And we have not heard from Pat. We did hear from Richard that he had a conflict, but put them both down as excused. Maybe Pat will still make it. Everyone has received a copy of the minutes from Rhonda, September 24 meeting. Oh, I know, before I do anything else, I'm not paying attention to the process. I know we have a number of people both here and present the room, and we have a number of others on the phone. And so looking at you, Adela, because you're the only one who knows how to work it. When there is another phone you would
like to participate in public comment, please raise your virtual hand,
and you raise your virtual hand by pressing the hand button if you're on Zoom. But how do you do it on a cell phone? Correct,
I believe, is star six
and then star nine to mute. Yeah. Okay, so hopefully anyone has any questions, but you press on a regular Oh, you press star six to unmute when you're called on, and star nine to mute again, both online and soon, we follow our standard procedures of each public commenter is allowed at three minutes of time, and Adela will remind you as the time is going forward, so that you'll know when it's running now, these covers our rules allows us go into the approval of the minutes which were circulated to you by Rhonda. These are the September 24 minutes. Does anyone have any questions or comments hearing none. Could I have a motion, please, so support. All in favor? Aye, opposed. Hearing none. The September 24 minutes are approved, and that brings us to public comment. So why don't we start in the room,
discuss the sideline next to our home. I'll read quickly from this year award engineer. This is my partner. Okay, we put in an offer on 3205, share board. We believe we were purchasing our home and the lot next to the believe this because we were told this by the sellers and our agent. However, upon closing, we learned the lot didn't come included in our D the sellers didn't have the two parcels needed together, and subsequently lost the side lot due to that taxes. We proceeded with closing on 3205, SharePoint under the belief we could purchase the lot from the land bank for 100 to $250 depending on its square footage. Prior to closing on 430, 2022, we put in our closing documents that contractually, the sellers could not pursue ownership of the sidewalk post sale because we had every intention of purchasing the land bank and depot parcels back together as it had been historic. Began engaging the land bank on May 13, 2022, two weeks after closing on 320, 05, share board, after not having the land bank following up several times, communicating via link LinkedIn, with land bank personnel, visiting the office in person only for action application to be closed the following day with no warning, being given several different quotes over the state of two and a half years, and most recently, being told the purchase price of $50,000 we have concerns and questions for the board. We inquired about the high price point after being told $1,000.10 $1,000 on two different other occasions, we were told the side by is now considered an infield development, if it weren't for history of youths. Our driveway sitting across both parcels the historic designation of the neighborhood. This lot in our home existing, along with the lot being too small for another historical surveyor visited this lot when we inquired about it two and a half years ago, we would accept the infield design
instead, one minute remaining, instead, we
vehemently disagree with the infield designation. Are respectfully asking for it to be removed and for the lots to consider over spot. Since purchasing 3205, we've assumed the responsibility and maintenance of the lot, included, but not limited to blight removal, tree removal and weekly seasonal maintenance. We've done so not at our own discretion, but at the direction of our homeowners insurance. Two months after closing in with 3205, sheer born our homeowners insurance notified as the insurance was set to expire due to trees and overgrowth on the lot that threatened the integrity of the property. To maintain coverage, we enlisted tree service to address their concerns, as you can imagine, at her loop, we followed by rendering tree services and maintain the seasonal maintenance across the lead to five and most recently on August 27 23 four experiencing a tree limb from the tree on the lot, falling on one of the vehicles in our driveway, hearing the purchase price of $50,000 bills to more lives. And quite frankly, not what our research allowed us to believe. From our research, nowhere on the Detroit land bank is there explicit language that mentions exception for the sidelines, directly next to houses, nowhere, that aspects.
Should I miss us? Thank
you for talking so fast. I
appreciate it.
Also photos that represent exactly what it is that we're discussing. How big there's a lot. The lot is a little over 10,000 square. PS, all those documents.
Robbie, what's our limit of side lots?
That area? 5000 5000
that's the problem understood
and respectfully, we recognize the limitations of the matter. But if you would take a look at the photos that show exactly how our house, our driveway, sits across both parcels that his history of use, along with our entire driveway on the other lot. Yes, ma'am, a good portion of it, not all of it, no, ma'am,
you get into your driveway or move it over a little bit on your own. I mean, no, ma'am,
no, ma'am.
