I have a lot of stuff to unpack, and because of some recent events. It has spurred
me to want to be more aggressive about unpacking all of them,
but I do not want to come off in a manner that I would say, would trigger
anyone to think it was a confrontation, because it is more A a matter of our city
has suffered in numerous
incidents of disenfranchisement, of disrespect, more adjectives and I want to use Right now we don't have time. I
remember when our police
force was shut down. I remember when we used to have our own water department, when we had the 30 or 40 people for our DPW department. I remember when these things happen, and I remember when they shut down. I remember our street lights being taken out, and the only time we found out about our street lights being taken out was when trucks were pulling up onto the street. So I
take very serious the fact that I'm a Highland Park Michigan citizen. I take very serious the phrase that I wear on my chest, possibly Highland Park strong
and I came to really ask, ask
For our
council, our administration, to find
workable solutions to work together. Tonight's meeting was tonight's meeting was kind of okay, but we can pull up the videos of when it was not. Highland
Park. Can definitely come into a a I'm almost at a larger word, Highland Park does not have to deal with the disrespect and with the disenfranchisement that we have had. And I, for 1am, really tired of outside entities, you know, having anything to say about our city, and then our leadership is not
taking it the same, okay? Yeah, I know. I don't want to. We had, like, three and a half. I want to make sure I keep the same rule. I feel your
passion too, and I interrupted everybody else too. I understand. Alright. Thank you so much, sir. But that was the question, or that was the request. Oh, thank you very much, and I appreciate you.
Hold on a second, man, we're gonna get we're gonna help with the try to get the noise in the background shut down.
Just
Okay. Ma'am, how you doing this evening? Go ahead and introduce yourself. I'll wait once you start talking to miss Stafford resident of Highland Park, Miss Monica. I did remember one for you. The first one is I had went in to the water department to pay on my water bill. And when I got the receipt back, number one, you know you're getting charged $3 for if you don't have the original bills, I want to know where is that $3 going towards and it didn't have the balance of the money after I had paid, they said it would be on the next bill. And I find that kind of odd, because that's never happened before. So I wanted to see what's going on with that. And the next one is the solar company. I can understand that solar is great, but you have to look at it. Number one, we don't have that many residents in Highland Park, like we used to you have low income, bad credit, no income. You know, they need something like grants or monthly payments that people can pay according to their income. And it's first. The next one is Avalon village. I wanted to know does anyone that is participating in the events for Avalon village on that big lot there on Woodward, because there was a lot of cars parked there, because I feel like it's unfair if whoever is over Avalon village is parking there. I don't know if they're receiving money for each car or not, but the person that pays taxes on that land should be getting money for each car that's being there. And another thing for cars that are being told, I mean, people shouldn't get upset, because you do know the rules when you park in front of people houses and in their driveways residents Highland Park, um, next I want to know when is the plumbing wants to be fixed on certain streets in Highland Park, because in the winter time, A lot of my neighbors are, uh, senior citizens, and it was basements flooded after basements flooded. And the city, you know, was saying they don't have to pay. The city has to pay. So somebody needs to explain this to the residents of Highland Park so they can get a great understanding. And as far as the the intersection, um, on Oakland, for Davidson, on both sides, on the east side, I would like to know, like, when is that going to be done? Because they don't even work. Like, every week to fix it. It's been a minute, and people really need to use that intersection for that. And one more thing, um, oh,
can we please file for possibly a grant? I really don't know how this works, to get more commercial lawn mowers for these lots, because people residents are getting upset, and it's not there that they are yelling at the workers that are doing
work because it's not their fault, and pretty much that's it, okay. Thank you, ma'am. Next person, please.
Hello. My name is Shamika Nichols. I'm the executive director at solidarity, a nonprofit organization. Can you hear
me now? My name is Shamika Nichols. I'm the executive director at solidarity, nonprofit organization that began due to the repossession of over 1000 streetlights residential. Since we started, we've been attempting to fundraise through grants, donations and to be able
to replace those streetlights with solar power mesh, Wi Fi lights. I don't have much of a ask right now, but mainly we've run into with the previous administration, a lot of obstacles, and so I'm just hoping that as more material come across your desk, and more flyers are distributed around the community that you all are in support of what it is that we're trying to do, which is just to relight Highland Park and gift that to the city. Thank you, ma'am.
