BFA: Dept. of Public Works, GDRRA / Board of Review

2:00PM Mar 28, 2025

Speakers:

Keywords:

DPW budget

fiscal year 2025-2026

street fund

solid waste fund

general fund

staffing levels

sidewalk repair

recycling program

capital funding

engineering vacancies

alley maintenance

traffic signals

bus stops

accessibility

streetscapes.

Board of Review

property assessments

Hope exemption

Pay As You Stay

property tax foreclosure

community support

property tax reform

Board of Review compensation

property tax appeals

property tax exemptions

property tax valuation

property tax compliance

property tax education

property tax outreach

property tax legislation.

property taxes

Board of Review

assessed value

fair market value

millage rate

equalization process

senior programs

public comment

DPW

bike lanes

sidewalk funding

curb cuts

cooperative housing

property ownership

community engagement

Good morning, everyone. We will call to order the expanded budget, Finance and Audit standing committee for the purposes of our budget hearings for today, Madam Clerk, please call the

roll Good morning Council Member Scott Benson, Council Member Fred der Hall, the third council member Letitia Johnson, Council Member Gabriella Santiago Romero, Council Member Mary waters, present council member Angela Whitfield Callaway council member Coleman Young the second dear Council President, pro tem James Tate. Council President, Mary Sheffield. President, Madam President, we have quorum. All

right. Thank you. There being a quorum. We are in session now, and we will start with the Department of Public Works, Director Brundage, whoever is here with You as well, please join us at the table. You

Greg, good morning. Morning. Well, you are ready to proceed. The floor is yours.

Sure we'll start out with introductions. I'm Ron brendish, Director of DPW,

Sam crossenstein, Deputy Director

of DPW, thanks for your microphone is on.

Sam crossenstein, Deputy Director DPW, John prima gdra,

we do have a presentation up if we can go to the next page.

First of all, good morning. Thank you all for having us this morning.

DPW submitted budget for fiscal year 2025 26 is $172 million that's about $12 million over the the current 2025

approved budget of 160

million. DPW budget is broken into three different funding sources, our street fund, our solid waste fund and general fund. Our DPW street fund budget is increasing by 3.8 million. Our solid waste budget increases by $8 million the general fund budget remains essentially the same overall budget of staffing levels in the proposed budget have increased by 22 positions from 500 to 522 in our current in our current fiscal year, we have 72 vacancies, but 37 of those, we will be filled Within the next few weeks, once we begin our seasonal construction season activities. Again, our DPW general fund budget is $3.45 million essentially the same as the current year's budget. Our DPW general fund has where we're recommending 30 positions and increase from five over the current over the current fiscal year. DPW general fund covers only our administration office as well as right away permits and again, our $3.5 million budget is more than offset by $5 million in revenues that we anticipate receiving from fees collected from right away permits that are issued. Our Street fund budget this year is $94 million an increase of $3.8 million over over the current year. The total street fund budget is actually $109 million this year, and that's consistent or aligns with the amount of revenues that will receive through the states at 51 funds. The balance of those street funds, roughly 14 to $15 million goes to the General Services Department for street tree forestry and median maintenance activities that they perform. Our Street fund budget is used to fund all activities in the public right away, including road construction and paving repairing, tree damaged sidewalks, pothole repair, snow and ice removal, cleaning underneath viaducts, any bridge repair, bridge maintenance work that's needed, as well as maintaining traffic signals and signs through our through our dept sign shop in our street and run budget. We currently have, we currently have

50,

I'm sorry, 48 vacancies, 58 vacancies. And again, as indicated earlier, 37 of those will be filled with seasonal hires. We also have 11 engineering vacancies. We remain having challenges with filling all of our engineering positions, but we're doing a lot of things, proactively, working with universities here at Wayne, State University Detroit, as well as University of Michigan Dearborn, to really ramp up our recruiting efforts to try to hire more engineering students that are coming out of that, out of local universities, Dept, street fund budget provides for 21 $21.3 million of capital funding for capital funded projects. $8.7 million of these funds are committed as match funds federal, federal, state transportation grants. During the Biden administration, we're very successful in securing several million dollars in transportation related grants for all types of right away activities. But typically these these grants do come with a match requirement, and we're fortunate that we have adequate street funds to allow us to cover the required match grants. And going back to 2017 when that City Council approved road bonds, were required to pay a $13.5 million annual debt requirement to pay off the bed, pay off the debt. And this street fund budget does account for that. Our Metro fund is the money that we receive for telecommunication. Firms having their assets in the cities right away. Essentially, we utilize these funds the same as we utilize street funds. Our expected revenues this year to the Metro fund is $3.1 million and typically will use these funds solely for replacing tree damage sidewalk throughout the city, and the $3.1 million that we expect to receive this season will allow us to replace 10,000 flags of sidewalk city wide. DPW solid waste. Budget this year is $71.3 million roughly an $8 million increase when compared to the current fiscal year budget, our solid waste budget provides all the necessary funding for all solid waste related activities, including the weekly collection of trash ball count waste and recycling. And that work, of course, is provided by the two trash hauling contractors. It also funds all disposal and processing activities provided by John prime mix group at the greater Detroit resource recovery. And it also provides for work performed directly by city staff, to include kind of legal dump sites and and providing for at least two cycles of residential sweeping throughout the city in fiscal year 2026 the solid waste field increase from 250 to $260 annually. And then moving forward into fiscal year 2027 that fee amount will increase by another $10 to $270 as I believe you guys are, all you're aware, there is a need for the general fund to provide a contribution to have a balanced solid waste fund budget. This year, submitted budget provides for a $17 million contribution for the general fund to ensure a fully balanced budget and to ensure that adequate funding is available. This budget also anticipates that the city will receive $6.5 million one time $6.5 million FEMA reimbursements for the cost that we incurred with regards to cleaning up debris from the 2021

storm and associated floods,

as indicated earlier, the solid waste budget is an increase of $8 million compared to the current year's budget, and the bulk of that increase is due to a 3% inflationary increase of the trash hauling contracts that all at about $1.4 million compared to the current fiscal year. 2.6 million increase is directly associated to increase tipping fee costs and increase the amount of debris that's being removed from the city. And then we've also allocated $3 million for equipment acquisitions in this year's solid waste budget. Just a quick update with regards to our recycling program, we continue to make progress in terms of getting folks opt into the recycling program. As of today, 43% of households have opted into the curbside recycling program, representing about 97,000 households citywide. And are just some, some, some of the capital projects that will implement in fiscal year, 2526 in alignment with the amount of funding available will be repaving 20 miles of residential streets, 12 miles of major roads, two miles of residential class C streets. Will be installing 200 speed times right now, the backlog of speed hump request that we have is dramatically lower that will be seen in 10 in recent years, partly a result of the fact that we've installed over 10,000 speed humps since the program began. I believe we have about 600 requests that are currently in the system, and we have funding to provide for addressing at least a third of those 5.6 million total is included in our budget for replace engaging vehicles and equipment. 3 million of that is associated with solid waste equipment, and 2.6 million associated with eligible street fund equipment, as indicated earlier, will be replacing at least 10,000 flags of sidewalk with this year's budget. That 10,000 flag number doesn't represent our total 2025 program we do have carry over work that that that will add to that number we anticipate in calendar year, 2025 that will replace about 30,000 flags of sidewalk city wide, and some capital projects that were Arbor funded that will be completed this season in time to ensure that we meet our ARPA requirements, continuations of the Dexter Avenue and West Point street projects. And then we also have some work occurring in southwest Detroit and 40 217, zip code area. And again, although that work will be completed before the required end date of December 31 2025 this year, we're also going to be implementing a program we'll be installing at all of the city jurisdiction traffic signals. Will be installing generated switches on all of those traffic signals so in the event that we have power outages, will be able to quickly bring portable generators to those traffic signals immediately provide power to have those signals return back to normal, red, yellow, green operation. So thank you. So with that, I'd love to try to answer any questions that you

may have. Thank you so much, Director Brundage for the presentation, and for all the amazing work that you and your department do, you always, always are accessible and there to answer any concerns and questions that I have. So thank you for for that and all the work that you do. Just wanted to talk a little bit more about sidewalk damage and repair. I know you mentioned 30,000 hopefully for the entire year, and wanted to ensure that one these are not just tree damage sidewalks, but sidewalks that need repair in general. And then where are we with the prioritization of those who are disabled and seniors? I know we talked a couple of years ago about creating a process that will allow for those who are disabled in our seniors to have some type of priority in the replacement of sidewalks as well.

Thank you for that question. We certainly prioritized the request that we received from disabled as well as the senior community. I indicated earlier that 10,000 the funding is available for 10 replacing 10,003 damage sidewalk flags, but that's not going to represent the entirety of our sidewalk program. This year, we're going to continue to focus on that sidewalk that's in the in diverse condition, and we've set aside funding that allows us to address the request that comes in, to come in from senior citizens as well as the handicap community. So many of the requests that we received over the last couple years, we've been able to accommodate those requests, but of course, they still continue to come in, so we are in a position to continue addressing those actually, over the last 10 years, we replaced about 640,000 flags of sidewalk citywide. We've got, in total, about 4 million flags. I think about nine years ago, we did a survey, and as a result of that survey, at that particular time, we determined about 40% of the sidewalks were damaged and in need of repair, which roughly equates to about $1.6 million so we've made a lot of headway in terms of addressing sidewalk that was damaged going back nine years ago, and that Number that we've installed doesn't take into account the sidewalk that's been replaced. To other entities such as de when they do work, they affect sidewalks, they're going to restore those. So the actual number of sidewalks that have been installed in the city of Detroit, City of Detroit, over the last 10 years, we think that number is close to about $800,000 and it's really put us in a position, even though this year, we may not have the funding to have as robust the program as we've had in recent years, we really think, based on the amount of work that we've done over the last 10 years, we're really in a position to still keep up and address those requests that come in, so that we can still be in a position to to repair those sidewalks that need to be

repaired. Okay? And so more recently, though, over the last maybe year or so, how many pending kind of requests Do we still have, just because I know I still hear a lot from residents about sidewalks and just also not knowing when you are coming to their neighborhood. So more recently, within the last year, roughly how many requests are kind of still outstanding, and how does this budget address those requests?

I can get the exact number to you. I believe the last I asked, we had about 3000 requests that were in our backlog system about I can get you the exact number we are going to be placing priority this season, or requests that have been in, that have been in the pipeline for the last couple of years. One of the things that we did the last few years is that we were prioritizing requests that came not only from senior citizens as well as the handicapped community, but also requests that came through block clubs and as well as requests for replacing sidewalk adjacent to park schools, etc. And then, for the most part, a lot of those have been addressed, and allows us now to really focus on those backlogs of folks that maybe unfortunately gotten kind of pushed to the side as we prioritize some other things. So we're really anticipating, really making a lot of progress this season towards that so towards the sidewalk requests that were in the Bible. Okay,

so I just want to ensure that the 3000 backlog requests from residents would be addressed within this 30,000

goal for 2025 I

can certainly provide you the exact number in terms of how many of the backdrop we anticipate being able to address this.

Okay, so I would just, and this is not going to be, well, I don't know if it's going to be an enclosure resolution or not, but I would like to add that like to add that to the executive session just to follow, and we'll follow up with you as we go into executive session to get the details around that backlog. Request. Is there a motion? Please? Okay? Hearing no objections that action will be taken. Definitely excited, and love to see the Dexter Avenue streetscape and the process that that went through, and hopefully we can see more throughout the city of Detroit as well. I know we were counting on ARPA funding for that, but not sure what the department's plans are to ensure that we continue those throughout the city of Detroit, but my question is actually on alley. So can you speak a little bit more about what your department does and what money is allocated to enhancement of paving and alleys.

So our department is responsible for maintaining the surface condition of alleys. We work in concert with the General Services Department of alleys need to be cleared out. If there's overgrowth in the alley and it needs to be cleared out, they'll they'll remove the the overgrowth in the alleys, and dept work with them to happen to all the way and dispose stuff. Our alley maintenance program, for the most part, we have some unpaved alleys to the city. We're competitive to stoning and grading those as needed so that those alleys are fully accessible. For alleys that are paved but have potholes in them or low spots in them. We come in and do needed repairs on those. We don't have a program at this time, or we haven't set aside any funding for complete repaving of alleys. The only alleys that have been completely repaved, at least over the last 10 years that I'm aware of have been done in conjunction with funding being provided by the adjacent property owners, and typically those have been commercial alleys where the business owners have indicated that they would be supportive of paying for the cost of having an alley completely repaid. So we don't have money in this budget for any repaving of alleys, but we are committed to ensuring that any alleys that are being used for driving through that we're going to make those alleys, keep those alleys in a manner that folks can safely drive through the eyes.

And how are you going to do that with no money? Well, we have funding for for patching, for maintenance activities. We just don't have funding for complete repaving of patching them. We're patching your rating Correct. Okay, okay. And then when I when GSD came before, she mentioned that their alley cleaning program also has a wind down and that they were not continuing it. So what is in your budget specifically for the maintenance of alleys? So

we don't set aside our street fund budget, which includes our the budget for our street maintenance division, which is responsible for maintaining alleys to the level that we maintain them. We don't have a separate item specifically for alley repair, but the overall street maintenance budget does contemplate the necessary funds for city crews to go in and keep the alleys in a drivable condition. Okay,

all right, I'm just really the alleys for me are a big thing. I know that at one point in time, the city maintained them, and I'm not sure how much that cost annually, when a city maintained alleys. Do you roughly know what that cost was to the city?

I don't know offend what it cost to maintain them, but I will say just a clarification in terms of the city's responsibility versus what the adjacent homeowners responsibility is. The property owners are responsible for routine maintenance of the alley to this from their property to the center of the alley, and that routine maintenance means picking up litter. It also remains, you know, cutting any weeds that might generate. But the city's always been responsible for any structural surface related activities for alleys that are, that are still public alleys. Unfortunately, what occurred over so many years, especially after the city moved from providing trash collection in the alleys to the curbside, is that alleys weren't being maintained. And you had, you had weeds that were essentially growing into 40 foot high trees, and they got to a point where it was well beyond what the homeowners could maintain. And it was great that there was funding available, and actually it was solid waste fundings that were used at that particular time. It was great that funds were available for general services to go in and do some really comprehensive cleaning of alleys to get them to a point where hopefully the residents can try to maintain them again and not get back to what they were five or 10 years ago. Yeah,

and as I mentioned with two director Perkins, some areas never got that one Hall. And I know for sure because I've been out and I've sent pictures to you and just others who said they never came and gave me that one initial clean of the alleys, and some who had that clean are now looking for someone to come back and hopefully do it again, even if it's once or twice a year. And so that's my concern. And again, I know at one point, I'm not sure what year the transfer of ownership went back to residents, but the city did maintain alleys. Is that correct or Yeah.

So it's kind of confusing. Nothing, nothing transferred recently the

responsibility of cleaning the alleys.

Yeah, by ordinance, the responsibilities have never changed from what it's been historically. Maybe there was kind of a maybe not a clear understanding of what the responsibilities were of the homeowner, but as indicated before, the homeowner has always been responsible for maintaining the portion of the alley from their property line to the center, just like they're responsible for maintaining in the front from their property line to the center of the street. They're responsible for picking up litter in front of the house. They're responsible, really, for sweeping the curb area, for cutting the grass in the right of way. So that responsibility has never changed. I think what has occurred is that maybe there were, you know, we didn't do as good of a job as we needed to do, and really, kind of getting clearly conveying what was the responsibility of the city and what was the responsibility of the homeowner.