What stops me is that's double we turn down people every day or anything over five steps. I you know, it's not, I mean, we could, we could, I assume we could market this thing. I mean, in a minute, right?
And that is our recommendation. We have this lot, and then we have another one right around the corner. This area, both over 10,000 square feet, and our recommendation is to market it, because our choice, we don't we just no other way to sell it, yeah. I mean, somebody could apply, but given the area which you can
buy it, you just have to buy it through the marketing program, which means it's priced at what it's priced at. You know, we go to a real estate broker and they give us broker opinions of how much it should sell for. We put it on the market. Sometimes we get the price, sometimes we don't, but at least it's open and fair.
We disagree, given
the photos, yes,
may I stand up in place? Please read into a little bit of space, then we'll pass them off. Yes, this is the home and lot where we took possession. It was extremely blighted. It was the worst house on the block. Our neighbors are grateful for our arrival. It's a conversation in our in our in our monthly or seasonal meetings. Here is the homeowners insurance that lets us know that we won't be covered because of the condition of the lot and its implications. It's assumed that you know these these parcels working together, and so we are
impacted. What they're saying is that the trees are good fall over on
Yes, ma'am. And here's an example of those trees. The arrows are pointing to this one as well as this one. We've had to pay over $10,000 to have them removed, and since putting at least minimum of $15,000 again, these are the trees leaning on to the driveway that we've had to have removed foods for homeowners insurance. And again, here's another photo of those same trees and a lot, and we had to manage another tree that was threatening our neighbors home as well. So we've been maintaining the condition of this lot to maintain our homeowners insurance. I see the driveway. Yes,
ma'am, you have the drawing.
Here's our driveway. Here's the front of it. Is the house review. First review
would be helpful, yes,
but here's the parcel viewer. Here's all of the boats, obviously, and RVs that we removed upon our arrival. This is the driveway right here. Here's a photo of said driveway in real time.
Looks like this is your house, right? Yes, ma'am, and the driveway is right. And
then it comes over here, and I can show you a photo of that as well. Do you have a girl? Yes, ma'am, that's this, yes, ma'am. I can show you a you
can actually do a driveway straight back. I mean, right now, there's that other thing, but you put your there's plenty of room for drive here. See the driveway? Just because it's not clear, starts at the street here, and that's the garage. So, yeah, right now it goes a little bit over, but doesn't have to. There's plenty of room. This
is the light you're trying to purchase. This is your house. Yes, ma'am, that's the garage, yeah, so you can run right back. There's the lot. This is the lot they want to buy. This is the house. This is where the driveway starts. That's the garage. So you could run the driveway straight back, it wouldn't go as wide, but you could do it.
Come on over here. We're
talking about historic home district area as well. So in order to do along that property, they have to be in historic regulations, which, under our assumptions that tax is not enough space and build a historic home. And what is the likely you all have been in possession of. This property for quite some time, it's been neglected in languishing we know that this is a blight. Is a priority for the mayor. Maintaining homeowners insurance is an important matter for the mayor as well,
and we would love to have that house freedom every last properly taken care of and break things down to it, but I don't see how we can disadvantage all the other citizens of the city by selling it to you for $200 when anybody else should have a chance to buy it. That's my problem that, you know, we have pretty clear rules there on our website. And a side lot is a sideline is a 5000 side lot. This is a 10,000
and we, we didn't see those designations on the on the land bank, and we have screen recordings that really didn't, you didn't see
that side lot is defined as $5,000 that's definitely on the website.
Yes, ma'am, but we know that there is an oversized lot program as well that you can purchase oversized lots for $250 before we were under the assumption, but
not in the inclusive, not an Inclusive Housing neighborhood, which is defined on apps, on the website.
And I feel like for us, we disagree with the infield development designation, not an infill development
designation. That's what we've been told.
That's what that's what we've been told by numerous people, our city council, our district manager, the land bank. Disagreement is this still development designation,
we don't have an intro development. Yes, it's not one that I've ever voted on.
So Robbie
areas where the city has identified a need for more accessible housing, and these are areas where we try to coordinate the sale of vacant land in these areas. And this is one of those areas.