Good evening. My name is speed Miller. I'm from Metropolitan Elks Lodge 962 on 50 East Manchester. My Exotic ruler have given me the task of coming down here asking when they're going to fix this seat holes over there in our driveway. Water now is coming to the point and start coming inside our building, and so we need to find out what's going to happen with that. And I will ask this last question. I know I ain't going to get the answer to it, but I'm still trying to find out what happened to the liquor we had, and that was when they broken into our building, and the police department had it, but don't nobody know what happened to it. Thank
you. Water in the building. Confiscated machine. Okay, so I have online. I have someone who is listed as just love. I see your hand raised. We're going to do both, but I want to make sure can a person that's online, Imma ask you to unmute. Can you identify yourself the person that's love, that's the only that's what is showing up on the screen. L, o, v, e, yes, yes, I'm here now. Who are you? Ma'am, if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself. Uh, so greetings to the mayor, city council and community members. I'm mama Shu the founder and CEO of Avalon village. Saturday, August the 10th, Avalon village hosted the second annual hungry black man Food Festival. Like last year, the event invited 1000 1000s to our city to enjoy food, music, art, good vibes, and it supported over 100 business owners, people from all over Michigan and other states came to have a good time. The event was safe, secure and without serious incidents. Many festival goers received tickets or had their cars towed from Second Avenue. Specifically on the eve of the event, there were three metal signs posted that said no parking and one that said no parking at any time, if people chose to park in that area in which the signs were posted between Glendale and Avalon street only, then they probably earned that ticket, but to have their vehicles towed seemed very extreme, so I asked who ordered the no parking signs to be placed in that area between Glendale and Avalon only. Why was it ordered? More specifically, why were they placed on the eve of a repeated major event that was approved by the mayor, and logistically speaking, why weren't we adequately notified that no parking signs were going to be up? We could have gotten word to the organizers in time to pivot and warn people in advance that that that area no longer allows parking, as well as posted security there intentionally to monitor and remind folks not to park there. In all the years I've been on Avalon Street and beyond, there's never been no parking signs on Second Avenue. Avalon village owns a property on Second Avenue, right where a sign was placed. We discovered the signs was placed while maintaining the strip of grass on second in preparation for the event, as well as our other events that we have, the space has been used for parking many times, even before we obtained it months ago at a town hall meeting Avalon village, along with other community service organizations, were named as partners to the city of Highland Park. Our work is because we want to do our part to make things better where we live. However, this didn't feel like partnership. The optics gave that up intentionally and specifically targeting the event and Avalon village and an extension of the harassment that spilled over from the KRS
one event held on July the 30th, an event that was also approved by administration. Partnerships go both ways. We followed all the rules and protocols and submitted all of the required documentation that was requested to make this event a success again. Avalon village normally submits, submits documentation and applications well in advance, leaving room for any last minute issues to be addressed before event day. Our calendar is set for 2025 which includes more of the same community centered and children centered activities. We are known for and enjoy hosting. I am open and receptive to discuss and offer
suggestions on how all events in the city of Highland Park can run smoothly and safely. We deserve it. Thank you. Peace and love. Okay,
ma'am, would you state your name
for the record, please, yes. My name is Madeline Harold. I'm a lifelong member of Highland Park, born and raised here, educated here, worked here, and I'm retired now. I'm here to register a complaint. I live on Manchester at the bishop Moore apartments,
label towers, Bishop Moore, Benjamin Manor, Gabriel and the complex, where there are a lot of townhouses, Manchester Place, all take care of their properties. But the property that is from Woodward on Manchester to about halfway that block, I understand it's privately owned, but it looks like a wilderness. Can you please do something to get whoever is supposed to be taking care of it, to cut it. It's got pink and red moss growing, and it's about a foot tall. So grass is taller than that, if you would please. Thank you, ma'am. It's on it's a large lot from Woodward and Manchester to approximately half the block between Woodward and second and it's, it looks like a wilderness. Thank you the orange and black. Thank you the orange and black building. Yes. Okay, please. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you all so very much. All right, okay,
good evening ma'am. Good evening mayor, good evening Council, good evening citizens. For those of you that don't know me, my name is Alicia strong, and I am from the wayne county treasurer's office. I am here to remind everyone that we have started foreclosing, boo, I'm sorry foreclosing on year 2022, currently, that is the tax year that we are foreclosing on. Payment plans are now in effect right now, up until October, your down payment is 10% if you are eligible to get on a payment plan, I will be staying afterwards, in case anyone has any questions, and I also have literature again. Thank you for allowing me to speak. Thank you, ma'am.
Good evening, everyone. My name is Janet spite White, a long time Holland Parker. I came back to Highland Park because I love Highland Park. When I first came back, the first thing I did was clean up my street. There was you couldn't see sidewalks. I cleaned after. I cleaned that after they moved the parade to Hamilton, I and other people, we cleaned up there. Not only did I clean up over there, even the president of the board of the council Liberty school, I went up there when they asked for help, I cleaned up that. I cleaned the McGregor library in order for Holland Park to look better and do better, we have to leave our streets and help. I'm a master gardener. Anyone that needs help or flowers or grass when I'm here to help, because we cannot look good with just one block. We need the whole city to look good. And I left my street already, two houses across the street from me was a sale. The owners told me, if it wasn't for the way my house and property looks, they wouldn't have been able to sell those. Both houses sold for over 200,000 we have to work together in order to make Highland Park look better and be better. And we got to get off of just doing one block, please. Thank you.
Hello, everybody. My name is Gracie. Gracie Wooten. I'm a 249 Eastern street, and I just have three things that I want to talk to you tonight, about tonight. Okay, number one, I was just thrilled to hear about the ordinance. You know, I have been dying to have a street light on Hamilton, like with the other council. You know, I continuously raise the fact that I believe, and my block club believe that a street light was taken down mistakenly on Hamilton, because it is very, very dark in the morning at night, you people have run into the island off of Hamilton, the island that's on Easton. They've run into it from both ends. So like we were so pleased to have a grant to light the island, but we still need lights on Hamilton. So with that solar ordinance, thankfully, we could possibly get a street light on city property so that our children who are walking to the bus stops in the morning, you know, don't have to walk in the dark, and that residents who take a bus don't have to stand in the dark because there's no light where we are on Hamilton. The second thing I wanted to ask the council and the mayor is to publish
the names of the residents who are on the citizen district councils. We used to have the names published so that residents could see who the members are of the citizen district councils, but they haven't been published since the new council
has been on board. And I know it's a joint thing, you know, between the mayor and the council to appoint people, but that needs to be done, and those names need to be published, just like the black club president's names are published, you know. And so, you know, it should be published. The third thing is to just remind people that the legislation for the statewide affordability plan is still on the table. You know, we need our legislators to get on board and pass that legislation all of the communities, not only Highland Park, all of the communities need water affordability. So this plan is statewide, and I've asked the council to support this legislation as well as the mayor. So we need to, you know, really send your support to our legislators. Thank you.