Okay, all right. Well, I I'm going to always talk about alleys, because it's a big one. It always comes up for me, the maintenance of them in the city properly doing its job to clean the alleys and the cases where residents don't have the machinery or capability to go out and do halls and cut down trees and all of those things, I think the city should step in and support. So I already added GSD alley cleaning, if we could just add DPW as an additional department to that request, so that I can better understand what my request is going to be for alleys. But I do know that residents need support, and would love to see the program of cleaning and supporting our alleys continued and so pro tem, if we can just add DPW to that request that's already in Executive Session. Okay, all right. Thank you so much. And I have additional questions that we will submit in writing, and we will continue now with pro Tim Tate,

thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Good morning. Thank you, Director. We have gone out and about many locations in the district, just as recently as last week, so very responsive to the concerns that we have in the community, and we know that's all we're lifting up. You know, things from the community. I will say that there are a few that are still hanging right now. Last year, if you recall, we went it may have been early this year. I think it was last year by Dawson Elementary, and we walked it, and those issues are still there. The berm, we talked about the erosion over there. We talked about adding more structure to ensure that that erosion does not exist. The intersection at Grandmont, excuse me at Glendale and Grandmont, that's still a hazard for children who are getting to and from the school right in front of the location. And then we also talked about on Avon Street, excuse me, on grove at Avon, with that tree had pushed up the sidewalk, and it is dangerous, extremely dangerous, and someone actually harmed themselves on that particular sidewalk, and those are still hanging out there. So and then the other is, I actually call this one to you. I think it's pump eight over the Southfield yard. I've seen officers who are very poor employees. Let me just say that we're filling up city vehicles ended up having to step in big puddle of water because it is a dept or a pothole, if you will. And I know I've sent that over a couple of times, I would hope that there's money in the budget to get these issues addressed. Is there

through the chair you covered quite a few. Yes, sir, my memory is not as great as it was at one particular time zone. I'm going to try to address these. I may ask you to restate a couple of them, but I'll start with the the ones that I do recall. And I'll start with the, you know, with the issue at our Southfield yard near the pumps that are over there, and I know that when you brought that to my attention, that we immediately sent some folks out there to do some temporary work to to have that address. I don't know if you change back over there, but, but, well, we'll certainly if we need to. Obviously, we know the condition of that particular yard, and we do have some plans in place for some, some really, you know, long term improvements to the to the to the surface over there. But in the interim period, we, of course, have to make sure that we maintain it in a level that, you know, we don't have dips, we don't have dangerous situations. We don't have people having Travers through water in order to in order to fuel their vehicles. So I'll have somebody take a look at that today. And I just have to apologize if that wasn't fully addressed to the degree that I thought it had been. There

was no CO patch or anything. It literally looked exactly the same. And I've seen more office more employees were a bit frustrated and looking as if you know they don't care about us.

Well, I don't know when your next schedule fueling is, but I can assure you that the next time that you get fuel that it won't look like it did the last time. And of course, give me a call that what by where it started now not to be true with regards to some of the locations, some I recall, and some I did, and I do recall the location on a bond where there was a tree damage sidewalk, and evidence in our pipeline for that sidewalk replacement to occur this spring. The you mentioned a location by with that was that was one of the sites when you and I the same well as the city engineer were were out, and I'll have to get back with you. I know we have that within the pipeline. I don't know if the plans was for that, for that work to occur this spring or not, but I can certainly get back with you. We've committed to ensuring that whatever necessary work and whatever work was necessary, that we're going to complete that work. I just don't have a timeline right now in terms of in terms of when that was to be scheduled.

And I bring it up again because it was actually before the school year began in September, and that was a commitment that it would be addressed at that point. And it sounds like today we still don't have a date or time frame. It's just in the pipeline, so we'd love to get some more assistance on that. Won't necessarily put it in the budget right now in terms of Executive Session, excuse me, but I certainly plan to have not given a thank you soon, location and time, and

I'm going to have to ask you to refresh my memory for the other specific issues that you raised.

So do you hit him? You hit him, you hit him, and we'll talk again offline. Just wanted to make sure there was a commitment to move on those in the short term. If not, then we'll place the money in the budget and we'll see what we do with it. Thank you for that response. The other challenge that we have in we walked and talked with it as well this, and I don't know, I don't think this is necessarily you, but are you aware of any road construction business loss reimbursement or construction mitigation fund for businesses, small businesses, as you know, we walked the old Redford losser streetscape, and the resident, or excuse me, the business owners, were definitely complaining about the loss in revenue as a result of the sometime longer than anticipated disruption of their businesses. And we are planning multiple streetscapes in this upcoming fiscal year, and don't know if, if you're aware of any business loss or revenue loss mitigation funds. I mean, it may not be your department, but that may be somewhere else.

Yeah, we don't include that as part of our construction contracts, but we do work in concert with other city agencies, whether, whether it's the planning department, HRD, especially for the streetscape projects, because we do know that, you know, the streetscape projects can be a little bit more disruptive than just a regular road paving project in terms of in terms of taking access to those businesses. So it hasn't been uncommon for all of the streetscape projects that we've done that there have been other components to take into account the effect that the business owner is going to have on endured during the construction period. So whereby I can't provide you an answer at this time in terms of what might be available to those businesses along along last year, as a result of a lot of streetscape project, I can certainly have follow up conversations with the appropriate agencies to see what you know, what potential avenues exist.

Okay? I will, while we await the conversation that we have, Madam President, I would like to move to Executive Session a million, $1 million for a development of a road construction business loss reimbursement program that does not exist. Now we'll have a conversation to see if that number and with others to see if that number is the right number, and if there's something that already exists. But right now, that's our placehold. I so move, Madam

President, right Hearing no objections that action will be taken. Thank

you, um,

I'll send the rest of my questions in right now. I do have a few more, but thank you again for your work, and we appreciate and look forward to having additional conversations and thank you remediation. Thank you, Madam President,

okay, thank you pro tem Council. Member young yes, if the clerk would know, yes. Member durha is here. Member Callaway is here. We also did receive a notice that council member Santiago Ramiro would not be present today.

Clerk will park with no member. Young

director, always good to see you. Always been responsive to all my questions. You have no idea. I've had people complain me about potholes, lights or things that nature. Well, now I was talking about lights, but potholes and you know, and trash or dumping, you've always helped me. So I just want to say I appreciate that very highly. Made my job so much easier. I appreciate it. I just wanted to ask you really quickly, the solid No, no, no, the gdra tipping fee rose to $2.6 million even though the you know, gedra has been demolished. What would justify that cost, and how does it align with current waste transfer and disposal operations.

Yeah, remember young, if you don't mind me, sorry,

good to see you again, really, though, as you know, GDR is a spools on the city Detroit, even though the facility is no longer there. Get your response for all the disposal of MSW, yard waste, bulk waste, recycling, special waste, all the needs of the city, Detroit. What happened so we got the increase from DPW was do basically two things, CPI, but the biggest thing is now that we have this new initiative from DPW, you have the year of bulk picked up every weekly and you have the curbside those things as our volume has gone up for like last 2023 our volume was like 310,000 tons. Now we're at 304,000 tons. So our volume at the curb is actually going up, which helped clean the city up. So the big issue is the volume

which creates the demand. So say that last part about the about how much has gone

up. So basically, like last year, 2023 we did about 320,000 tons last year. We did 354,000 tons, and we're actually expecting to go more for our disposal this year. Okay, so

you're saying it's because of curbside pickup, the ball pickup, and because of inflation, the volume correct exactly right. Now what I want to say, and I'm not saying that you're not doing a good job, and I appreciate that, but maybe I'm a little bit ignorant here, so forgive me, right? But I thought the purpose of us having of tearing down gedra, and for us having advanced disposal and for us having green for life, was for purpose for all those services to go to the private sector. Well, there is not that I don't like seeing you and not that I don't like you know, don't take this wrong. It's not personal. It's not me. John, today, I just want to know I thought all that stuff was supposed to go to the private sector for savings and for costs, and now it seems that not only have even though we tore down gedra, but now it seems we're increasing those costs, and rightfully so. I just want to know, is that something that changed, or was this always the plan

this? This always was the plan. Okay? GDR always was a disposal arm. As you know, we separate the hauling into hauling and disposal with the contracts for reduce the tipping fees to Detroit, like right priority waste isn't having a landfill, so they really couldn't take any place. We put that in motion for them. Okay? So and there's,

and there are no other private sector companies that will be capable of being able to take that bulk and take it to the landfill, because that's what I was thinking we were doing. God, understand why we had a typical fee if we don't, but I assumed that's what that private sector was forced to accomplish. All that, not just the actual picking up the trash, but the bulk and all that, yeah, just for picking up the saying that the city is going to be handling it exclusively because the bulk trash and bulk pickup disposal, just the disposal, so, just the disposal of it. So the private sectors will pick up the trash, but will it handle the disposal of that? Okay, okay, I just want to make sure about that. And this is my last question I want to ask you with 72 well, not, not, you know, I appreciate you sir. As DPW, with 72 vacancies currently unfilled. How does DEP W justify adding 22 point 25 new positions in fiscal year? 2026 what's the strategy to recruit and on board these roles efficiently? And do we have a and do we have a breakdown of how much that will cost the taxpayer per dollar per person. Excuse me

through the chair. I don't have the cost portion information. We can certainly get that to you. I will say that those 72 vacancies, 37 are going to be filled within the next few weeks, because they represent seasonal positions that we've already in the we're already in the process of onboarding those persons, and they'll be with us before the end of April, dramatically reducing that number of that number

of more trash that neighborhood happens. This is actually,

yeah, this is x now we actually have seasonal hires when we start our street sweeping program, as well as the residential road paving work that we do with our street maintenance division, we don't utilize those folks during the winter months. Okay? So we have some seasonal layoffs and rehires. I indicated earlier that historically, we have had challenges filling all of our engineering positions. We currently have 11 vacancies which are part of that number that you reference. We're doing some things to try to really be more proactive in terms of in terms of identifying, in terms of identifying potential engineering candidates. We're working, as I mentioned before, with all of the local universities. We have a very robust student internship program. This year, we're planning on bringing in 1414, interns, and most of those will be engineering students, and we're recruiting, I think five or six are going to come from HBCUs in the South as well as along the Atlantic coast. We're working. Yesterday, I had a meeting with the Dean of Engineering at Wayne State to really talk about what we can do differently, to really ramp up that pipeline for engineering students that are coming through Wayne State, to really make them want to consider coming to work for the city of Detroit. So we recognize this has been a challenge for us, but we're really committed to doing whatever we can do to try to not unfill Those positions, but but also try to fill those positions with Detroiters as well as engineering students of color.

Okay, um,

there is a light that has been out on Jefferson and Dickerson. And I know I talked to you about this earlier. I just want to know, can you just give me an update on not just that, but also just the lighting system as a whole, and how much lights, how many lights are down, and how many lights need to be approved in the system overall, and

I'm assuming traffic signals, I do, I do recall. And obviously, when, when you mentioned that location to me at Dexter and Jefferson, we immediately took care of it. So it's back to working. It's back to working normally. You know, one of the things you may recall that that as part of the 340 $6 million in her grand funds that the city is expected to receive for cost incurred related to to the storm of 2023 there's a component, about $9 million component of The overall plan. That is a project that specifically is centered around what we can do to minimize the time that traffic signals are out. I mentioned earlier that we're already planning on outputting all of our traffic signals with with backup generator switches, so when there's a power outage, we can immediately go and put a generator in to minimize the time that those signals are out. But what's also important to us we know that signals are sometimes going to malfunction. What's important for us to is to know as quickly as possible when the signal malfunction so that we can get a crew out there to address it and minimize the time that the signal is not working correctly. Part of that $9 million in HUD funding that we expect to receive is going to go towards connecting the balance of our traffic signals to our traffic management center, and that's extremely important, because that means whenever one of the 800 city jurisdiction signals malfunctions for whatever reason, we immediately alerted so that we can minimize the time that it takes For us to get, get a crew out to address the signals. We average, you know, between, I don't know if, five to 10 malfunctions a day of traffic signals. And again, it's important for us to, you know, to know as quickly as possible, so that we can get crews to have to minimize the time that the signals not working.

Okay? Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. Those are all my questions, Madam President, and I will submit the rest of my questions, right? Thank

you, gentlemen. Appreciate you. Thank you, member young

member waters, thank you, Madam President, and good morning the I want to talk about the future of the solid waste program, and, of course, the increased cost to our general fund. Does it make sense to bring this program in house?

In house?

I've been asked this question before. I think one of the let me back up for a second. I think one of the things that you know that's always been most important to me is, how does the city look? Is the city cleaner? And especially, you know, if we compare, you know what the city looked like going 10 years back before we started contracting out curbside trash hauling services, compared to, you know, what it looked like after the first five year iteration, what it looked like five years later, and then what it looks like now, now that we're nine months into the into the current contract, which began on June 1 of last year. And you know, with the, you know, with the resounding level of competence, the city is much cleaner than it was, and there are multiple factors that that, I think weigh into that. So I'll just start out by saying that I personally wouldn't be a proponent of moving away from the level of service that we're currently providing to our to our residents, but but to specifically answer your question if we were to talk about what it would take to bring this in house, the first thing is that it would take a significant capital infusion. You know, we don't have the equipment anymore. Obviously, we no longer have the staffing levels. A lot of the drivers that work for us when we were providing the service they moved on to work for the two trash hauling contractors. So the first thing is that we'd have to be mindful that it would require a huge capital infusion before we could even think about, you know, what it would take to put it in place, and not just on the DVD side, but also on the general services side, as the city agency that's responsible for maintaining the equipment, ensuring that we have what we need on a daily basis, to give the citizens the level of service that they require, it would be a significant challenge. It's always something that, you know, we're open to have a conversation with. But again, I start from you know, the base of, Am I satisfied with what we're getting in terms of, you know, the the impact that it's having on a resident assignment, in terms of, in terms of providing a cleaner city. And I'm happy with where we are right now.

Mm, hmm. So along those same same lines, I I think that we need to at least have something in place, some recommendations to this body in the future, in case we need to cut something somewhere, and I think we should have a plan for that, because, because we don't know, but it would be great to have some sort of plan so that will make it easier for This body to make those tough decisions, because there may come a day. All right, thank you so thank you. Your budget includes funding for 22 new full time positions, but 37 of those 72 vacancies will be filled with seasonal staff, why not prioritize converting some of these seasonal roles into full time positions for stability, and along those same lines, as engineer positions remain vacant, what specific strategies is DPW implementing to recruit and retain skilled engineers?

Yeah, I'll start with the first part of the question relative to the impact of having some seasonal hires. Actually, of the 22 positions that we're adding in the fiscal 26 budget, 12 of those are construction inspector positions that were previously budgeted seasonal and we did exactly what you were suggesting, that we've moved those into full time positions. In that particular case, we do have meaningful work for them to do during the entire 12 months, even during the winter months, where we're not doing as much, you know, road construction activity, but we have a lot of work that they can do in terms of us getting getting us prepared for the for the upcoming construction season. So we did exactly what you suggested for 12 of those 22 positions, making them making them full time. The other part of all, the other part was relative to, what are we doing to address the kind of a long standing issue with engineering vacancies. And as I mentioned earlier, we currently have 11 engineering vacancies. And you know, as I as I mentioned to member young, we're really working aggressively, not only with the local universities. We have, as I mentioned before, really robust engineering internship program. We're looking at bringing in 14 engineering students this year. In the last last three years, we've been able to hire two of the engineering students that started out with us as engineers, and now they're working with this full time. We also for the engineering students that attend universities locally, whether it's Wayne, State University of Detroit, or even University of Michigan. Dearborn, if their school schedule allows for them to potentially spend some time working with us during the school year, we allow them to work with us year year round. We've got, I believe, four engineering students right now that are still in school that are working with us 10 to 20 hours a week, because they're you know, because you know they're in a proximity whereby you know they can continue to attend school, but also have the opportunity to get the experience and also continue working with us. So we certainly recognize that having any engineering vacancies is not ideal for every vacant engineering position that we have that's more work that we have to assign to our engineering consultants that we have on board. We certainly recognize we still have to have things in place to ensure that the needed work is done, but we would love to have, you know, all, if not the majority, of, the work done with our in house engineering staff. So we're going to continue to be a really aggressive and proactive in terms of doing whatever we can do to try to make ourselves, make it more attractive for folks to choose to come to work with us. Last year, City Council approved increases in engineering salaries. That's helped out quite a bit. The one factor is that the reality is that during the Biden during the Biden administration, there was so much money, uh, federal transportation money, not only coming into the city of Detroit, not only coming into southeastern Michigan, but throughout the entire state. And there was just so much activity going on and and engineers, especially civil engineers, were in such high demand that even after having, uh, even after getting increases approved to city engineering salaries. We were still, you know, not as competitive as we needed to be in order to always attract and retain that the folks that we wanted to hire. But we certainly recognize the benefit to it, and we're going to continue to be diligent to do everything we can do to try to not only attract but also retain the key people that we currently are working with us, yeah,

and so and so. Thank you for just a follow up. And I think it might be a good idea if you your department would not mind to just kind of lay out a strategy so that we'll have that that tells us what it takes to retain these, these engineers. And I think, I think that will help it sounds like it is salary one is one of the major factors, and so but, but I think for for future purposes, I think that should always be on our radar screen so that we can become more competitive in retaining these engineers because we need it so large city, the services are certainly needed, and so I want to thank you for that information. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President.

Member Johnson, did you I just want to make a motion. Okay, go to you might have to come back.

Member Johnson,

thank you, Madam President, good morning to all of you.

Director, thank you for being responsive when I reached out to you about a particular area in the district, for coming out and walking with me and following up and addressing the concerns that residents have raised, I will say that I think District Four looks cleaner in most areas. There are some areas that still tend to have a lot of debris, and I think it's more illegal dumping. And so I'm just wondering if, and this is not one of my questions, just a thought, if the waste hauling companies can share with you when there are areas where there has been illegal dumping, so that DPW knows where to go to pick up that debris, because I've seen people posting on the ring doorbell app, talking About and actually showing a video of their neighbor, their neighbor's kids, unfortunately, taking items and putting it in the vacant lot next door to their house. Yeah, so, and I don't know if you all already do that, but it would be great if that communication was there. We're trying to do more of that in areas where we see there's still a lot of debris just sitting at the curb, just so that we can relay that information to you. So

So actually we, we that's currently part of our current process. The contractors on those on those weekly bulk days, they're required to pick up bulk if it's two yards or less, it's in front of occupied houses, but if there's debris at curbside, in front of a vacant lot of vacant property, and it's less than five yards, they're also required to pick up that. If it's in excess of that, then they're not required to pick it up, but they are required to let us know at the end of that each work day if they came across any locations where it was beyond what they were contractually required to pick up, so that we can send our city crews out. You know, part of the solid waste budget does provide funding for DPW crews to address the legal dumping that occurs that's outside of the scope of the contractors responsibility. So that is a part of that our process, I'm not saying that it's always followed 100% of the time. Sometimes it may vary from driver to driver, but currently, the process that we have in place does require the trash hauling contractor they come across a pile that's beyond the scope of what they're required to pick up to notify us at the end of that day, so that we can minimize the time that is out there. Okay,

thank you. And I'll just kind of make sure that we do it after the Thursday collection, so that if there are things that are still left out that haven't been picked up, we can relay that to you. Okay, I really want to talk about East Jefferson, the road itself, and I'm not sure how long ago DPW actually did some road work on improving East Jefferson, but it looks like every year there's some construction work going on that tears up the road from Alta road to Connor, and right now it is absolutely horrible. So can you talk about, I know we had talked about coordinating efforts at one point with DWSD, with DTE and and trying to manage that.

If you don't mind, I'm going to ask our Deputy Director, Sam Christensen, is also the city's chief of infrastructure, and he's one of his responsibilities is coordinating activities that require not only work from city departments, whether it's DPW, DWSD, but also when there's work being performed by utilities such as glwa or dt. He's very familiar with the history of what occurred or has been occurring on East Jefferson.

Thank you through the chair. So the work that's happening on East Jefferson originally, we had intended to do East Jefferson as a full reconstruction, and we sought federal funding to do that in a way that all the work, both on the surface and subsurface, would have been done at once. We were not successful in that federal grant, and so we let the utilities go ahead with their work so that we could ultimately come back and do the finishing work on top at the end. So at the very least, the work is being done in the right order. Over the last two years, DT gas has been doing a full main replacement from ultra road to about Mount Elliot, starting next year. DWSD is going to be getting, going to be continuing their main replacement basically in that same stretch all the way to the downtown. And what we are coordinating is the work that DDOT is going to be doing with the new temporary bus islands and bus improvements along east Jefferson to happen at the same time, in addition to replacing all of the delineators on that stretch road, in order to prepare for this work. Since we didn't get the reconstruction funding, we did do a one inch mill and overlay a couple years ago just to make the driving lanes a little bit more passable. That type of treatment only is only designed to last a few years, so we're basically at the tail end of that. So once the utility work is done over the next year or so, we're going to be coming in behind them and starting to resurface different portions of East Jefferson as all the utility work is completed by now, it's super frustrating to drive down as an East Side resident. This is something I experience and pay attention to every day.

Thank you for that. So that's good to know that we're looking forward to a day when East Jefferson is nice and passable for a length of time, not just for a year, but within this time. How are we ensuring that even the patchwork that's done is not ruining your car? Because Jefferson at Connor, there's a huge divot there. So obviously some work has been done underground. I assume it's just temporary Patchwork, but it's still problematic. Can we get that addressed? We will.

So part of our responsibility, obviously this is still public right of way, even though DPW is indirectly responsible for the work that's going on right there, but it's always our responsibility to ensure that the right of way is being maintained in a safe manner. So we'll get someone out to take a look at Connor and Jefferson and ensure that the appropriate entity does with what's needed to make it as safe as possible.

Thank you. I appreciate that, and I'm asking absolutely that they pay for the improvements, or just to make sure that it's passable, they'll perform the work. And then my other question to you is, in regards to maintaining the bike lanes in the summertime, we do various events encouraging people to come out and ride bikes with us throughout the district, and one of the challenges that I've seen is the amount of debris that is in the bike lanes. So can you talk about the maintenance there?

I can this season, leading into the into the winter snow season, we acquired three pieces of equipment that's specifically designed for maintaining bike lanes, a much narrower piece of equipment they can get into, even the protected bike lanes. We use the during the winter months to remove snow and ice from the bike lanes, but we also have the ability to use that equipment for sweeping out the bike lane. So I said, I think you're going to see a pretty significant improvement in terms of how the bike lanes are maintained during the spring and summer seasons. Alright,

great, and hopefully that'll encourage more people to ride the bikes

through. Yeah, you just have to come get me. You know where I live? I

do. Thank you. Thank you

Madam President. Thank you member Johnson, member Calloway.

Thank you Madam President. And good morning, everyone. Welcome. Thank you, Mr. Brundage, to you and your team. Very responsive since day one, since 2022 when I first met you in person and we did a walk through on Litchfield, I remember, mm hmm, did an extensive walk, and everything that you promised you did it. We're

still waiting looking director Brown, and I looking forward to meeting you on Fairfield and McNichols when the budget season is over, maybe

right after budget, because they're going to keep they're going to keep asking me about that one pothole that they're thinking is turning to a sinkhole. But right after budget, I like to meet the two of you there. But recycle bins, if you look at your phone, I just sent you a picture of recycle bins. Sent it to my colleagues as well. They are identical to the black ones through that are local, like located throughout the city. They look like little fencing, and then they have an area at the top that you can just dump your trash in. You see it?

Okay? Okay, we're

going to order those. We got, we got to order them. Went to DC, very clean. We give, they give their residents and visitors and workers an opportunity to distinguish between regular trash and trash that can be recyclable. They give them that option. The reason why I believe our trash bins are overflowing with trash, because we don't offer that option, and so I'm going to put into Executive Session. This is my motion Madam Chair. I sent the picture to my colleagues. It's identical to what we already have, but they're blue, the color of madam president's blazer, that same color, and if my colleagues will look in their phone, you should see it. So I'm going to put into Executive Session, recyclable bins. And I just need to know, how many standard black ones do we already have throughout the city? This is not a district to request. This is a city wide request. We need help. This is a dirty city, trash everywhere. So that is my motion, Madam Chair, to put recyclable bins into the budget, into Executive Session. I just need to know $1 figure, because I'm not going to throw out a random, random number. So I will get with you, Mr. Brunder, so you can tell me how much you estimate them to cost, and that we have to do it this time. I've been talking about it since 2022 this year we're going to do it so Madam Chair, that is my motion to put recyclable bins into Executive Session,

hearing none that action will be taken.

It's long overdue. It's long overdue. I know we have them, you know in our driveways, we know we have them on the 13th floor outside of our offices. Wonderful opportunity. But they're not where they're really needed. They're at these bus stops. Trash everywhere. I can only talk about District Two, and you, you told me, um, a year ago, that trash bins are typically located near bus stops. One of my staff members took two days to drive to every bus stop in the city of Detroit. We sent you the report, and nothing happened. We sent you the report. Mr. Outlaws, we sent you the report. Nothing happened. You said typically that the trash bins are located near bus stops or at bus stops. That's not the case where I live, so then I think you said that not all the time. So I just need to know where are we locating trash cans, those black ones, and then we'll know where we're going to locate the blue ones for recycle.

So I would like to respond to a couple of things. First, I'll just start out with where we typically put the litter cans. And you're correct. We generally do install them adjacent to bus stop so we don't put them at every bus stop location throughout the city. We work with DDOT to get information from them in terms of which of the bus stop locations they have the highest volume of people entering and exiting the busses at those locations, because we really want to put the containers where people are congregating at those locations so that that they get appropriately used, as opposed to putting out a bunch of litter containers that are never utilized. So so you're correct, you will find several bus stops throughout the city where there's no litter container, and it's really because the information that we've gotten from DDOT doesn't really support the need for putting a bus a litter container at those particular locations. With regards to the recycling bin, we're fully supportive of any initiative that we think is going to increase the amount of recycling that occurs throughout the city, but we do, I think, need to be mindful of the educational component that goes along with it. Just putting a blue container out at a location doesn't automatically guarantee that 100% of the people are only going to put recyclables in that particular container. You mentioned earlier that, you know, you sometimes see little containers that are over that are over field, and that's our responsibility. If that means that we need to increase the frequency of collections, then that's what we need to do to ensure that that doesn't occur. But what concerns me if, if a litter, if a litter container is full, and there's a blue recycling container just adjacent to it, that people are going to put non recyclables or put whatever into those recycling containers, and we're just creating a situation where we've got a lot of congestion that we can ultimately recycle. So before we would implement a program like that, I think it really robust marketing and outreach component needs to to what to company. And so we're not, you know, we're we're not putting ourselves in a position that we're not really accomplishing what we would hope to accomplish. Thank

you. Thank you, Mr. Brundage, so to your point, if a trash bin overflows, what do you have? What do you think happens to the trash that can't can no longer fit into the trash bins that are located throughout the city? Where do you think that trash lands? Yeah, if we don't have, we don't have a second recyclable bin. I'd rather see trash in the blue that may not always be recyclable items, instead of on the streets and on sidewalks and on grass where it just blows when when it's windy outside. I'd rather see that option. So even if it doesn't capture all the recyclable items, at least people are not throwing it on the ground, because the trash bin at the bus stop or wherever else they're located is overflowing with trash, and that's what's happening in district two in the area where I live, because we put they put Styrofoam takeout containers, everything in one bin, and They would do better if we gave them an option. So I don't mind the marketing study, but we're going to order some. We have to order some and just try it out and see what happens. Because right now, everything is just going in one bin anyway. So what difference does it make if everything is just going in one bin and then after that's overflowing in district two, it's just hitting the streets, hitting the sidewalks, hitting people's property, and trash is everywhere, because that one bin can't contain all the trash accumulation at bus stops. So when a person sees there's no nowhere else for me to put it, they're just gonna drop it. But if we give them that option, just maybe on a pilot basis, a limited basis, let's get started and still do the marketing study. I think we can do both. I think we can order a couple 100 and I think we can still do the marketing slash feasibility study at the same time. So I'll add that to my motion. Madam Chair to we're going to order the recyclable bins, but we can also add a feasibility marketing study with that. Madam Chair, okay,

okay. Is there any objections? Hearing none that action will be taken. Yeah,

because I've been talking about this for a while, you know, since I've been on this council, because I know what I see every day when I'm driving through my community, it's trash, trash, just trash everywhere, because the bins are overflowing. They're they're pretty but, you know, you know, you can't put a whole lot in them, but I thank you for that, mister brunch. I don't have any questions. The ones that I have written down, I'll make sure you you get them. But my main, my main question was regarding the bins. And then my last question, which I don't think you had anything to do with through the chair, everybody's always tampering with the avenue of fashion. It's like a guinea pig. You want to try something. Try it on Livernois. Then you can take it out, then you can put it in. Why sidewalks? No sidewalks, berm in the middle. Then you take it out, irrigation and you take it out. Everything's experimented on the avenue of fashion. Livernois from one end to the other to eight mile. So I saw a sign. I took a picture of it with some federal infrastructure, federal infrastructure project on Livernois. I don't know if you're familiar with where they tore up the streets. Put some piping underneath the street. Came back, put black covering over it's like patchwork now it looks like a quilt up and down Livernois. So my residents are asking, are we waiting for the weather to break, to to fix it, or is that going to be permanent? Because I know it's not going to be permanent. I'm just asking. And do you all know what I'm talking about, that work that was done and it had a big blue and white sign that said, federal infrastructure. It's the south of February mount Correct.

Yes. Yes, sir, yes. So through the Chair, I am familiar with this works. This is work that DWSD is doing to do water main replacement under the road. DT, again, was there last year. Dwds there. So once the weather breaks, they'll be doing permanent restoration of the base and the surface. And then I actually believe this is also one that's on our resurfacing queue for the next year or so, but we were waiting for all the utility work to be done first before we worked on fix fixing the surface. But a lot of these temporary patches you'll see, especially this time of year, this is about as as you know, this is basically the low point coming right out of the winter, the freeze thaw period, when we're just starting to get back into doing permanent restorations of all the utility work that's been happening for the last six months, okay?

And through the chair a lot of a couple of trees were damaged, knocked down, and then a lot of the curbs were damaged as well. I took pictures so I didn't contact the company, because I'm thinking, maybe that's something you all can make sure is taken care of. I have the pictures with the broken curbs, undamaged curbs just crushed, just crushed because of heavy equipment. And they knocked out several trees along Livernois. And

I just took pictures so through the chair. So generally, when that type of damage occurs as part of the utility work, or for any right of way, permit holder, we'll work with the the permit holder for full restoration, not just of the pavement, but damage to the curb, berm or sidewalk, or even sometimes street trees, to get those replaced. So definitely, thank you for letting us know when you see that type of action.

Okay? And lastly, through the chair. So do you do a walk through you want me to show you? Or you you're going to do your own walk through after the weather breaks. So

we'll do our own walk through with our own city inspectors as part of the condition for any right of way permit we do that. But if there are things that we miss or things that you know, that anyone feels we need to pay special attention to, please feel free to do send those our way.