Good evening, council citizens. My name is Renee Ford. I live on West buna Vista. I have a question for DPW. I have a lot that was owned by that is still owned by the land bank. I pay to have it cut my lawn service guy messed up his lawnmower. I agreed to pay for it because when they planted the grass seed or the soil, the netting, it never took hold. So I wondered if you could come over there and take a look at it, because paying 25 $50 to have that lot cut next to my house is a little much for me as a senior citizen. The second one is to Mr. Clyde, born. When they tore that house down, they damaged my fence, and I sent pictures to him, and I need him to get back with me as far as what I can do, because I have a privacy fence that was put up there, but it was damaged in three spots. So I need him to contact me. I need it on record that I did say it again for the third time at the meeting that nobody has contacted me or came out third. My son is 42 years old. He gives an annual Father's Day barbecue for the last three years. My question is, and I know it won't be answered, but somebody should call me. We block off the street for four hours. Why is it other people can block the street off
for 12 hours, 10 hours. Do I have to have a million dollar whatever to be able to block my street off longer than five hours, four hours, and literally, there has never been an incident because I'm a Harlem Parker. I will kill those boys. So again, the question is, playing with this, why is it that some of us are only allowed four hours and some of us are allowed 10 hours? That
is, good evening Council. Good evening citizens. I just wanted to come up here and say, um, could you introduce yourself, sir, yes. Um, I'm sorry. My name is Lauren McGee. I unfortunately, I can't say long time. I am a long time Highland Park but I'm not like lifelong Highland Parker, but this is my adopted city now, um, I would just like to say, um, I remember a few weeks back, it was a gentleman in the audience. He was interested in, um, well, he said he was new owner of the property at Woodward and Beresford, that, um, Little Caesars Plaza. And I spoke openly about you guys not selling him the property because, because I didn't think anybody was doing. They didn't take care of it. They wasn't I doing, picking up garbage and all that. But he went on, you know, he purchased the property. And I will say, I'll stand up here and say that property is 100% improved. He's fenced it all in where it actually makes a whole block of bears for looks better. So, I know, um, Clyburn, um, had him, you know, told the guy to come
to my house. He actually came by my house and met with me and told me exactly what he was going to do. Of course, I was like, Yeah, right. You know, we didn't heard things before. But the next day, that guy was out there and they fixed up the whole lot, fenced it in, not with cheat fencing. He even has, um, a gate there. Looks like you going to have a pass to go up in there, so it looks good. So this is one thing I like to share that I feel is good news for the city of Highland Park, because at this point in time, we need some good news. Thank you guys.
So I don't see any other people moving to the podium. I do have one guest citizen question. Have you closed it
out, Chief? I don't see any more hands online.
Thank you. My name is Herbert ivory. I'm a I grew up in the city of Highland Park. I'm no longer resident, but my family members are still residents, and the mayor said something when she spoke, she talked about making the city a great place, and Howard Park has always been a great place. I remember we had Sears. You had everything. I can go back, back a long way, like many of you can, what I've heard the citizens say here is that they have some real concerns, and I have a concern too. I'm a member of the revival tabernacle Church, which is located right off six mile that area there. And you know, I come from meeting in Pontiac, and I drove all the way down from Pontiac to Highland Park, and in no point did I run across a strip club until I got to Highland Park. So my concern is for that strip club that's there. Now I've heard and I could be wrong. Correct me, if I am that it had a fire and it closed up, but now someone else is attempting to buy that property, and they want to get a liquor license for that property. Now, of course, you have your ordinance. I can't tell you what to sell. What I find interesting is that on that sign you talk about complete nudity, and anyone can attend from 18 up, that's a problem. Okay, have been approachable for 45 years. I can tell you, that's a problem. So all I'm asking is that just count the the board here, take that in consideration.
I can't tell you to not sell the property. That's I know how that is. I know about ordinances, but the slicker license and opening that property up again, I strongly recommend that you take a serious look at that and consideration of not doing any of that truth. Thank you. Thank you, sir.
Last to the podium, closing out to the participation we have chief McMahon, hey, good evening Council. Good evening citizens. I appreciate you coming. So I want to talk about a couple positive things. First, I do want to thank
everyone for attending national night out. For those of you had a chance to make it, it was really fun time. I think a lot of people had fun, and it was nice to just socialize with the community and and kind of, you know, get a chance to talk to people under better circumstances, instead of always something, you know, negative. I also want to share with you on September 21 first at the Hamilton building, 13233, Hamilton, we're going to be having a mental health training class. You have to pre register. You can register with our records officer, Everett Monroe, this is a this is a good training. I think it helps, it helps the citizens. And you know, whomever wants to come, how to deal with people who are in crisis and what the options are and the best way to talk to them. And our officers are attending these these trainings as well. So we make sure that we're all on the same page, and then we're all properly trained in how to deal with people you know, that are in crisis. Unfortunately, there's a lot more stress in life right now. You know, financial stresses, personal stresses, and and a lot of people are having a hard time and they don't know how to deal with it. And, you know, it's important that we recognize people who are struggling and we address them properly. And sometimes people don't need to go to jail, they just really need a helping hand. And that's kind of what right, you know, that's kind of what we're focusing on. So now I guess I want to talk about the elephant in the room, and obviously that's, that's the event that took place at Avalon village. And for the record, I do want to say I think the event at Avalon Village is a positive thing. I do think that it does bring in outsiders into this community and allow us to showcase our city. I was disappointed to hear hear words like entrapment, targeting harassment and words like that used because I don't think that that properly labels what took place. I also heard a statement that the only thing Highland Park has going for is mama shoe in the Avalon village. And I would disagree with that, because over the, you know, 17 years that I've been here, I met a lot of great people, and I think the people are what makes Highland Park great.