Okay, I shall. And thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair,

thank you. Okay, thank you. Council member Callaway. Member durha, I'm sorry. Before I go to you, I'm sorry. Member Doha, you had a question on the

motion. I had a question. I just want to ask, just a member cowboy, you could take this if you wanted to. I just wanted to know, do we did you also want to expand your motion, just to ask, What happened to the previous recycling program with the blue corovid containers, and does that still exist, and is that being recycled at gedra I didn't know. He wanted to add that to what you were doing as well, because what you're saying, I mean, makes sense. I just or if you are know the answer, that's fine. But if we're already doing it or combining that, I just want to know, maybe you want to add that. Are

you referring to the blue containers that folks have as a residential household? Yeah, well, that program is still in place. I indicated earlier. We've got 97,000 households that have opted into the curbside recycling program, and they have those blue 64 gallon containers. Member Callaway was referring to supplementing that, providing the capability for folks that were along commercial corridors to have the ability to put recycles into recycling container. Longer

supplements, I just want to make sure Okay. Thank you

all right. Thank you. Council member Durham,

thank you Good morning to you all. I will be very brief. I do want to thank you as well, Director branders, for your timely response. Always there when my team and I call you, have an amazing team as well that has resolved a lot of issues relative to DPW, so we appreciate that my question is pretty much going to be wrapped around accessibility. As we look to expand accessibility. Sidewalk program has been huge with that. And then you know, as we see obviously funding, even in the capital agenda. What is our overall goal to expand accessibility across the city of Detroit, including opportunities for bus stops. I know we talked about it in the dept budget, but obviously those upgrades will be made through DPW. Can we talk about that like, like curbs and accessibility even around our bus stops.

I'll start with accessibility related to a program that's directly under dept is purview, and that's ensuring that that corners have ADA compliant ramps whenever we do any road improvement along the road. A component of that project is that if the if the if the corners of the curve, I mean, if the corners are not fully ADA compliant, that we install compliant ramps as part of that program. I don't have the exact number, but over the last 15 years, I think we've installed over 100,000 ADA compliant ramps throughout the city and that program, and obviously continue so to respond to your question, and our first goal is to get to a point where every corner in the city is fully ADA compliant. And we continue to work towards that, and as we continue to improve roads, eventually between will get to a point where every corner has a fully ADA compliant ramp at the corner. We do work with with DDOT on certain projects to assist them in ensuring that we're needed access, you know, to the busses from that from the sidewalk is fully, fully accessible. We've got a project that we're going to be working with them along these Jefferson and Sanford probably provide a little bit more detail than I could do on that particular project, but we kind of tend to take those on a project by project basis. Where did that is indicate to indicates to us that there's a challenge in some cases, in terms of in terms of sun, certain some citizens of being able to access busses and a need to do some infrastructure improvements, will work together with someone else projects. But Sam, I know we want to talk a little bit about what we're going to be doing on East Jefferson.

Sure. So with East Jefferson, we partnered with DDOT on adding level boarding islands to make it easier for people to get on and off the bus without having the bus pull all the way to the curb. So that does a couple things. Number one, it makes it easier for people to get on and off the bus. And number two, it makes the d dot bus a lot more reliable because it doesn't have to pull off from the lane of traffic into the parking lane. So we are expecting that to be this is a pilot project to see how these temporary islands work, and if they work well, the idea would be to seek funding to do permanent to do permanent bus islands. The other thing that we're working on with DDOT is one of the grants that director Brundage mentioned. You know, we provide match funding for grants is we were successful in receiving $25 million in 2023 to improve 56 intersections across the city that are DDOT transfer points. So we'll be working with DDOT, the Wayne County and m dot, and, of course, other city agencies on improving these high volume, high transfer locations where we have had safety and accessibility issues. So we're just starting to think about design for that project. But that's another example of where we're working with DDOT to improve accessibility.

And in regards to that pilot, pro pilot program, very familiar with that. They do that on a lot of other cities and municipalities around this country, DC and a lot of other areas, that makes it really accessible, particularly the whole DMV area, because it can't leave out Maryland and Virginia as well. Who I think when it comes to public transit relative to busses, have a really good idea on how to make that accessible. I love to see that here, and so I'm glad that we've got the pilot program, but I want to keep it going, so I'm going so I'm going to make a motion to put in a closing resolution, the expansion of this pilot program throughout the city of Detroit.

That is my motion. Okay,

Hearing no objections. That action will be taken.

Thank you. And reason why I want to expand it across the city of Detroit. Unlike some of the cities that I've named as well, we're different in some ways relative to our corridor. So what may work on East Jefferson may not work on Schaefer or joy roll, right? And so I would love to see that program expanded into some of the different bus routes besides Jefferson and Woodward. You know, we know those are our main bus routes, right?

But I'd love to see that expanded a little bit

more. My second question is going to revolve around streetscapes. As I travel and had the opportunity to talk to a lot of residents here, we look at the Warren streetscape, we look at the Dexter Avenue streetscape and many other streetscapes. And member Johnson kind of alluded to it, even relative to the bike lanes and a lot of those upgrades. Can we talk about, not just for members of our disabled community, but our senior citizens, what we can do to kind of change the curbs. And I'll give you an example. I hear from senior citizens and residents even other drivers. At times in these new streetscapes, there are corners and new upgrades of these new islands or whatnot, and it's hard to see at night. And even some mention that if we put it, put some type of reflective, type of base on there, it would be easier for seniors to see, members of our disabled community to see, and frankly, just folks who are used to driving down, let's say Dexter and it didn't look like that each and every day. It would give them an idea that, okay, this is a new curve. These bike and I know the bike lanes have the pillars that are reflective as well, but just upgrading our curves in these new streetscapes, particularly high commercial corridor or business areas, I think would be helpful. What are your thoughts behind that

we actually do that? Sam, I should just talk.

Uh, sure, so through, through the chair, so that that's a great idea, and we usually do that as one of our finishing touches on a project. That's one of the last things we do is to install those delineators. So if you look at a street like Kershaw, where we did that exact thing, where we have the bus islands, we have the curb extensions, we do have those reflective delineators on top. And so I think with the Dexter streetscape, we're still doing a little bit of the punch out and finishing items this spring, and that's one of the remaining items that's going to be installed. But we do adopt, we do have that as part of our standard practice on our streetscapes.

Okay? Maybe I missed it because I'm getting hell in West Warren, so maybe we need to go over to the Warren streetscape

well, take a look, right? But as I indicated, it is a component of all of our streetscape projects for that exact same purpose,

okay? And just to follow up the reflective, the reflectiveness, what color is, is it like a silver or because I have, I have not seen it. I'm just being generally,

it's the white delineator with the green stripe on top. Some of it depends, like if it's if it's a city, county or state road. So with West Warren, it's county so there are slightly different standards than what the city adopts. And with m dot, it's different standards. So roads like Grand River are going to esthetically look a little bit differently than ones that are city jurisdiction.

So they're different depending on the jurisdiction of each each street or each row. I'd love to have a deeper conversation about the offline of some things that we could do to kind of fix that, because it really is an issue. I did not know it was an issue until we just start hearing so many folks talking about it to the curb. And obviously, I think some of these folks have run into the curb or run into these new upgrades of our streetscape, but I like to put into the closing resolution the expansion, or maybe change of these, I guess, what I call reflective tiles for our streetscapes. Okay,

Hearing no objections that action will be taken.

Thank you. And a couple other things that I just want to add to the closing resolution motion to increase the distance between tactile pavement and street ways, I want to put that into closing resolution. That's my motion.

Okay, Hearing no objections, that action will be taken

and just for, just for context, that's for residents who are blind or may have low vision as well. And then finally, my other motion would be to monitor plans and compliance of right right away, easements, approachments and vacations. That is my motion,

Hearing no objections that action will be taken. Thank

you. And finally, again, Director brunches, thank you so much. You know you have helped move the city forward in many ways, in our commercial corridors throughout our city and our neighborhoods and our streets and our sidewalks. Me and you have many talks about those sidewalks, but you are very honest guy, and you have led with integrity, and I really appreciate that and all your helpfulness to our residents in our city. Thank you, sir.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank

you so much, Director. We appreciate you and looking forward to the continued work so All right. Thanks so much. Thank you. Conclude your budget hearing. All right, thank you. Thank you so much. All right, we will now move to the Board of Review. Mr. Downwell is here you

i Thank you.

Okay, thank you. So she said, Just folder. I saw the folder one, but not the Okay.

Yep, if you want to share this with you, Okay,

you're right. Mr. Downwell, good. I

Yeah, whenever you're ready, Mr. Down, will you up? You should be able to share your screen. You

Great.

Good morning. Willie downwell, Director of property assessment, board review, thank you for having me here this morning. I know there's a couple more folks, but on the this little interesting to see that you're the last one on the list. So I don't know if that's good or bad, but just be a little light this morning, because we're going to address I believe what is a very positive, meaningful opportunity for the board of view to continue to support the citizens of our city. And the things that I'm going to be discussing today, besides the request, budget requests, are going to be things that have been very again, meaningful in terms of the impact that the board review has had relative to the city of Detroit. So just real quickly, we're going to be covering board review destruction certain administration's duties, the pay as you stay program, which is going to be sun setting actually this year, July, the first community support compensation funding request and then plan priorities going into the the upcoming fiscal period. So the Board of Review is a number of body appointed by you city council to hear and make determinations relative to real and personal property, class and classification changes in other matters concerning of property assessments throughout throughout the city of Detroit, one from each of the seven council districts, just like yourselves and two at large, appointments are for two year terms, beginning an odd number year the decisions of the board of view can be appealed to the Michigan tax tribunal. I know sometimes that sounds a little threatening, but it's really not. It's an opportunity for a person to actually find justice, equity in fairness through the process, if we believe that we get everything right every single time throughout our lives, I think that that is a misguided statement, and so having the opportunity to have an appeal process is always good. The board of view sits as an appeal process as relates to the work that the Office of the assessor does. So again, to say, a very good opportunity. The Board of Review is a transitional body. Like most boards and commissions, they sit for a particular term and may change as council changes or as appointments are decided throughout over the course of time. And then, just by the nature of the size of City of Detroit and the complexity of the assessment role, you know, it's important that we understand that there are certain requirements and structures that should be in place just to make sure that those things that are being done are being done correctly and appropriately. Is kind of why we have, even before the tax reform ordinance was an ordinance, we had a structure in an ordinance to make sure that the Board of Review was always in compliance. So just a little bit about the structure itself. Again, city council actually can sit as the board of you by Charter. City Council has the ability, but it gives that authority on a limited basis to individuals to be able to make those decisions on behalf of City Council. It is a, I believe, a positive way that the community can work together and create opportunity for, again, equity and inclusion. And I know those to some people may sound too dangerous words, right, but, but at the same time, when you are a property owner, and the basic fundamental process of the general property tax act was to allow property owners who are from the community to be able to sit on the board of view and to be able to make determinations relative to their neighbors properties, how more, in terms of equity, inclusion, can you define it? Right? I get my neighbor gets to sit. I get to sit in front of my neighbor and make a determination, not based upon what some other theory or i The ideology is. Council president has the authority, through the administration city charter, to deal with all the administrative matters, and then you've appointed a director to help oversee that Process on behalf of the council president the board of views authority is that under the general property tax act, again to Your terms, and it determines certain matters relative to property property assessments throughout the city of Detroit, and can promulgate its own rules relative to its meetings. So when we start talking about just some of the administration components of of city council, I just want to share with you some of the things that you may not be aware of how you may directly or indirectly impact the work the board of you does. So perfect example when Detroit housing, I'm sorry, when housing revitalization came before you and talked about doing the home repair program, the very beginning of that program they used, wanted to use, and they did the hope exemption process in order as the first determination as to whether or not a person was going to qualify. And so when that was done, it, it added a certain amount of work workload to the Board of Review simply because a person needed to get a hope exemption or denial in order to get to the home repair program. Now I'm not saying it's good or bad for housing revitalization. It was probably a good move, because guess what? The Board of reviews process does a lot of the work that is already necessary in terms of meeting certain standards for certain other processes. This is why we're talking about creating a universal process, right? Because if we are doing the research for the homeowner, if we are looking at the household income, if we're looking at the household composition, and those things that that determine the outcome. Then, you know, the work of the Board of Review. The work of the Board of Review is helping to determine the outcome of certain other processes. Same thing as it relates with the Detroit Housing Committee. I mean, Detroit Housing Network, community, community partnerships. And then when we start talking about even some of the ordinances, so we have absolutely no control over solid waste. That's DPW, right. But per ordinance, per ordinance, a person can see a reduction based upon what city council and the director of the DPW decides, they can see a reduction in their solid waste fee based upon the outcome of a poverty exemption or the hope exemption. Same thing with parking because there was a need relative to areas like Joe los, I'm sorry, little seas arena and now over near the Ford, the new tech center for Ford, an old train station, parking is at a premium, and so homeowners needed to be sure that they could have be able to have a place to park when they go they go home. Well, what was added to the ordinance is that if a person who lives in one of those areas receives a hope exemption. They get a discount on their parking permit. So again, just sharing information as relates to things that may directly or indirectly impact the operations of the Board of Review. And again, same thing with parking. So I'm required to send Mr. Nelson over parking every close of every Board of Review him a report relative to everyone who received an exemption, so they can cross reference their database against what they have right in order to determine whether or not there's anyone who's in their areas that qualify. And so let's, let's briefly cover now some of the duties of the Board of Review. First and foremost, the whole basis of the Board of Review is valuation. The March Board of Review is the time period which they're actually now over at Heilman, conducting meetings while I'm here meeting with you. They are reviewing and hearing what they are I'm sorry. I'm sorry, in terms of citizens and property owners, values that they're contesting relative to what the office of the assessor has done. And I'm going to talk about this a little bit later, but briefly, one of the biggest issues that I see is what, in terms of dealing with is on cappings. In a later presentation, on a different day, I'm going to present some of the things that has occurred. But a number of the appeals that we're seeing this year were based on uncapping and one of the things that I'm going to request is that city council consider an ordinance or policy that would require that going to cost anybody any money, but an ordinance or policy that will require a person simply coming and getting a copy of the assessment and taxable value and a copy of proposal a prior to purchase.

When a person buys a property and they walk in in you know, their taxes are going up 567, times from what they first were noted as when they first purchased the property, it can become financially unsustainable, and most people had they had known prior to they probably would have made a different purchase. So one of the struggles that the board deals with and cannot control has nothing to do with is the amount of taxes a person pays. But when you go from being able to afford reasonably in a community like like Indian village and some are higher valued areas, you're going from eight, 9000 to now, 3040, $50,000 in taxes because of an uncapping. It gets it's a struggle. It's a struggle. So we've got to, I'm not gonna believe on it, but we've gotta have more conversations on how we begin to fix those problems. And one is cutting it off before it even happens, right? It's letting people know what's going on prior to so the couple of things I'm gonna just quickly also cover on this, this prior to process, we're going to see probably about 1400 or so appeals this year between the two locations. We've had some people come in. We have some people visit via zoom. I'm going to talk a couple different times about the tax reform ordinance in ways that we can simply modify. And at the end of it, the long term goal is to actually get everybody to the table early on, so when it is presented to city council, all the kings have been worked out. And I'm not talking about going in and doing major modifications. I'm simply talking about palatable amendments that everybody can live with to actually get to a point that bears a legitimate and real process under an ordinance that everybody can get their work done. All right. So again, this year, we were over at Crowell for the first part of the the year. How many for the second priority year, and again, the idea of being in the in the public, it is not a bad idea. It can be costly, and so one of the other things that's going to be presented is opportunities or ways that we can adjust, right? I'm not saying totally get away get get away from it, but we've got computer labs in every recreation center in the city of Detroit, right? So does the board actually have to go to the recreation center? Or can we make computer labs available, and a person can actually just go to any computer lab and within, within the city, right, and still be heard by the board review. So again, it's modifying certain things, making palatable, and I'm not saying totally cut it out, but we can manage our costs and still get to the point of what we need to get done right by making it available to the public, it would be on bus lines, free parking, all the things that were critical, especially to our most challenged and fragile property owners. How do we make sure that they are not harmed in the process? These are ways that we just need to think about right? So the our hearing times, actually, this year again, has not been as extensive as it has been in the past. One of the things I'm going to going to again, do in a later report is give you a kind of like, let you see the x, right, and what I mean by the X. How, back in 2008 2009 there were 10s of 1000s of appeals that were coming in front of the board of you, and we were here until two o'clock in the morning, hearing appeals to now the Board of Review actually ends at a reasonable time, but at the same time, during that same time, we those same time periods in 2008 2009 there were 234, 1000 hope exemptions, and now we're over 15, 16,000 so you know, the work has simply shifted and has becoming more because of the amount of time that the whole exemption is able to work under. But I just need you to understand that the work has shifted and has begun to become more of a reality of a long term position. Right? So let's talk about the hope process. Hope stands for homeowners. Property tax exemption provides an opportunity for a homeowner to see a reduction or elimination of current year property taxes based on MCO 211, 70 original property tax act the person must own and occupy the property as of December 31 of the prior year, the statute allows for exemptions to be at 100% 75% 50% and 25% we have a special 10% exemption that allowed that was approved by the state, the state tax commission, because you allowed that resolution to be passed for the state Tax Commission to to allow us to use that 10% and what it has done that process allows us to do is it allows us to consider home owners who are in threat of tax foreclosure or have lost 20% or more of their household income in in just a second, I'll get into the pace process, but getting into the pays process that 10% even though they still may have to pay 90% of their taxes, that 10% reduction still will allow them to be in the pays program, and we have literally saved over 15,000 homes In the pays program over the past several years. I so just looking again at the numbers I talked about, you know, again over time, 2005 20 430, applications to 2024. 17,108 significant difference over the years, and we are dealing with homes and households where we have homeowners who are challenged, we have a ton of seniors or individuals that are disabled that the board has to be conscious of and pay attention to. So there are things that we just need to make sure are in place on an ongoing basis to allow this process and the steps regarding the hope exemption to work and function properly. So pay as you stay brides and opportunity is the first time any type of retroactive process has been available for the homeowner who has been in threat of foreclosure to see a reduction in the back back taxes that they've had, a person has to apply with the local community. In Wayne County, there were only 17 communities out of all of all the municipalities in Wayne County, there were only 17 communities that opted in into the pay as you stay program, if a person receives an exemption at any level, like I talked about, the 10% the amount of back taxes are reduced to no more than 10% of the taxable value of the property. I'm gonna give you a real world case to just kind of bring it home for you, a young lady whose mom had passed and there was $18,000 on back taxes owed on the property. She has three minor children, and she works at Burger King. The reality of it is she can't even afford to pay for a meal, value meal, because the her income from Burger King just isn't enough, right? So, how? So, how? So, how in the world is she going to cover $18,000 in back taxes? The reality of it is, what we did was we worked with her, because house wasn't in her name. We worked with her, I want to say it was either Michigan Legal Services or elder law. We work with her to to get the property in her name through probate, and once the property was placed in her name, we were able to get her the exemption, and through that exemption, we're able to get that information over to Wayne County Treasurer that $18,000 was reduced to $10,059

that I'm sorry, to to a $1,059

the taxable value of the home was $10,590

but it was reduced to $1,059

and the balance was paid off the Detroit Tax Relief Fund, a grant that was provided by Dan Gilbert was $15 million into a fund administered by Wayne metro to pay off those who are approved for the hope exemption and receive the benefit of The pays program. So folks are literally starting at zero, and this is where, again, we have to have a process or steps in place to make sure that people are noted and they continue to apply when necessary. Or or we continue to work and fight for legislation that allows those that are most fragile, like our seniors on a fixed income. It just not necessarily permanent, but is audited like every five years or so to make sure they're still in the home, and the process works on their behalf. The disappointing part in all of this is that pays will be sun setting July, 1 of this year, there's been conversations, not sure, in terms of our state legislators, what the appetite is to, you know, extend, you know. But again, there have been conversations, and frankly, I'm unsure as to the outcome, but the the challenge is, just being honest is, is you know where we are relative to our state legislators. But again, to date, and I know in here it says over 12,900 but I went and looked at the report this morning. So 15,929

people, 15,929

people have seen the benefit of the PACE program.

So and when we finish the march, Board of Review, and I had a conversation with the treasurer yesterday, you know, there could very well be close to 17,000 people that the homes that we've saved through this process that we're in threat of foreclosure. And it has worked. It has been beneficial. It has helped correct a issue that has existed in terms of some of our lowest and most fragile, lowest income and most fragile individuals in the city who have struggled with their property taxes or just maintaining a healthy household to be able to keep a roof over their head. So again, I just want to thank city council, because without your support, the resolutions that were passed and all the things that has occurred through the use of this process, without your support, we never would have been able to be in the PACE program in the first place. So this is a result of you saying you have the faith in the board of you and the process to make things work. So hope exemption reasons used for additional services and programs. Again, how I talk about how the the process and how it affects the board of you, and additional work that the board gets because of other things. So again, housing revitalization, home repair program, Detroit land bank buyback program, one of the things that we try to impress upon the land bank is that if a person is in the buyback program, they need to apply for a hope exemption, because that's how they got in the buyback program in the first place they lost the house because they didn't have the money to pay. So it's kind of like common sense, right? If a person don't don't put them back into the same situation that they were in before. The other thing that, as even we'll talk about this a little bit later, I'm going to ask relative to the land bank, is, if you buy anything from the land bank, you'll be required to appeal to the Board of Review. Don't put a person in a situation with a property tax bill that could be unjust just because of process. Process needs to work for the property owner. We know the condition of most of the homes that sold through the land bank, so let's not set people up for failure pay as you stay program water affordability, half of the folks that were in water affordability, I want to give brand pick and Paul a lot of credit and thank you because of a conversation that we had a few few years ago, we looked at the number of people that were approved for Hope exemptions, sent the data over to him, and he says, you know, what will he based upon The information that I have here and our requirements, all of these people actually meet the standards. We just need to get some additional information, so we work together to make sure that 12,000 people got into water affordability just through data sets. So again, it's the idea of the universal process and the work the board of view does municipal parking. I talked about that Detroit Housing Network again, when you start talking about universal processes, the relationship that HRD has with the Detroit Housing Network in order to create better approaches to connect the dots for households to create a better quality of life is a great thing, but the hope process and the data that's there is a starting point for a lot of those opportunities. And then senior flood assistance, and again, just the information and data that's used additional departmental support and community support we've have in terms of community meetings and members attending or participating in district meetings, our Healthy Home events. So by ordinance, we're required to do at least three events a year. We do seven, because there's no way in the world I'm going to come to somebody, one of you, and say that we're not going to do an event in your district. So we do seven, and those healthy home events are very successful. The turnout is well received, and we provide a lot of additional support and wrap around services. One of the things that's going to be done this year is the one for district three is actually already planned. It is going to be a perfecting church October the 25th but the reason why it's already planned is because we're going to take the whole year to spend on working with disabled and seniors to make sure that they're touched throughout the entire year, with a wrap up event ending on the 25th of October. So it's a week before the deadline for submissions. But then we're also bringing in D triple, a Disability Network, and again, a ton of other wraparound services relative to our seniors, disabled and our most fragile in the community, to work with them throughout the rest of the year to make sure that not only are we helping them with their property tax issues, but that we are connecting them with other services that that's needed. And then again, through these data sets, this is where you can have the opportunity to look at, well, you know what? This is, what's happening in my particular district. These are the people that, based upon these circumstances, I need to make sure that get the attention that they need. An example is, I want to thank Pro Tem Tate for protect your crown. It is such a needed tool when we start talking about people who are dealing with distressed mental issues, right? And I know it's something that we are sometimes scared to talk about, but we've gotta get there. And the data, the data can support the health department can help the win can help all. It can help the police department right into in terms of identifying where folks are, not in a negative sense. But again, when you start talking about a an officer that is going somewhere and needs to have the right kind of support when they go there, and you know now that this individual is in that household, you have the opportunity to do a better job. So again, these are all the things that are impacted just through the whole process. The data within the whole process is so, so important to so many other final outcomes in terms of what happens and just, so just, just, just kind of wrap up here. So some of the other agencies that we deal with right housing, vitalization, city treasury, county treasury, veterans, mental health, community groups and organizations. I mean, we have tons of community groups and organizations that we deal with on an ongoing basis. I do a training with them once a month, air the first Friday of every month. I do a training with our community partners that help with the hope exemption, and it's not so much just to do a training to teach them, but for us to also learn what their challenges are, so we can build better communication and reduce some of the barriers that may exist, right? So Joe, let's jump into why we're here. You've heard all of the bells and whistles, but let's jump into why we're here. The Board of Review is compensated on per diem basis. The average board member earns about $80,000 a year. Board review members serve without benefits. They do have the option to opt into the Detroit city's health plan the per diem process, and these are the good and bad items right. Board of Review process allows to see the compensation without those incremental or challenges in terms of rising costs. So it's fixed the there's a balance. But there is a balance between the work that's done between the March and December Board of Review throughout the rest of the year in terms of hours. So, you know, again, there's a balance when you start talking about, well, you know, should they be full time? Should they be this? Should they be that? I just simply believe that the per diem compensation is the best process for right now, because it, again, it provides a fixed cost. Because if you try to go and track and trail all the different things that go on between the individual board members, you will be all over the place, right? And so it becomes, is not that it becomes unmanageable, but that cost will begin to definitely fluctuate in large percentages year to year, depending on what's asked to be done, right so full time and hourly is most likely not the best process. And so when I say full time and hourly is because also you begin to limit the pool of individuals that you may want to have serve on the Board of Review. If there is a former city employee that's retired, you know, they may not necessarily be able to serve on the Board of Review if it's a full time position, because it's going to affect their pension, right? So let's you know, again, look at things in their totality to make sure that if there were any changes or things like that, that's considered, you know, all things are looked at. And then the thing that I'm going to just just make note of, if I move to the next slide, is that

I've been in, we're

going to say the director's position, because it's really what I've been in since I've been here. Okay, I started to fall in 2007 and while I was, was, was the chair, I was also, I also became the administrator. The director position was just something to finally formalize the work that I do, and moved me away from the chair position because of all the potential conflicts that could exist with trying to do both right. But the reality of it is, except for once, and I was not the administrator. There was only once when the board of view did not stay within his budget. And again, it goes back to those things that I just talked about those landmines that were created when it comes to allowing certain other things to come to occur, right? Yeah, you have to have processes and things in place, and this is what helps us maintain responsibility along the way. So when we start talking about the use of funds, every year, I come to City Council after budget and before the fiscal period starts, every year I come to city council and simply provide a use of funds. Again, you are the Board of Review, and ultimately you determine the compensation through this process, and you also determine how those dollars will be used. From when I make the presentation the City Council in terms of the number of days, I am just simply carrying out the will of this body in terms of how the time and days are to be used. It is not something that is taken lightly, but at the same time, there is only so much time that can be used. So as a part of the process, I simply have a general calendar and then meet with individual board members if there's some adjustments or changes that need to be done, but just try to make sure that everybody stays within the their allotted number of days. But you approve the number of days based upon the budget. You approve the number of days based on the use of this use of fund process. So what's some of the things that we would like to see happen. You know, tossed out a couple different times the concepts or opportunities for Deputy Director, that is a question mark that, I mean, I would like to see it happen, but it is a question mark because the reality of it is, and again, there's always the good and bad, but the reality of it is, is that this is a division of city council. The amount of work that is going to occur with the Board of Review will continue to grow, will continue to change, and as we begin to look at as we begin to look at the opportunities that exist for ways to assist households and the use of the data and the information that is a part of this process, you will find that having you know folks in place that are consistent and institutional are going to be really, really important over the coming years, you know, and I'm just going to share this, I have been, again, in some position of authority, with city council, I'm sorry, with city council, with the Board of Review, since The fall of 2007 when I first started. And I've been here a long time, have a lot of relationships, have built a lot of goodwill. But what we all have to understand is I'm one person. I'm a man, and my life expectancy is that only I've known by God. So what is the process and the plan when I'm not here? What is the process and the plan to make sure that that things are stable? And this is where, this is where part of it has to come from you. But even more importantly, this is where part of it needs to come from the board. This is where the board right. We need to look at the processes, the steps, and create a operational manual, create tools and things that are written so that whoever, just like, there is an ordinance, whoever is sitting wherever, there there is something that guides and directs what happens and how things occur, and this is where we are now, right? We need to make sure that the board is is a part of these conversations, that the board is involved in what's going to occur, because ultimately it will affect them. Right? I understand. I just like earlier, I talked about the hierarchy and all these things that, but at the end of the day, they're on the front line, they're the ones that's doing the work, and so want to be able to make sure that we're taking into consideration the work that is being done, not just by those that are in authority, but by those that actually have to do the job itself, I think that is something that needs to be done. No matter what the board of commission is, no matter what the job is, no matter where you are, there has to be a balance. And so that balance needs to happen the and so the deputy director position is something I believe that can be meaningful, that can help guide and make sure that there is a that balance exists, because I'm going to mention this and move on, but at some point in the course of a year, and sometimes more more than a year, throughout that year, more than once, I will have a conversation either with yourself or your office that will be turning turn into either a project or will take up time. And so again, I'm one person, and then there's still the operations and other things that need to occur. So I just want you to keep that in mind as we move forward. The Office of the assessor, I just you know would like for you to consider to adding $231,000 to the office of the assessor budget to provide for three additional support staff to the Board of Review. That three additional support staff will help the Board of Review maintain its processes and keep and continue to move forward right now. Right now, the board of view is doing hearings, and our staff is stretched a little thin. The because the office of the assessor has, while it has a good number of people, the board review staff is only a few, and those individuals will, depending on the time of year that it is, those individuals will be doing multiple things, because our staff is responsible for everything that the Board of you touches. So right now we're doing valuation, but at the same time we're doing hope. So the board of you team is reviewing hope applications and dealing with the valuation process, and so there's only so many of them to do so much work, board of view, conference room, equipment upgrade. So one of the things that we're going to again address during the presentation of the text before more ordinances on another day is how do we deal with the board of view when it is is doing things in public or other places make it self contained? You know, I understand the whole idea of utilization of media services and all of that stuff

we're on. Zoom right

through the chair. Council member Callaway said it best you know, why are you not training students? Why are you not training other people to take up the slack where you know when we're paying or have paid for all these other individuals or services, right? We're going to have spent a couple of $100,000 and I'm not saying it wasn't worth it. I'm simply saying that we can do better, and we can be more efficient, and we do that by looking at ways to, again, compromise, to make sure that the needs are met by all and the services and standards are not reduced. We can do that, and we do that by putting those things in place and training those individuals that need to be trained. And so just quick example right now, the way I have things set up is not the best, but the way that I have things set up, anybody can go in the board of your accomplish conference room, log in and start the meeting just by pressing Start. That's how simple I've made it, because, again, what if I'm not here? Who who has the ability to follow through and do what needs to get done, right? So we just have to look at ways to simplify things and be more cost effective software. So thank you. Council President Pro Tem. Last year, council president pro tem had added to our budget $300,000 for, and that was the initial cost to, and you'll be seeing that contract coming soon. We're in the last phases of procurement. We're down to, I'll just say this, we're down the two, and we're waiting on on demos, and as soon as we get that, we're going to select one and have that contract to you as soon as possible. But the reoccurring cost is what we're talking about now, to be able to maintain that software solution. The Good, The good part about it is this is going to again, help us in so many ways, in terms of so don't, don't look at it as we are creating an expense. Look at it as we are creating efficiency. What are we spending on paper? What are we spending on additional time when we're not talking about getting rid of anybody, we're just talking about changing the cost from one area to another and creating better efficiency. So we're not going to lose people, but we're going to make we're going to still going to have savings when it comes to the staples. May be upset because we won't be spending as much money on paper, but the reality of it is, or in terms of storage space, having to deal with storage space and all that kind of stuff, right? But the trade off is we have will have a better and more efficient process and a the ability to actually do more, because the software just won't be used for Hope is going to be used for the valuation process and other things necessary that the Board of you does. And so the last couple things I want to cover is conversations that have came up with board members or council members relative to certain certain items. So we want the board of you to be educated. We want them to participate in in whatever certifications or classes that are available. We want them to be a part of continuing ed training. We want them to be as as well rounded as possible when it comes to serving on the Board of Review. So last year, I ran into a little challenge with a couple of board members that are have MCOs, and they needed to complete their certifications. The only certification, the only classes that were available, were actually part of the MAA conference, and so

needed to be able to send them to the MAA conference.