Not to say that that doesn't include mama shoe, because it does okay, but it includes a whole group of people, everybody. So again, I was disappointed to hear hear words like that being thrown around, because it's simply not true. I would
kind of want to give a timeline, a brief timeline, so the application for this event was filled out probably about two weeks before. We did have an opportunity to meet with Mama Shu and discuss some some concerns we had with which, obviously, parking was one of them. You know, the Avalon village provided some lots. It's my understanding, they were charging like $20 a car. So some people opted not to, not to park there, and they opted to park on the streets. Unfortunately, people parked in areas that are that have prohibited parking, and that caused officers to have to make a decision. Now, the instructions that were given were, obviously, we were going to tow vehicles that restricted emergency vehicles from getting down the street. We're going to tow vehicles that were blocking alleyways. We're going to tow vehicles that were improper or safety issues, kind of standard reasons for for impounding vehicles. So to share some stats with you, we towed 24 vehicles. So I don't know what's true. They were boasting that they had 10,000 people there. So 10,000 people, let's assume that 1000 of them drove a car there. We're talking about less than 2% of the people who attended that event had their vehicles towed. Now out of that, 2% of the vehicles, several of them
had improper plates, so they shouldn't be on the road anyway, one of them opted to park on the sidewalk. One of them opted to park blocking an alleyway. We towed four vehicles from second and Glendale area. We towed five vehicles from second in Avalon. We towed
one vehicle from Woodward in Avalon, which was the one that was blocking the alley, and we towed 14 vehicles from fair and park and Woodward. Now why do we tow 14 vehicles from Farron, park and Woodward? For those of you who are familiar with fair and park and Woodward, you know there's an island there, and it's congested when you come around the corner off Woodward, there's no way that emergency vehicle, ie a fire truck, could have made that turn with the way the vehicles parked. There's pillars on the side of the easement that prevent people from going up on the grass to park and parking in that in that little area causes congestion that blocks emergency vehicles. So that's where the majority of our vehicles came. Now, some people said we could have just run them tickets. That's not an option in a scenario like that, because if you live on Ferran Park and your house catches on fire, and they come down Woodward, and they can't get there, and now they gotta backtrack and go down second. That's second center lost, minute center lost. And so that's not an option. Some other people said, well, you know, they towed every car. They wrote them tickets. We wrote a total of 20 tickets that day. Eight of those tickets were associated with tows. That means the vehicle was towed and ticketed. That was an egregious act, that the officer made the decision that they should be cited and told 12 of them had their vehicles ticketed but not towed. So some people say this is a money grab. If it was a money grab, we would have told every car available, but we didn't. We wrote citations to people who deserve citations, and we told those who needed to be told, it's as simple as that. People also showed bills online 400 and something dollars. What are these different numbers? However, the the bills that they showed online for that amount of money were private property tolls. Several people opted to park in businesses, the party store, the the
AutoZone, things like that. Autozone has a contract, and these people have a contract with the tow company. They do not give the discounted rate to private property to to them because they're towing as a business for them, municipalities get a discounted rate, so our toes are less than what a private property the police department has nothing to do with toes vehicles that were towed from AutoZone. We have nothing to do with vehicles that were towed from the store or any other private business that's not our business. That's the owner's business. To toll those vehicles. Our average
price of a vehicle that was picked up was picked up for $275 which is basically our contractual price plus a storage plus an administrative fee. So it's about $275 is the average price of a toll, which is pretty standard in the industry, across the board, with municipalities, several of them came in on Sunday the owner of the tow company, knowing that people would want to get their vehicles back so they could make it to work on Monday. Had staff come in on Sunday to allow people to pick up their vehicles and stayed late Saturday, which is not their standard hours. So again, it's very disappointing to hear things like entrapment. People say we entrap them. We put these signs up and we posted all these signs because we were trying to trap them and get the money, the signs that were on second. A lot of them have been there for years. Contrary to what was said tonight, some of them were replaced prior to the event. Now. Why is that? Because we've had numerous citizens complain about last year's event, how out of control it was, and that people were parking in driveways. People were blocking alleys. People were parking everywhere.