It was a little bit of a challenge finding the dollars to be able for them to go. But if they did not go through this process, they would have lost their certifications. So got the office, the assessor, to cover that cost, but again, it was at their expense. So how do we address that? We address that by again, simply providing $1 amount for continuing education for the Board of Review. There will be opportunities throughout the year where I believe that all board members should attend certain continuing ed classes. And these aren't classes where I'm talking about people go on trips for, you know, for a whole week and stay in that kind of stuff, right? This is where there are a number of classes that will be held by Wayne County Assessors Office Association, or Macomb County or Oakland County, that are in general driving distance. But what about those classes that are a little bit further away, right, that, again, are meaningful we have to be able to provide, or at least know what that is, and if there are any, if there are any limitations that the city council wants to put in place, then please let me know so that if there is a question or something that comes up, it can get addressed. But I think that that limiting access to education for the Board of Review sometimes becomes a hindrance, and it's not their fault. Sometimes the classes that they should be going to just aren't offered locally, right? Perfect example, they were class they attended regarding marijuana and valuing marijuana locations, so it was a great opportunity for them to participate. And they learned a lot. They learned a lot they wanted, actually having to make some decisions the following year relative to marijuana locations. So again, the education piece is important, and I really, really want you to consider making sure that it is a part of the process, and then the last couple of things, parking. So board remembers serve without benefits, but however, council members have made parking available to some board review members, and some council members have chosen other ways to provide parking to the Board of Review members, and it just needs to be uniform. And so let's take that off your chair, off your plate and responsibility. Let's just simply make it a part of a cost center. And you know, so that way all board review members can have the same kind of parking. Perfect example. I'm just going to be honest, I don't think using a placard is the proper use, and I'm just using as a general example, but I don't think parking placards are sometimes for parking downtown is a proper use of of of, you know, process, one of the things that I listen to all the the committee meetings, and one of the things that I love about what the through the chair, chair Johnson and members waters and Callaway always talk about, are the things that, how do we even get into some of these lawsuits? And so there are certain processes in place for things to occur, and sometimes we go outside of that process. And so just simply, even with the placard, there is a process, did the person provide their driver's license and proof of insurance to the proper Agency, Department or section, so that if something occurs, then the city knows that. You know that that vehicle was covered, right? Sometimes we forget those steps, or that a process exists. And these are the things that I'm always hearing again from from the guys at risk management and other HR, hey, do you have this? Did you do that? So just, just keeping those things in mind. And then last thing is mileage. You know, from time to time, board members will be asked to go to meetings, go and do other things, or, you know, drive or do certain things relative to their their job, outside their worksite. And so again, the other point that I want to bring to all of this is the Board of Review budget in general, has always been only for compensation. So these items that we're talking about, while they will be added to the if, if they were to be added to the Board of Review budget. I just want you to understand that the dollar amount that you've seen relative or what's been recommended proposed has always only been for compensation. Has always only been for compensation. So these things, things like this, have not, have not been really addressed in the past. So based on the again, compensation and reoccurring and one time cost, we're asking for a total dollar amount of $1,752,898 and then the plan priorities again. You know, I mentioned the all properties from the land bank going in front of the board of view considering an ordinance where a person has to come and get a assessed in taxable value in a copy of proposal, a fulfillment of the software process, fulfillment of the dashboard, which you've seen samples of relative to the work that the Board of you does, development of more supportive services and opportunities through partnerships and alliances, review of current ordinance and offer positive changes for efficiency and policy. You know, again, tax reform ordinance, we've just got to, we've just gotta change a few things and massage a little bit. I think that that we can get to a an ordinance that will be meaningful, impactful, and get to something that everybody will be satisfied with. And then, you know, again, provide other visual tools, learning tools for people to understand whether it's whether they're aired through social media or through the one of our cable channels that the city has, and then also talking about a an additional exemption level for individuals who have severe health and medical conditions where it's a little bit of a higher income level, but the cost of their medical expenses is absorbing their household income. So again, it's just, we'll make a different presentation on that later on, later. And then also keep in mind that they we can do a prior year exemption now, so we know that pays the sun setting, but being able to do a prior year exemption will also help us find and work with those individuals who may have missed filing last year to make sure that they receive that exemption, To make sure that they don't fall back into that, that trap of property tax foreclosure. The last couple of things that I just want to wrap up with is, again, you know, is what we have, is the opportunity to utilize data for a universal process, job creation, support in kind processes to help quality of life and help create amendments to an ordinance that will be meaningful. The last thing I'm going to mention in take questions will be, I just want to share a little bit about myself. So over the past couple of years, I have been dealing with just continuing my own education, and so I have passed, and now I am a level three an MA, or Michigan Advanced assessing officer, and I have also been working with the STC. So I'm going to be, actually be conducting trainings for them. The next MCAT class that the Board of Review will be doing in May. I will be a co seated co trainer with Bob Brandon Meyer to again, just begin to get my time in relative to presenting. But shortly after that, I'll be doing a number of the MCAT and board of you trainings myself for the state tax commission, and then also having conversations with the Michigan Assessors Association about training as well. So shyly, key under key lander, I'm a we're in conversations relative to what that process looks like for me and all of these things in addition that I'm doing just so, you know, is not compensated. I just love to provide opportunity for education and teaching, and I do the same thing for a lot of our community groups and organizations here, I have done a number of trainings with our community groups and organizations relative to the not just the board of view and hope process, but trainings for the Michigan tax tribunal, trainings for a number of other, you know, services and property tax issues. So I'll let go there.

Alright. Thank you so much, Mr. Downwell. If they want to give you a round of applause, we appreciate you, Mr. Downwell, and all the work that you do, you are always out in the face of just property tax reform and this whole process of the whole program, so we appreciate the work that you do, you and the entire Board of Review. So you talked about the proposed ordinance that would require receiving current assessed value the uncapping, which we kind of talked about before. I think it's a great point to mention, because it's not just for development that's experiencing the uncapping, but it's when a resident sells their home, and also when any Z's are phased out. And so interested in hearing more about the proposed ordinance, even though I do believe that that won't address the issue because people just may not purchase the home, I think it's important to provide the education and the transparency, which I think you're trying to get at with this ordinance. It doesn't address the issue that once they figure out what the tax bill is, they may just leave and go cross eight mile or somewhere else, and then we don't get those residents in that population increase that we want, of those living in our in our city. And so we are going to be asking that a resolution be drafted to urge the state legislature to create a law that would allow municipalities to phase in uncapping events, which I think will better address the issue, because once you, as you mentioned, once the property is sold, the taxes increased drastically, but there was a phasing in event that will gradually raise the taxes, I think that will better address the issue. So just wanted to mention that, and I'm not sure your thoughts on that, but I think I support the ordinance from a transparency and educational standpoint to people, so people know what they're getting into. But again, I think it prevents residents from wanting to move to Detroit as well,

if I may. Madam Chair,

I agree to a point, and here's where I slightly disagree. Detroit has an issue regarding millage, but when you start looking at comparable properties in some of our communities to certain other municipalities, we're on point, right? If you take the same house that's an Indian village and you placed at home in Birmingham or Bloomfield, the taxes are just as much or more. So again, our balance to your to your point, and I think that's a great idea. To your point. There is a way to address the uncapping so every municipality has a limit as it relates to, actually the amount of money they can collect. And if they try to collect too much, this is just part of headache. If they try to collect too much, then they're forced into what's called a rollback fraction. And so what is very, very simple to just simply go and look at what the anticipated income would be based upon the uncapping events, and then determine using that fraction rollback to make sure the municipality stays within its required allotment of dollars as revenue is supposed to collect. So I believe you're right on point. I just think that you just have to go through and work through the math, right? Because I believe every community has the ability to do exactly what you're talking about.

Okay, yeah, and I think, and again, I support what you're saying as well with the ordinance. I think the transparency should be there, but I think ultimately, the phasing in so that it's not such a burden on those who are purchasing properties would also address that that situation. So we'll be looking to draft a resolution, and we'll submit that for next week for a formal session. The other thing that I'm really concerned about is the amount of residents that are in poverty in Detroit, our poverty rate in general. I know you said 17,000 residents applied for poverty exemption, and I think we have an opportunity with those residents who are applying. And I'm curious just to know the age, you know, male or female, the demographics of who's applying for that how we're really tracking that data, and our focus on upward mobility. So we have these individuals who are, you know, mostly our poverty level, federal poverty level. And how are you mentioned supportive services, how we're doing the Healthy Homes event, but more of a singular focus on really figuring out how we're mentoring and tracking the upward mobility to get them out of poverty. And so can you speak a little bit more to that? And I know a lot of them may be seniors, you know, who are on fixed incomes, but there may be also a small or group of residents who are not right, who are just could be working families who could contribute, and we can create more of an upward mobility for those residents. So I just wanted to talk a little bit more about what those partnerships are, and what supportive services we can focus on to increase Detroiters incomes and get them out of the hope exemption status,

absolutely. You know the again, wonderful thing about data, and if you would like, I'll resend everyone the link to the dashboard, but the dashboard will tell you by district, the average household income, the age of the average person who applies for hope, the number of folks that's in the household. And then I ask you to submit, submit back to me additional information you'd like to see on that dashboard, because you have the opportunity to have first hand the data that exists from people who apply for hope, if it is who's employed and who's unemployed, who, in terms of number of vehicles or or things that in, again, number of vehicles in the household could be important, because there's always a conversation about insurance, right again, so looking at the things that are relevant to make sure that you have access to all the best data. But at the same time, had conversations with art Thompson, right relative to the data warehouse, have had conversations with Terry Weems, with Detroit at work, have had conversations with the health department. In all these conversations and opportunities allow us to creatively or collectively create opportunities for again, a more universal process, but then we also have to bring in other businesses and community partners right to help create certain in kind opportunities. One of the challenges that our our citizens often face when it comes to just quality of life is do I pay my light and gas bill? Do I pay my taxes? Do I buy food or do I go to this entertainment event? And these are real choices that some of our households are making while at the same time, why are we not asking some of our folks who provide entertainment or other services that are giving away 1000s of tickets, and I'm not saying that they got to give tickets to everybody in the city. That's not what I'm saying. I'm simply saying, are we not considering processes that provide certain additional opportunities for people who are just simply doing the right thing. If I'm trying to pay my taxes or pay my bills and build my quality of life, I really want to kind of have a bit of personal benefit every now and then. So is there an in kind process we're always hearing about the pistons giving away 1000 tickets to something, right? So is there a way for us to create an opportunity to utilize those that process, for those individuals who are behind in their property taxes and need to go and pay that debt to make sure they see some additional benefit? Quality of Life is real for community, and we have to begin to think outside of the box, sometimes right to be able to develop and consider those ways of delivering that quality of life to the community. It's community lifestyle. That's what we should be talking about. Community lifestyle. And people want better. They just need to be they just need to be given a path. And those of us that sit in a seat that are in charge or stewards of the process, we have to begin to look at real opportunities. All right. Thank

you for that. And it does sound like there is some coordination that has taken place and some referrals to DSC housing department, but to me, with the amount of data that you do receive, would like to see more of a more of intentional approach to capture those individuals. I'm not sure if it needs to almost like we what we did with the community health court, where we had, like a mentorship. Because, you know, sometimes we have fairs, they show up, but there needs to be more of someone walking you hand in hand through the process, and I'm not sure if we're also tracking people who were in hope, and how many people are now have moved out of hope because they've had the Upwork mobility that that is needed from the support services that we're offering. Do you track that at all? I mean, families that were a part of it, and due to some service that the city provides now, they're, you know, not. They don't qualify for the program anymore,

to be honest. No, but we're going to start, okay, okay, so, yeah, I

just want to see what. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I would love to see more, almost like a case management, something that when you're in the program you qualify for, hope, there's these wraparound services in an effort on behalf of the city to get you into some program to help you improve your quality of life, and ultimately get you out of hope into a middle income working class status in Detroit. So I'll follow up with you offline on maybe some opportunities and options there, but that's a huge concern for me. Okay, we will continue now, and I will go to you. Proton tape, thank

you, Madam President. I don't have any major questions right now, looking over the document. We just had a conversation yesterday, and we want to further that conversation, and then we'll determine what goes into Executive Session. Just want to thank you for your leadership, and thank you for thank you publicly to the members of the Board of Review for the hard work that they do as well, very hard and important work that they've done. We're talking about, again, saving more than 15,000 16,000 homes. That is no small feat whatsoever, and to do so with no controversy in terms of what we saw back in the day, and we remember what was back in the day, but we passed that. So again, kudos there. Madam President, asked the question that I was going to ask about uncapping, because I know that that still would have some even if we do the escalator, there's going to be some implication on revenues that we would have to discuss. So that's a down the road conversation, but we've got to first get to that point. So yeah, just again, healthy homes, I think, is important. I thank you for the integration and collaboration with our office on the healthy homes, and without belaboring the point again, looking forward to our furthering of our conversation, and I will make it to the floor. Thank you again. Thank you, sir.

Thank you pro tem council member waters,

thank you and good afternoon, Mr. Dunwell,

just want to ask you what strategies are in place to ensure that all residents, especially seniors and low income homeowners, are aware of their right to appeal property tax assessments. Do we have any strategies in place for that?

Through the Chair councilor waters, we do a number of of not just events, but outreach, and it's one of the things that I talked about earlier relative to the senior and disabled event that we've scheduled for the end of the year, that we're going to spend all year working and talking to our most challenged community to make sure that they know and understand their rights in the process. It's important that they're not missed, and it's unfortunate that we have so many that actually don't have someone that can actually help them through the process. So making the effort to actually take the entire year to spend on working with them and educating them about processes, steps in ways to help

it is, it is a huge, huge thing. So next, I just want to ask you, how do you track the effectiveness of your outreach efforts and increasing participation in the appeals process? Has the board partner with community organizations, faith organizations. Faith was groups to help with outreach.

Great question through the chair. So one this was actually one of the things that was added in the ordinance, long before it was a tax reform ordinance that was added in the ordinance because of work that we were already doing as a part of the effort. Since I've been here, we work with churches, community organizations, groups to make sure that we stay in contact and deliver proper support. Is what I talked about earlier, relative to the training that is done with our community partners the first Friday of every of every month, not just to train them on, you know, again, the whole process, but to hear their challenges and then offer the opportunity for folks To who are not already partners, to become partners.

And let me tell you, Mr. Dimer, I'm seriously concerned about the kinds of things that happen at the Board of Review the other day, especially with those investors who came in asking for a tax break, and yet they purchased those homes. They lived somewhere in another country, all of the LLCs and and then they decide to evict all those people. I guess a couple things here that I want to say, number one, and I want to ask that you write a letter to both leaders in the House and in the Senate and encourage them to deal with the with those LLCs, because we need them to register. We need to know who they are. We need to know how how to find them. The other piece of it is related to how make it home, because I have to believe that many of those renters did not know that if, if, in fact, the owner was paying those property tax it wasn't paying those property taxes, that they could have the opportunity to make it home themselves. I just bet many of them did not know. So we have to expand our outreach on those kinds of things when we see and ask that somehow another we have to identify whether or not those are occupied properties. When you know you bundle 164 properties and one or two investors purchase them all, a red flag should go up as to whether or not they are occupied, and we owe it to ourselves to reach out to people in those occupied homes to see if, in fact, they want to make it their home. And so we need a way to make sure that those things happen. And maybe we can discuss it. Maybe, you know, we can help, because, you know, my staff, we used to go out to the various homes anyway, door knocking about on the whole property tax, it looks like we've got to turn it up again, because we just can't have that many people out here that are homeless. And of course, I know madam president dept talk about what you propose in terms of that, um, the ordinance. And so I'll, I'll catch up with her on and I'll certainly catch up with you on it later. But meanwhile, um, Madam President, I want to put these three things in to Executive Session, compensation for board members, parking, that means all of it, both underground and placard and mileage. That's my motion. Okay,

Hearing no objections that action will be taken.

All right, thank you, and thank you, Mr. Dunwell, for all that you do.

Okay, if I may have this quick second to respond through the chair customer waters. I just want to share that is interesting, because sometimes I get leaned on, but not I don't mean in a bad way. I get leaned on just from from what I know by other offices or departments to help guide or walk them through certain steps. But one of the things that I plan on, on having a conversation with our treasurer, Nikhil Patel, about, is we've got to get in front of people before they go. They get behind, right? And it doesn't matter who it is. Isn't about all properties, because in the data set, when you look at it, if you look at the debt, that's that's uncollected as of August 31 you'll know who has who has not paid anything during the summer, right? So how do you make sure you identify what your collection rate is, along with determining any gaps that may exist? And I'm just going to quickly say this the ideology that's behind servicing also creates a misguided amount of collection on property taxes. And why I say that is, when you escrow your property taxes, oftentimes the servicer will only pay what's available, so if the full amount of the debt is not available, they won't pay on time, so it gives a misguided amount that is presented to the local municipality, no matter who it is, because they're just waiting on additional money, then they'll pay at the proper time. Sometimes taxes even go to the county, not because the person hasn't paid their note on time. It goes to the county because the servicer didn't pay on time, because it wasn't enough at that time to send the payment in. So I'm just using that as an example as to your point in not saying that the folks that what we sometimes see as bad actors, we should not have conversations with them as well, especially identifying who they are. I'm just mentioning another land mine that exists right in the entire process. But you gotta start at the beginning. We gotta prevent things from going to the county and those folks that are tenants. We they need to actually have, I believe, some opportunity to have rights as relates to knowing about whether or not the taxes are paid, because in most cases, in most cases, individuals who rent still have the ability to get money back from the state under the 1040 CR, they don't know. So, but again, people don't know. So we again, it's all about education and making sure that people are aware. So I'm just again, no,

and I'm looking forward to you just mounting a very strong educational process, outreach process, so that we can educate our residents in this city. And madam president, if I just might, motion to to put Board of Review, education and outreach into executive session, and my second motion would be to put LLCs in Executive Session.

Okay, here Hearing no objections that action will be taken. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Mr. Dunwell, all right. Thank you, member young, you've had some

motions. Yes, I have no questions. Exit, presentation. Always pleasure. Work with you, brother. I just want to make some motions. When I want to make a motion to put the office of assessor to fund at least three additional clerks for support. FTE, that's, I think, $231,000 and I also want to put the Board of Review Conference equipment upgrade one time of 80, $85,000 into Executive Session.

Okay? Hearing, hearing, no objections that will be added to the executive session. And

I also want to make another motion to put the Media Services budget in Executive Session, and that is it.

Thank you. I'm sorry. Media Services, yeah,

media services, okay, their media service, your media service,

Mister Don wills, media services, media services that

will go the budget that we're paying for you to get your message out to the media.

Okay, alright, Hearing no objections that action will be taken. And Madam President, thank

you so much for your patience, for allowing me to be able to do this, because I have somewhere to be. So thank you for your leadership. I appreciate it. Thank you everybody.

Thank you so much. Member, young member, Callaway,

thank you, Madam President, good afternoon. Mr. Don well. Thank you for your presentation, very thorough. And congratulations on your decision to continue your education, for your own

edification, your own

increasing your knowledge base and your skill set, and it's only going to help you do your job that much better, and you already do a great job anyway. So don't know how much more or much greater you can do, because you you do amazing work. You're everywhere all the time. You come to all of our meetings, whether they're in person or virtually. We have a wonderful district, two representative who serves on the board. He's still excited. You know, from the very first day, he's still excited. I think he's in his second year. Mr. Marcus Twyman, so we appreciate him, and his schedule allows him to come to our coffee and conversations and also to join us virtually twice a month. So thank you for that. I don't have any questions other than Do we have any of our board members who work a full time job outside of serving as a board member?

So you have board members who do have other positions that they where they work. You have three board members who are who are real estate brokers, and one's another real estate agent, and you do have another board member who works with the nonprofit,

and

everybody else, I'm sorry, one other, one other board member who does hair and nails. I believe

we have any students.

So, yes, yeah,

okay, I'm just, you know, I don't I brought this up before. I don't know how you can work two full time jobs. This is a very time consuming job, and I brought this up before. You know, I do know of an instance where, you know, I don't know if that 265 you know, day a week is really being done, but thanks to the dashboard, I do look at it. And I know you did mention to me some members don't, you know, like, carry their weight. So how are you monitoring? Because we do have members who are full who have full time jobs. So how, how is that working? There's only so many days in a week. There's only so many days in a year. How is it? How is it possible,

through the chair? I think what we have to look at is, number one, what is the community that we're serving? And I'm not trying to just, I'm going to get to the point to answer your question, but look at the community that we're serving, and sometimes the time in which we need to contact or have conversations or follow up with the work is not necessarily always nine to five, you know, is so The mindset in the office right now is that I'm not trying to force a person into coming to the office five days a week, from 8:30am to 4:30pm right when we should be focused on getting the work done and making sure that citizens are being served. What I am very passionate about is making sure that two things occur, one in really importantly, that I have the right conversations when it comes to time and use of time, so that people understand that I have zero tolerance for individuals who misuse their time. Because, you know, in that regard, I speak for city council, but at the at the same time making sure they have the flexibility to be able to get the work done. This is where we, you know is it's not about, it's not about, again, trying to force somebody into some people may consider servitude, right? Because that's not what the maybe it's not a proper use of the word in this but in this regard, what we have to look at is, how do we make sure that the individuals that we're serving is not being harmed, while at the same time having a environment that allows for the work to be done and to provide less stress on all the individuals involved. I again, fully understand the whole dynamic of best practices, but what I want please understand is that it kind of takes a special person to listen to pain all day long, right? And we want to be conscious of what that is and what it looks like. You know, we all have our triggers when it comes to mental stress, right? And we just want to make sure that that the environment that people are working in is the right kind of environment to be able and conducive, but to your point, getting back to your point again. And I've had conversations with folks right that in terms of, hey, if this is if this is going to interfere, or this is interfering, right, you need to straighten this out, because I have sent me most to council members. I have had conversations with council members about their appointee, you know. Other folks have been removed from the board of view, you know, but again, trying to make sure that

the process isn't harmed either.

Thank you. And through the chair, your judgment is trusted by me, and you make the right decisions when you're required to do so. And so I appreciate that anywhere can you in your budget, have any cost savings that you can, that you can consider, because we, I have not seen anybody to come before the council, maybe in 2026

that come with a cost saving

plan. It's always more more more, more increase, increase, but never any cost savings. And I think we're going to see some things in 2026 going into the new fiscal year. But I do believe in cost savings, and I haven't seen that here since I've been on the council. No one ever comes and presents a cost saving plans. How can we save the taxpayers instead of everybody who comes here wants more, wants more, wants to increase their their budget, wants to increase their staff, and some justifiable, and some not in my, in my estimation. So where can you make savings? You don't have to talk about it now, but just give us some thought, and we'll talk. We'll talk next week. But just give that some thought, because I haven't. We've not had those conversations been since I've been on this council, but I think in 2026 we'll have those types of conversations where maybe every department across the board can do some cost saving measures, or some cost saving plans or recommendation for their own department. That's not happened since I've been here. And that's, that's, that's my opinion from my vantage point sitting here, but I appreciate all that you do. Give that some thought for next year, and then we'll talk about what possibly could happen this year. But give us some thought for next year cost savings, because that's going to be my mantra going into 2026 and thank you so much. And God bless

you, madam chair family, so through the chair, the customer Galloway, the equipment upgrade is a cost savings because it's a one time expense, and it was controversial when you know, Media Services wanted to present to City Council at the last minute $120,000 contract right for to support the Board of Review, and whether or not you know that that was really needed. I listened to you intently. You talked about many things, but one of the things that I just want to I took that into consideration when you know this is a one time cost, and we then assign a person like this, a part of the team, to actually do that for us. So now we've eliminated the opportunity for that $120,000 cost to exist again. So I just want to I listen and that this is the result of, you know, the statements that you made.

Chair, mister, Don, well, thank you so much. I did have quite a few questions about that particular contract. 750 a day, we have to pay for transportation, a rental of their equipment. So I'm glad that my colleagues agree with me, and they did. It was called Creative day. They did not get that contract. We made a right decision in that regard. I want to thank you for that, but I held that contract up and thank you. Thank you, Madam

Chair, okay, thank you. Member Callaway, member Johnson, thank

you, Madam President, and good afternoon, Mister down will thank you for everything that you've been doing since 2007 when you came on board, I know you were initially appointed as the district for Board of Review member, and we've all appreciated your hard work

as the days progressed and kept you

as the District Four board member, but then moving into that director position, and just appreciate all of the work that you have done. And you know, just continuing your education to be able to provide more information, the training and just knowing more for yourself is admirable. And I don't know where you find the time to do it, but we certainly do appreciate it. I actually, I don't know that I'm going to ask a question, but this, whole assessment piece is something that I think we all have been trying to figure out how to wrap our arms around to ensure that we don't that we do everything that we can to prevent gentrification from happening in the city of Detroit, right? Because when there was a proposal relative to addressing our taxes, what I heard from that was, if I were to be able to sell my house for what the property value is today, who would be able to afford not only to purchase my house, but to also pay the increase, the drastic increase in taxes? And I just didn't think that would be somebody that looks like me. And so that is the thing that concerns me. And so I think it's important to make sure that when we as we go throughout our days, just our regular work and processes that we do, we have to help to sustain people in their homes, because that's where the challenge comes, right? It's if you were displaced from your home for whatever reason and you had to move, if you had to relocate, even thinking about because our property values were low for so long, even thinking about $100,000 house and the tax rate for a property that is $100,000 that's still a lot for someone who is lower income. And so I think all of those things we have to take into consideration, understanding the millage rate, and understanding how we get to that millage rate, and trying to reverse things. One of as you talked about, a Number of the cases that you All I

you know, part of the issue in navigating and working through the assessment process is understanding how it actually works, no matter how we try to simplify it. Understand that assessing is more an art than it is in scientific process. So when you look at, and I'm going to simplify the the recommendation that I made for the for the ordinance, if you simply look at the current assessed value for 2025 and use that as the taxable value, and multiply it against the military. That's what some reasonable amount that's around what the taxes are going to be. Take the taxable value out of the equation altogether. Use the assessed amount to determine against the military, to determine what the taxes are going to be so if the military of the assessed amount is $100,000 and the taxable value is 50,000 you're not going to be paying taxes on that $50,000 taxable value. You're going to be paying on that $100,000 assessment. So that's that's the rationale behind it. It simply provides a quick and general look at what the estimated taxes will be for that upcoming year.

Thank you for that, Mr. Downwell, and so the assessed value has nothing is is there any correlation to fair market value?

The assessed value by by state constitution, the assessed value is required to be no more than 50% of the true cash value. So the state constitution requires three parts, one the that the state legislators will develop a process for the assessment, for the assessments to be developed, that the assessed value will be not more than 50% of true cash value. And then finally, that there's an equalization process to determine how properties will be taxed throughout the state.

Okay, and for those that are still thankfully buying houses in the city of Detroit, who have now missed the march Board of Review. What's the next opportunity?

Here's next year.

But here are the things that a person still should do. Understand that the assessment role is a living, breathing document, and the local assessor is required to make adjustments if there is an error that exists on the assessment role. So don't use this as a I'm going to circumvent the process and say I got an error to get an adjustment of my assessment right. But if, for example, let's say a person tore down a garage, or something was is in terms of the structure, there was an extensive fire in the property that could affect the actual value of the property, right? Depending on when these things occurred, meaning that it was prior to December 31 to the prior year, the assessor can make an adjustment based on a 53 Bs error correction of mutual mistake effect. All right,

thank you. And the the only other thing I wanted to offer to you is a girlfriend of mine. Her mother went through the Board of Review process, and you all were so gracious to get her signed up or identifying other programs that she could apply for. The request was, though, that as you go through that process, particularly for seniors to provide them with information on the program or a phone number is something that they may be able to recognize when the entity reaches out to them to follow up relative to the program that that has been applied for on their behalf, just so they don't think that they are being scanned and avoid answering the call and going Through the actual process. So if you all can just provide maybe name, general phone number for the entity that you're applying for on their behalf, so they can walk away with that and share that with their family members.

So just as a quick look at one of the things that the Plus plan for the software is that it will provide correlation for services like that. So it's not just, it won't just, we just won't give a person information, right? We can actually put them into a queue to actually allow them to get the service or refer them to the requested service. These are the things that we have to be more deliberate about in terms of processes. Excellent.

Thank you, and thank you for just everything that you do. I know when you come out to our meetings, you are a wealth of knowledge, and we appreciate that well beyond what the Board of Review and even the assessor's office does. You've been around for a long time, and it shows. But we certainly do appreciate your experience and your insight. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President,

thank you. Member Johnson, member durha, thank

you and good afternoon. I have no questions for you, Mr. Downwell. I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank you. You have been very present in my district, specifically with the healthy homes and just engaging in meetings, and you are always there in the community, but to member Johnson's point, also a wealth of knowledge, so I appreciate some of the things that you've done to try to move the needle forward, even on the policy side here, I appreciate your knowledge as we talk about the Headley amendment, as we talk about changes really, to property taxes that are going to have to go through our state legislator, legislature, and so it's going to be important that we have a concerted effort even at the council table even, you know, even in Lansing, of how we change things Helly a minute, has been around now for about 30 years, believe it or not, and that is one of the most difficult things to change. Is actually difficult to get it in place in the first place, if you talk to some of the old folks, budget directors in Lansing. But the fact of the matter is, as we re examine new ways to lower property taxes for our residents to make sure that they can stay in their homes, we're going to need everybody on deck, all hands on deck, and particularly knowledgeable folks like yourself. So I appreciate our conversations, often times about property taxes. I appreciate you holding members of the Board of Review to a high level of accountability. And those are my comments. Keep, please, keep doing what you're doing. Do not cry anymore at this table. I always got to tag you on that one, but, but again, thank you so much for being a faithful servant to our residents. Thank you,

all right. Thank you. Any additional comments, questions? All right, Mr. Don Well, thank you so much. We truly appreciate you sir, and

give him a council president again. I just want to say you're right on target, and I think that you know between you know, all of your colleagues, this is an opportunity for city council to shine and in the board review, because while I gladly accept the accolades, but I don't, I do not do it by myself. You know, I have nine other great members that I work with, and we achieve a common goal.