So we prepared for that. So it wasn't entrapment, it was preparation. We prepared for 1000s of people, and as they say, 10,000 people, which is more than our residents of this community, coming to visit this community. So we prepared for it, and we put up they put up signs. Now Was there some signage confusion on a in a couple areas where I think DPW posted signs that said no parking on Tuesday, and they were literally in front of metal signs that said no parking? Yes, absolutely there was. And for those people, you know, I'll get with legal, and we'll, we'll see what we can do to make that that was a very small percentage. I estimate about four of them, four vehicles. The rest of them, were parked in noticeably, you know, easily seen. Signage was available, but yet they parked there. Now I personally called mama Shu. I know the mayor personally called mama Shu, and Mama
Shu and her team were great. They made announcements several times throughout the event. Please move your car. Your vehicle will be towed. Please move your car. Your vehicle would be towed. People opted not to listen to that. They didn't think that was going to happen, but it did, because they did not. They failed to listen. Other people said, Hey, I ran up on the tow company and they wouldn't drop my vehicle. For those of you don't know, Michigan has a law that says if you come up to a vehicle that has that's improperly parked, the tow company has to drop the vehicle for a reasonable fee. So I talked to the owner. I said, were there any cash drops? And there were, there was approximately three cash drops where people paid a reasonable fee, which, I think it was 100 and something dollars, and dropped their vehicle. Okay, some people say, Hey, that's a high reasonable fee. We don't set the reasonable fee. There's case law that says that that's a reasonable fee, and it is what it is, but the vehicles were dropped on scene. So there were vehicles that were dropped on scene. So there's a lot of misinformation going around. Others said the mayor was leading this, this charge of towing vehicles. So let me explain this. The mayor has no authority over the police department itself when it's dealing with loss. Now, is she my boss? Absolutely? Could she fire me? Yeah, but she does not tell me what to do when it comes to loss. I am not intimidated by anyone, and nor does she try, thankfully, because that would force me to resign, because there nobody in this city was going to run me and force me to do something illegal, okay? But thankfully she doesn't do that. So what she does is she relays things that she hears from the community. A lot of the complaints you heard were from citizens talking about parking, talking about having to deal with loud noise every weekend, having to deal with late night basketball, having to deal with parking issues, people confide to the mayor, or they confide in the police department anonymously because they don't want to get up here and they don't want to get the death threats or the ridicule online that we have to take because it's our job. Okay, the normal citizen doesn't want to do that, so they reach out to us and say, Hey, can you deal with this issue? And we do, because we have an obligation, not only to protect mama Shu and her events, but to cater to the citizens in the surrounding areas as well. And that's exactly what we did now do I think there could be discussions in the future to where we could probably come up with something that would work out better for everybody? Absolutely, and we're willing to do that, and I'm certainly willing, and I've made posts online that I would love to reach out to the hungry black man and to mama shoe and sit down and try and come up with something. Quite frankly, my personal opinion is that's not the venue for these large events, but my opinion doesn't matter. That's an ordinance that needs to be created. Okay? I will enforce whatever laws are on the books and whatever the citizens and council and the mayor and whoever else decide that is what's right for this community. That's what I will enforce. And as of now, the laws that we enforced were on the books, and they're appropriate. You know, this event turned ridiculous. In in social media, people are making threats to the mayor. They're going to beat her a they're going to F her up. They're going to do all this stuff over parking Okay, at the end of the day, this is Parker, so to hear these threats. And you know that this community, I mean there, let's face it, it was blatant. This community sucks, is what was been put out there, and that this community is, you know, craphole and all these other things that they said online to me, I take insult to that, because this has been a part of my life for over 17 years, Highland Park. And like I said, what makes this community great, in my opinion, are the people okay and our people. Some people struggling financially? Is the community struggling financially? Yeah, because we don't have the tax base yet. Does that mean that's the way it's going to be forever? No, the pendulum will swing the other way, and this place will be great. Look at Midtown, look at CAST corridors, all these other places. Our day is coming, but in order for it to come, we have to work together. We have to enforce
these laws together, and we have to understand that. We need to make it good, not just for myself, not just for one person in this room, but for everyone. So I I've ranted a lot, and I've been on a soapbox, but I'm very passionate about this, because there was some really insulting things that were said about the officers. People attacked their purse. You know their physical appearance. People attack their uniforms. People, you know all of these things that people chose to attack about the police. You know as individuals, you know you shouldn't be mad at an individual about the way they look. And it's certainly, I think it's something that's despicable that you would, you know, someone would make that their argument, especially someone on this caliber that this person is. So it's very disappointing. I hope that, you know future events, that we're able to work together. I hope that we're able to come up with some alternative that works
out for everybody. This is certainly not a money grab. People said we made 1000s, 10s of 1000s of dollars off this with administrative fees. We've made probably about $2,000 with administrative fees, which, for those of you don't know, the contract allows $100 per car to go to the city of Highland Park that covers administrative costs for the officer
to be there to deal with the car, for the releasing of the car, the documentation of the paperwork, all of these things that it covers. However, we were told by the organization days before that, the Wayne County Sheriffs were going to be securing the area the
day of the event. Mind you, the event started at 12 by 130 we realized that they weren't coming. Okay? That forced me to make a decision. That decision was I needed to call people in for overtime, because we have 10,000 people coming to our community. We don't have enough officers there. God forbid something bad happens now, thank God it didn't.
And the crowd there was phenomenal. The people there no problems whatsoever. Same with the KRS one event, no problems whatsoever. The the crowds were great. But what noone noone expects the crowds to be out of control. No one prepares or expects a mass shooting, they just
happen. And if you're not prepared for it, people lose lives. So we had to call in overtime. So we've called people in based on that the city lost money during this event. There was nothing paid to the city. They were charging $20 to park on city lots. However, the city made no money. We lost money. So from a business perspective, you guys decide how you want to handle that. Good night. Thank you, Chief. I want to thank the chief
for showing up so and this does happen. So last week, on Wednesday, I sent an email to the mayor, and I said, Madam Mayor, would it be okay to have the chief bring us some hard numbers as things were spiraling in an emotional way, we wanted to get some facts so that we could contextualize what actually happened. There's a factor that we cannot control. We have the city of Highland Park. We have a wonderful nonprofit within our city, but we also have people who make decisions independent of the two bodies that are working. And so I asked the chief to come here with some hard numbers and to make a distinction between legally permit legally parked vehicles and vehicles that were parked, and appropriately, he did an excellent job of doing so to make sure that we minimize the amount of misinformation that is out there. And I would like to thank you, because this, this stops the partisan divide among people in the conversation. If we have the hard numbers and higher facts, I think that's very important. So thank you so much, chief for taking the time out get those questions answered. At this point, we're going to turn it over to the councilman from the third district for council affairs, and we'll move through the the council seats at
$20
I did not attend the event. I was not here, but that's information that was related to me, sure through body cams and things like that, we could get that. Thank you. Okay, so first of all, I simply, I just want to say, I stand with the chief, I stand with the police department, and I stand with the mayor. It's one thing to criticize,
and I do my best share, but I believe
I learned that right being here for four years, I don't like the idea outside the stomach to into our city
and criticizing our elected officials. They even criticize this council, which had nothing to do whatsoever with the event. In fact, in fact, the discussion that we were trying to have was not to shut down anything, but was the time to figure out where all of these individuals were going to park, and one of the suggestions I was going to make that I never got a chance to make at the special meeting was maybe this Council could give Adeline village a variance to park on one side of Second Street, but We never got an opportunity today. Now, anybody who lives here, who is a resident here, you know, without having any signs on second and third street, there is no parking on second and third street. Why is that? It was a thorough fan for emergency vehicles to get through. They narrow as it is, if you bump on both sides of the street, no truck can get through. My little car can barely get through. And I got a little key. Okay, so we were going to at the special meeting, which we have got an opportunity to do, because somebody felt like they shouldn't be here, and this was inappropriate. We were going to suggest that maybe we can give
the Get out of my village a variance department, one side of session, and it would have helped you guys out, but that was quickly shut down our end. But nonetheless, we were blamed on social media for what happened council I had nothing to do with, but
whenever the mayor and the chief? Did I stand with the chief and I stand with the mayor? And what they did, they enforced the law, they kept this community safe, and I am grateful for that. I am not complaining whatsoever. Those who do have a complaint, you're more than welcome to address that complaint, but we have rules in Highland Park, and I don't understand the sense of entitlement where you feel you can come into this city and do what you see fit. That's not how this city works. We can't come into your city and do what we see figure out rules and regulations that must be followed. Is it not
Am I mistaken in that? I don't think I can go to burn video and do that. I don't think I can go to Royal hope and farm, even when I want to park I don't think I can go into Detroit. I definitely can't go into Detroit because they got me last week. Man, $45 for a decade. They got me last week. God was so heated, $45 anyway. But all I'm simply saying is that council had nothing to do with it. But that's that's beside the point. I still stand with the chief and I stand with the mayor. Don't come into our city and insult us and call us stupid and incompetent and didn't expect us to
respond in a positive way. I want you to keep in mind, you have another you have another event that's coming up on the 26th instead of sitting and criticizing us, I would be working very hard to figure out what he's going to talk and I yield back,
we are working On your name, yes, ma'am,
Miss Martin,
Hello, ma'am.
I you're saying. I'm going to start off with saying that the words are being used. Some of the words are being used. One was cancel and attack my question. When you use little words and say words, how do you feel
community with using those type words? Those are already words of separation. There was nobody attacking anybody. I wasn't fighting to cancel any event. I love the positive things that mom should bring. However, there was a certain control that needs to happen. We can have those large events, and our private property just had, there needs to be a better place that can accommodate that many people, that special event. I mean, that social media we had was a discussion. It wasn't, I wasn't trying to cancel anything, and I wasn't trying to attack anybody. When you have 2000 10,000 people, that's a threat to the students. I think I would think about safety among the peak. I said the same thing again. I said, How do you have when you have a fire or somebody just to go to a hospital. How can those emergency be? Get in there
and save somebody? Because it's safe. When you have to save a life, that's second someone might want to see somebody go around a lot, put out a fire or save somebody's life. You don't want that for yourself, and I wouldn't want that for any visitor that hang in here to do any event. So that special meeting was a discussion. Somebody said it was a pimple. I never said it was,
where can we sit up here and accommodate 10,000 people chaos? Are one coming out here. That was awesome. But I also kind of think about the citizens
that are not necessarily on the sidewalk, on their lawn, all mentioned to one of mama shoes supporters. I mentioned what happens in parking so, and I was told I wanted to support don't talk.
But then you get mad when it happens
that doesn't make sense. I'm going
to stress another thing, the words we use, cause of separation. We want to be community. Create community and build community. We brought started work on the words we use. I just took 30 singers to senior friendship there. I found out that there was another group going from Highland Park, and then I said, to see what you can even go with. But I didn't know there was two groups going. I didn't even go with the recreation room. Or you go with my group even, or you have choice. Our group