We appreciate that, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Damo, you have a blessed afternoon,

Madam Chair. Before he leaves, earlier, he had asked for a motion for three additional staff.

Was that not put in from between waters or young? I think you hear the motion? Yeah. I think between member waters are young some he put it in the Executive Session. Already. Remember young it okay. Did you get that? Mr. Corley, okay, okay, but thank you for that. So making sure we took the care of that. Thank you, Mr. Don Well, you have a blessed day, and we're going to go to public comment. How many do we have online?

11 online. Okay,

yep, we're going to cut it off. We have Robert Hakeem here. Are you going to speak? Okay for public comment? Oh, sorry, before we do that too, I just need one more motion for one more thing to be added to Executive Session for the Arts and Culture Department for support for Detroit's independent filmmakers, we can please add that to our executive session as well. Thank you so much. Member waters Hearing none that action will be taken. All right, go right ahead.

Hi. My name is Robert Hakeem. You'll Ever been here? Because I'm normally slaving away working 90 plus hours ish a week in this city. I grew up here. I just, I just have one question, and this is going to be very indicative of the issues that go over the heads of a lot of people who sit in positions of power. Does anybody here know what communicative neuroscience is? Does anybody want to take a swing at it? Raise your hands if you think you have an answer. You can take a guess. Break down the words that I'm saying. Communicative, communication, neuro, brain science. Anything anybody want to take a guess? We're

going to let you finish your time, sir, and then we'll respond, okay,

so I'll make it quick. The issue in this city, from growing up here is that you have to teach people how to learn. You have to make things, excuse me, I'm getting choked up accessible to them, and when everything is running on a nine to five schedule, and this city operates, last time I checked, 24 hours a day, 365 days a week, you're literally cutting people off from the resources and having a voice in this city. This city lives and dies by its people, and a lot of people have been dying, and I have had to see it firsthand most of my life, in ways that somebody who has been as capable and gifted and talented, from Saint Scholastica giving the honor speech To to saints, to Saint Cecilia, to Bates Academy, to to Renaissance, and then, because I was a little bit to Linwood and Davidson pre y 2k I had to go to St Mary's, and then off there to to, I'll wrap it up. I'll wrap it up. Um, had to go to summer school at Cass every year. So I just, I'll leave it at this,

yeah, oh, it sounds like you have a lot of great, maybe input that you can provide. It sounds like you've been working a lot, but we would love to sit down and chat with you about how you can contribute more to what's happening in Detroit. I know these are these sessions are limited in our time to go back and forth, but we have evening Council sessions as well. You're walking out, but we would love to work with you. Love to work with you. Alrighty. Thank you so much,

Madam President. The first online caller is William M Davis, okay. Mr.

Davis, good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Can that be heard? Yes, we can hear you.

Okay, let's start off with DPW. You know, I think DPW was a whole lot better when the city, Detroit controlled our trash pickup. I know during the bankruptcy they, you know, they got out of that business because emergency manager wanted to decimate employees and unions and what have you. But you know, if you remember back, and I know I do, when we had DPW and it was picking up the trash, they also did a number of things, you know, they also helped with snow removal. They they did a number of things that now we have contractors doing everything, and we have contractors that could raise their prices whenever they want to buy a massive amount. I mean, the amount that the trash went up to this year is unbelievable. Uh, also with DPW, you know, it seems like, since the bankruptcy, the street lights go out, more regular. Streets are flooding, more regular, and more people are complaining about these new streetscapes, you know, like on liver noise people hate, you know, most of the people in the neighborhood hate those that all that concrete they, you know, they hate the traffic flow. Do they ever do traffic flow index that show that people do not like and then they don't have as many people going and the people are going slower, you know? So I think we need to be reassessing stuff and like, say, you know, we have bike lanes, which is what good on one hand, but if you don't take care of them, that's that makes it worse, especially in the winter time. As it relates to the Board of Review, I think it should be a conservative effort to do something about as all these LLCs we have in the city of Detroit, because, you know, anytime somebody get an LLC and they buy more than five properties at a time, there should be an investigation, and you shouldn't be able to buy so many properties at a time. And you know, we need to make sure that these people are doing what's right, instead of just making a profit. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Yes,

Madam Chair, on that note, yes. Oh, we don't

have a corn we can't respond.

Just listen, sorry

about that. Yep, the next caller is Betty a Varner,

all right, Miss Barner, uh,

good afternoon to all within the sound of my voice, I'm Betty a Barner, president of DeSoto Ellsworth black Association, and born and raised in the city of Detroit, I want to talk about the HOPE program, very good program. I'm so appreciative of that program, especially now since I have these mobility challenges and their people come to my home. I've had the same person I built the report come to my home to make sure that I can be a part and have an application submitted. It has been a great help to my budget. It helps me out, or not a lot really, that money that where I save on my taxes I used to pay my gas bill. So I'm very appreciative. I'm asking that the council please consider monies to consider to continue the Detroit accessibility program, the senior disabled accessibility home repair program, please allow monies to help black clubs and associations with their projects that projects that they have in their neighborhoods, including funding to help with the corridors that are not being funded throughout the city of Detroit also allow monies to start a program to help organizations become a 501, c3 helping them to pay their fees that are required by the state. Allow monies again to help for the quarters it is much needed their associations and black clubs, they're trying to improve their neighborhoods and those corridors need attention. And last but not least, I'm still asking for help for our landscaping, boulders that we need for our park. Thank you for this time. Thank you the next caller.

The next caller is, we see you.

We see you. Good afternoon.

We see you. Good afternoon,

Madam President, I shall we see you as muted. They just need to unmute their microphone.

Good afternoon. I needed to have the unmute first anyway, through the Chair, may I heard,

yes, you can.

Oh, thank you. It's very interesting, the conversations that are had at the table. How can someone buy that many properties, and they don't even live in the city, so they have more information than we have. Obviously, there is the land bank who there are, but things are placed so that we still don't get speculators. And you're talking about a legislature. How can one person buy, or one group buy that many houses and 112 month period, we have something in place. So that does not happen, but because we have things in place, and everybody wants to circumvent everything, and we just make a new ordinance, but we already have things in place to identify these problems and solve these problems. I heard Mr. Tate, who doesn't want to stick around to hear the people asking Mr. Dunlop, the guy from from who does the streets, why haven't these things been taken care of? And they were year they were a year ago. That is the problem that we have. We keep seeing the same issues year after year after year. I don't care what council we have joy. Road looks a mess. Okay? I pay taxes, just like the people in court. Town play taxes. And I would like to see my area have growth and new things, but I don't get that, even though I'm paying taxes, which I don't think we should pay taxes to this city, especially in district seven and districts one, two and three and four, because we didn't get any money. We didn't get any progress. See, that's what your taxes are supposed to show progress, not just having my garbage picked up, even though I'm paying what, $14 million more this year and $12 million $17 million more next year. You guys aren't moving us toward taking care of ourselves and independence. You're moving us toward poverty.

The next the

next caller is Stephen Holling,

good afternoon.

Can I be heard? Yes, you can. Okay,

awesome. So regarding bike lanes, I know that was mentioned earlier in this meeting. You know, some of the bike lanes are better than the others. The streetscaping has helped a lot. The perishable ones are beautiful, the ones over on East warn, but a lot of them are in horrible shape, like the ones on Jefferson. You know, I see car parts on them, I mean, and it just doesn't look like the city's really cleaning up a lot of these bike lanes. And I know a lot of you might think they're not utilized, but, I mean, they're pretty utilized. I mean, my they might not be as utilized as you would think, but you know, we still got people. And did you know a lot of that stuff on the bike lanes is it's a safety hazard. And I also think in during the budget hearings, I know you've heard this several times, but I think the department should be able to reply to, you know, what the public commenters are saying, because a lot of questions have came up. And, you know, lot of questions that I think the departments could ask pretty easy via so, you know, I just think the way public comment is over in the budget hearing is kind of flawed. And you know, it should be more like the mayor's meeting, where department heads or the department's presenting, can actually respond to the commenters. But I do like that, you know, public comment is after the meeting. You know, overall, I think in the general council meetings, it should be first anything on the agenda, and then the general public comment should be last, like it is right now. So that's what I do, like about it. But you know, I really do think that we should have a Q and A in a ways, with the departments that are presenting

the next caller is not that Karen,

Good afternoon,

Madam President, I show not that Karen is muted. They'll need to unmute their microphone in order to make public comment.

Good afternoon.

All right, going once, not that caring.

Going twice. All right. Please submit your comments to the clerk's office for public record.

Madam President, the next public comment would be from Jacob Graham. Jacob

Graham, good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Thanks so much for the opportunity to comment. I'd like to thank Madam President and member Hall for their great questions for DPW. I'd really like to see DPW increase their sidewalk funding, particularly for seniors and for school zones and for active block clubs that are that are trying to make it easier to walk to the park and walk to the school. Similarly, I'd really, I appreciate the attention to accessibility and ADA access. I'd really like DPW to have a more active program for installing curb cuts. For example, Charlevoix Street in our neighborhood has dozens and dozens of intersections with no curb cuts. The cross, there's no there's no curb cuts to get across charlevoi, and there's no plans to resurface charlevoi. And so I guess they're not going to do curb cuts, you know, for years, 1015, years, I'm not sure. So it would be great if DPW had a proactive curb cut installation approach, and similarly, if DPW had a more proactive approach to reduce speeding, we we tried to work with President Sheffield's office on getting a stop sign on on East Vernor to slow down traffic, and DPW responded that there wasn't enough pedestrian traffic to justify the stop sign. But that's totally misunderstanding the issue. The issue is the speeding traffic that goes 60 miles an hour on burner. It has nothing to do with pedestrian traffic. We need DPW to have better strategies for infrastructures to reduce speeding on neighborhood streets like Verner and Charlevoix. Thank you so much.

The next caller is Mr. Ronald Foster,

good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Just want to say a couple things. I think Director brandich has been very responsive, personally, with a lot of issues and concerns that I've taken up there from community members. And I think he have very friendly staff up there as well. And just want to just say, been very responsive. Secondly, Mister Don wells, same thing with him. I see him at every community meeting, evening, morning. These are the type of people that make a difference in government. And so while often criticism, I often equally and equitably offer praise to those that do good work and good job. And so with that being said, my question is, when mister dialwell spoke about board review, as well as a lot of these other positions on paper, it seems as if the community is included, but I attend the iOS meetings as well. I have every agenda from the last few years. How inclusive is it if council members are recycling the same people on their boards using the same influence out of 100,000 people in every district, you can't find somebody different to come share perspective on these boards. And so those are the things when we talk about equality, equity and a lot of other things, transparency, that we can just look at your hiring history, your work history, to see how transparent you are. What is your pattern of hiring and amongst other things, it's hard to get equity in this city when it's very few people. A lot of our community aren't home owners, where they're renters, where a lot of our land are owned by outside people, houses are owned by outside people. So we want equity in this community. The only way we get equity is by people owning this community, developing this community, and having new neighbors in our community.

All right. Thank you.

The next caller is Samsung, S, M, T, 227, U,

alright. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. How are you all today? Well,

as you know, my name is Ruby Riley, and this speech, the information that Mr. Don well gave, very informative. Now what I did know about was the Healthy Home events that they have. So if somebody can get back with me and send me a text on my phone or I think my email kind of like changed, but I'm not going to say it over my tablet, but yes, I would like to know about that, because I am a senior B 75 this year. And another thing you had mentioned Council President Mary Sheffield was about the Community Health Corp. But when that was going on, I know you can't answer because you don't have a quorum. When that was going on, I was in that program, but was cut off like at the head, I received one help from them, but they had, I'm not gonna say promise, but I was, I was approved for a lot of other things, and did not get it. So if they still had them funds, I feel that I should still get what was, what I what I was qualified for. So with that being said, Mr. Dunwell, job well done, and thanks for taking my on Zoom, I tried to call in on my phone, but they got put in the number, the ID number, and then I didn't go through, so I had to charge up some of my tablets that I have so I can't get on there, because, you know, I mean, if I'm not in in there, I try to be online listening. Okay, you all have a great at rest of your evening and the weekend and be safe.

Okay? Thank you. Too.

Thank you, Madam President, the next caller is Cunningham.

Good afternoon.

I see Cunningham as muted. If Mr. Cunningham could unmute his microphone. 31344491143134449114313449114,

that number was made so you can remember it and not enemy on Facebook, two words, not enemy. One more time. Not enemy on Facebook,

I'm asking for one more day. Um,

folks scratch their heads, laugh, whatever. It doesn't

make a difference. All this opinion doesn't affect me and it shouldn't affect you. Pray in the Holy Spirit. Chant, do what you do. Put my name out in the atmosphere, brother Cunningham and my mother, Cheryl Marie Lyons, disabled registered nurse in the rivers of gross point. Put her name in the atmosphere. Praying the Holy Spirit. I've been drinking fluids and taking care of my business throughout the day, but periodically, just praying. Whenever I get a free moment and I remember to do so, I do that, and I'm asking you to do the same. Just throughout today, down at Wayne County, Register of Deeds, I lost a lot of rental property and property in 2008

and 2012

and so I'm praying that everything goes well, and maybe I can recoup some of those funds that I lost. The deadline is Monday,

they send a key and all those ramasan na, ramaka Ya, Rama Shan ya, Rama Shan, Jama Sanja, ramaka I, ramasan Ya, Rama Shan ya Rama San jar Maka ya, Rama Shan ya, Rama Shan ya Rama San jar Maka I, Rama Shan ya Rama San jam Madam

President, the next caller is Lucinda J Dara,

yeah, why don't you unmute

people with instead of asking us to unmute, unmute them at your end, and then just tell us that we're on and ask us to speak. Because this is not right. This is not right. Okay, so what I'd like to say is, I'd like you to look at on point, WBUR, another world is possible. There's a they archive their shows and a cup. About a week ago, they had one another world as possible, and they talked about a country that had no homelessness. We need public housing. And nobody's talking about that, we need cooperative housing in the neighborhood and some skilled trades where we work together to make our own people strong. I don't want to, but I'd like to say Benson has a good idea. He said, Why don't you monitor by looking at the tax receipts? Well, anybody who's in our programs, and you could monitor the Detroit works that way too and all, and you could keep these people from even going into foreclosure if you give people the option to sign a release so that they can put their so they automatically let you look at their estate taxes every year. And the only thing you gotta do is watch those investors who, by the way, I want to know how many investors that are buying a large number of properties are going into section eight housing for our people, that is welfare for the corporations, and I'd like to monitor these people. But also I do think that we need to have cooperative public housing, and we need to figure out,

Madam President, the last caller for public comment is torpedo.

Everybody with their ears shot, listen up and pay close attention. I

I did it.

Now to the Council President Mary Sheffield, your business is your business. I don't care about nobody business, but I want to take my hat off to Miss Carol Hughes, Mrs. Carol Hughes, because she says it most eloquently. Now, Mary, look to your left. If Fred your hall is down there, he's cheated in and I know know what I'm talking about, just like all the rest of the city council, the school board and the board of police commissioners and some judges and the mayor, Michael Edward Duggan, cheated in that writing campaign. I can't prove it, but I know he cheated in in 2021 got absentee ballots, fraudulent absentee ballots in that election. Now I want to jump to Janice Winfrey, the city clerk. She's bold Gina Avery Walker, bold right

Commissioner,

woods on the board of police commissioners. Bold now on. Switch to my alter ego, Mr. Rule Mimi wants what she wants. She deserves to have her peace of mind. Peace of mind. Her momma didn't kill herself. Kenisha Coleman, I Man, tulini got to get what she wants. That's why I did.