is going to go to this one afterwards, but you can have a choice on which one you're going to go. I was informed by one of the coordinators and said, Don't go with Miss Martin's group, because it's dangerous. What we're not copying Willie's in a bus that sounds crazy. Nobody's feeding that certified driver. You're showing money. Everything's covered. Those are conversations that separate us as citizens. We have to work on that. We have a discussion,
but it's about 55%
that being said. Guys know, I always appreciate you guys coming out here. You could show me anywhere
else. Turn it over. Ma'am,
yes, good afternoon, good evening. Um, thank you for coming. As usual. I am in accord with the mayor, police, the council, that we do have rules. I'm not going to be the day of course, pretty much has already been said that we get a bad rap and we're talking about large events. Well, the Dream Cruise is pretty large. Mm, hmm, yes, hello. And they also did the exact same thing the day before, different cities that had a part in that put out signs just a block over or in certain places only the day before. How I know, because I drove through there, so having the day before and then drove through during the time of the Dream Cruise, signs were not there and then they were there. So same thing. You don't hear a lot of people complaining or complaining at all, because you know what happens? It's just people have been used to something or not having it done, and they think, Hey, this is where we going to come to do so a lot of times, we're not trying to keep things from happening. We're trying to start where we haven't been. And so just saying that again, I thank everybody for the participation in those events and making them safe. I thank her for putting those events on. I am going to respond to a couple of things. Water Department. We will have those questions. I meet with them. And then you mentioned also about plumbing. We're not going to fix the streets. I did talk to them. I have a meeting with them at least once a month, and so I will make sure that I have, again, with that completion. It's supposed to be done by September, and you should be able to drive as well as I talked with the engineers or MCA, and we're looking at doing things like even maybe putting up a standing sign. We're looking at it that will tell you that this project is happening when it starts, when it ends, things like that. So we are looking at ways to kind of alleviate those questions. We haven't got there yet, but that is one suggestion that we've been talking about. So solidarity, they just left. But the ordinance is not in there yet, but we're getting there. That's that's a big piece of solar ordinance, and what it's going to cover. Um, I will also, since that is in my district, the Elks, I will also talk to the engineers about the cargo. The other part I can't handle, that's the police chief, cvac. We can't put that list out yet because it hasn't been solidified. It is about finding, and I'm sorry that's the citizens district Advisory Council. We still looking for people. It's hard to give volunteers. It's not a paid position. So understand that I, I've been, I know I've been trying to. I last year had a full slide, pretty much, and this year is looking really bleak. Okay, so I did, you know, so we, we're still trying to cover that. So I'm going to say to anyone that is interested, it would be good if you come and bring your name, even maybe a little bit about you, drop it off. If the mayor's on, she can remind me or remind us, if it was dropping off at the clerk's office or where to drop it off. Maybe it's just give it to them to put in our boxes, I'm not sure, but so we did. So that's going on with Miss Gracie is going but that's what's going on. I think that's who asked about that. Cdhc, so we are trying. We are trying. So if anybody out here think they might want to be part of that, or online, um, cover
that. Um, I need people at six. You need
people in six. Out guys, yeah. So that means, if you're in your area, just ask, because it may already in your area, but if not, and it may be something we have to look at again to just fill it, and not necessarily in your precincts, but right now, we want you in your precinct, so whatever area you are in, reach out to your council person or the mayor that you are interested in. If you can't get to one of us, you can always leave that information and they can put it in our box. Um, the other thing is, thank you. I think we did have a great meeting this evening. I feel like we were prepared. We studied, maybe, I don't know how much each Wednesday, but we were a little prepared. So thank you for your letter. We do hear you guys out there talking about it. We talk about it too when we can, we definitely can work together. So with that being said, so I'm about to scream something. I'm Doctor spring something, um, we're talking about ordinance. So up here, I do have somebody mentioned the ordinance. I have several
ordinance up here that we picked, or I picked the to talk about and to discuss. But how maybe we can do that is, and I'm suggesting to my council people, is that we form committees. It can only be a committee of two, and so maybe you two, or myself and Mister Shaki is working on
couldn't think of such defending and and myself and
mister Thomas is working on ordinance, but it would be forming committees. And actually it is this, we would volunteer
for that committee, or our president will say, Hey, Miss Martin, will you work on this committee? Or whoever work on this committee? And so that's one of the ways we're going to try, as a city council, to begin to work on those ordinance now, please don't think it's going
to happen tomorrow. I want y'all to know tomorrow or next week,
but that is our beginning to try to rectify some of the things that are happening that don't need to happen. You know, it just doesn't. And if you see other cities going in. And so if we happen, and I happen to get my wish, and you see parking meters or parking spaces, don't be mad because, because he had a ticket. Mm, hmm, that's what it was for. But it was, oh yeah, those, those
are things that we may need to bring revenue into our city. And I agree with the resident cassette,
we all have to work together, guys, we all gotta have a better conversation and sit down and know that we're working toward a better city. We don't want anyone to come in and take our city, and we definitely not going to take to outside if you don't live here, because, for some reason, y'all are coming here. Y'all must love us. With that being said, everybody, have a great evening. Thank you.
I just wanted to say hello everybody
and thank you for coming out. Hi. Okay,
so gonna try to be as brief as I possibly can. We managed to get our business done today, and that was something that I was impressed with, that we could just focus on the actual business. For the sake of clarity. Let me just make this clear. Special meetings are for a specific purpose. The framework of the special meeting is for an action item it is to be voted on. That item it is to be voted on. It's something that the city council is empowered to actually
vote on. The special meeting for the KRS one event was not called to order properly. There was no item to be voted on. There was no resolution variances come from the planning commission. These things all exist, but they don't exist in the way that they were framed. Okay? There were 800 people at the KRS one event. And again, we're talking about two instances.
We've had two instances of the Highland Park Food Festival. Twice, if you flip any coin, there's one chance it's going to be heads. Another chance is going to be tails, 5050, we've had two instances to manage this. So the fact that we've only had this, this minor amount of hiccups in the city that's growing is actually encouraging. The fact that we do have a streamlined government where the mayor and the police chief and the head of a nonprofit can actually talk to each other without layers of bureaucracy is actually a good thing. I would love for us to have the type of problems where we have more and more people coming to our city, but let's honestly talk about the major events that have happened in Highland Park over the last few years. I remember the music festival at the shopping center, and because of covid, there was a situation where a private property owner came forward and provided a space for the public. It wasn't perfect, but the last time we had a major event, that's that's what happened, a private property owner came forward and made a space for the public. Let's make sure that we everybody here is wonderful person, okay, those of you who have parents who love all of your children, okay, but let's make sure that we give, give honor and respect to someone who has done something that has benefited all of us, those of us who live here, those of us who work here. In the last month, month and a half, we had a major news channel coming to our city and highlight all the wonderful things that were happening 24 hours in the city of Highland Park, there was an opportunity for every aspect of our city, every facet of government and many citizens activities, to be raised to a level of appreciation and accolades. And that happened because of the work that has been done in the Avalon village. Uhu is michiganian of the Year for the state, 10 million of us here. The governor picked her. She is among a small cohort of people that are seeing and heroes, not because
the idea that there will be a person who would take their suffering and turn it into an expression of love for the community, to assume that that person will be doing something for Anne grant for and grandizement is the highest level of hypocrisy. How did Avalon village come to be? What was the sacrifice? Those of you go to church on Sunday, he loved the world so much. He gave to you his son. Let us not forget that this lady lost two kids here, her children, her children. So so let's not when we when I saw this stuff online, I just put my computer down. It is not the right of someone else to come from outside of our community and see our laundry on the line and say, look at your sheets. That's not anybody's role. We should not feel good about somebody from the outside coming in to criticize us and say negative things about us and just stir up fights, internal fights and family that have been going on back and forth. But let's remember that this has only happened two times, and this is an opportunity for us to grow as a community. We could learn a lot from this. We could absolutely learn a lot from this, and I think that we did learn a lot from it. We were gone for six weeks, and I just want to make sure that the citizens know what was happening. While we were away from city council, we received a letter from our business administration and business administrator related to something that was serious that we should all talk about. That's House Bill 4675 and House Bill 4679 this relates to land banks having the ability to come into the city of Highland Park under the umbrella of a resident or property owner, where we're all assessed a storm water runoff fee. And these land banks are asking, through this legislative act, after they lost in court, to be given an exemption when we're all assessed for that bill, what happens to the bill if you got 10 people that are billed, and five people say that they're exempt and the bill still stands, that means the bill is distributed among the remaining five people that will be people in our community, that'll be the city of Highland Park. The stormwater runoff fee is a pass through. It is a mandate that's passed on to citizens. House Bill 4675 House Bill 4679 if you don't know about these bills, write this information down. Go Google that you need to talk to your legislative representatives about that on August the 29th I was invited by Mayor Duggan through Marshall bullet to visit a site where the Joe Louis Greenway, it was unveiling a new completed or a new section that was being open at 8101 interval. A Tom Perez from the United States White House was here, an advisor to the President, to talk about the funds that were being delivered to the city of Highland Park, one of those projects they're really proud of. It's Joe Louis Greenway, and they talked about the impact that those projects are going to have on the communities that are along the Greenway. I'm glad to hear that we have nonprofits, we have our city as well as the Greenway, working in concert. If our fingers, fingers across this could be the infrastructure that we need to actually transform the way that the city looks, not to mention
just the way that it's viewed. But there's a large infrastructure project to open up a swath within our city where there's blight, to make some transition. Having all of those things happen around 2025 2026 will be fantastic. So I was really pleased to hear that the projects that we're looking at with new CC, as well as the work that the water department is doing will be in concert with the Joe Louis Greenway, the work of ordinances from my first day in office. My goal was to make sure that the members of this council had the tools that they need. Who cares what tools I had at my disposal? Those tools were simple. My goal was to make
sure that we have parliamentary support, which we don't, but also that the members had access to internet. They made a request for every member of the city council to have an internet device that is fully free functioning. They can use it anywhere. It's a mobile hotspot, so that we have the capacity to dig down into the information that's needed for the meetings. Nobody should show up here unprepared. None of us should show up here unprepared. So the tools that we need to have a meeting that function like the one that we had tonight have always been there. Maybe today was just about the will to get it done, but we should be able to go through these packets, take care of the things that we need to prior to the meeting, show up here with questions, or reach out to the department heads that can answer those questions and get this stuff done. We have more citizens participation. Y'all got three minutes tonight. I didn't say nothing. It was three minutes that people got stand up at the podium. I wanted to leave that space because we had more room in the meeting time so that we could address those things. If we get our meetings tighter, we have more opportunities for citizens to talk. We don't have town halls. If we didn't invite the mayor to speak to us every two weeks, we wouldn't have an opportunity to hear her voice about the work that she's doing. So those things are promising, and I'm saying all of this specifically to the request that was made to us from the community to get our poop in a group, as my mama used to say, whether we like it or not based on the chaos that we had in the social media realm, our community is being discussed like Dalton, like Fulton County, whether you know it or not, there are people in the far corners of the United States who know all five of our names. They're googling our names. I've had more hits on my LinkedIn profile in the last month than I've ever had because people want to know who we are. They want to know who you are, where you work, where you from, who your mama now. They want to know all of those things. So we can no longer pretend as if the activities that take place in this room are somehow in a, you know, in a black hole. This is a public place. This is the most valuable land inside the city of Detroit. So I thank my colleagues for getting our business, and I thank the citizens for appearing. I thank our department heads, our police chief, our mayor, our business administrator, for helping us hold this thing together. It's a municipal nonprofit. Baby. Everybody like hot dogs, but don't. Nobody like to see the way that they're made, making sausages, just like government. Everything goes in there. Haven't concluded all business related to the city of Highland Park, the Wayne County. Oh yeah, yep. I want to take an opportunity to thank the Wayne County Treasurer for coming to talk to the city of Highland Park. You are on tape, so when folks go back to watch it, you will be featured, and we thank you for joining us here. Haven't concluded all just one thing. We have such a wonderful night, and I would like to end on a great night. Maybe you could call the motion for a tournament, as opposed to just a turning violation of openings, not a violation. It's in Robert's rule. But I will go with the chair would entertain a motion to adjourn. Tonight's meeting to
adjourn. Second all those in favor, aye. Meeting adjourned. Thank you. You