So this is considered the side lot is considered an infill development.
No sideline is considered. This is the whole neighborhood called an insub housing opportunity area. That is a city not all has drawn maps is of what they want to have, called Inclusive Housing. And Inclusive Housing asked us not to sell any oversized it's in our regulations. I love it on the website. I understand your position, and I certainly understand what you're frustrated. We're kind of required by city council and everybody else to be consistent and to be fair and to say out of right there on the website exactly what we can and can't do, all of which is coordinated with the city, and it's all there. And a side lot is which we could have done here is 5000 and yours is 10,000 and sometimes we do oversized side lots, but never in an inclusive housing opportunity area at the request of a city.
Okay? So, yeah, I think can you talk to a family? But about like to build a home on a historic and historic neighborhood, because I think that's what's a little confusing for us, is knowing that we're in historic neighborhood, and to build a home onto this property and start to abide by the historic guidelines, just seems like there's just not enough room in that space. So if we understand that,
it's that's not up to us, obviously, as a historic condition that worries about that stuff, so they're not. I mean, I don't know what the rules are in a historic neighborhood that's like so far behind what we do, but that wouldn't be, I mean, we don't. We sell lots all the time for new houses, and then it goes to the City Planning Department and The city we never
quite figured out our
maintenance regulation.
I think space
to build something itself so we can market
it.
I mean, what absolutely buy it's been
available. He,
yeah, I know it was taken away.
It's been available in the Detroit land bank, obviously has a lot of land. They're not made ice. So we appreciate you all coming down. But we've already asked for, I mean, we have conversations. That we've been reaching out to land bank personnel via LinkedIn to get support, because we make the phone calls and come down, we're not having these types of discussion,
just even letting us we have rules.
Thank you. Thank you.
I mean. Mentioned the guidelines for what we put into it. We were willing to purchase it.
I wish. I wish
we had recognized that. Well, for me, we couldn't. We used to remember very beginning, we had a rule that said, if you show that you were maintaining it, every time we tried to implement that rule, five people came in with pictures of themselves on right, on mowers, on that box, and we weren't no idea he has giant neighborhood brawls, in fact, that she didn't do what he did. And I did it. My uncle did it. And so we gave up that rule. We actually had it in writing, and we took it out. That's that, because everybody is right. One
question, that's what I if the city were to deem a lot not buildable to historic standards. If the city were like the historic commission came and said, because of the regulations of the offsets and whatever that they need to be, that the site was not big enough to actually build a structure on it, but that changed the designation of that space, so you could just let somebody arbitrarily find a lot in the middle. They cannot have a house. They would just hold a lot. Can I
respond to that? Also, there's nothing arbitrary about our process. So if we put it to market, because we've got other interest in the property, and it's not fair to the people that have expressed interest, that's the first thing. And given the area, we would put it to market, but understand that when we market anything, it gets reviewed internally, and then we make a recommendation to our city partners. So we had a property at 1815, Seminole. Everything about it was historic. So we had historic sitting at the table making the decision with us, because we had no business trying to determine when historic was going to trump it anyway. It's it's got to fit within, you know, all the historic guidelines. And so they were at the table with us when the recommendation and decision was made this. It's similarly, if that is this designation, we would look to historic, we would look to city planning, we would look to all of our partners to make a determination about what the highest and best use would be for the property and take it from there, we'd bring it back to the board for approval and just in an open and fair and transparent so
if the star came to the table and said that it was not large enough to build a structure on historically, then would that change?
No, we stopped the market. The market doesn't empty lot. I guess the first thing is, historic doesn't usually come in and give advisors. I mean, we're not qualified to obviously, but it's hard for me to believe you couldn't build this is not like restoring a historic only person. So people bonded that spiral trying to put in the right Windows Store it wanted. I don't know what their standards are for building a home on the street, but I don't think they have to be
seen. It would definitely, they would definitely have to be in comparison to the other properties in the right neighborhood. Build. A small looking historical, yeah, you gonna come see chicken fabrication that
they're not so area, but it's just we're not in a I know told us that, as far as we have no way of knowing
this isn't from our our own mayor, the city surveyor, who came out will be inquired about this property two years ago, said this, that there was not going to be able a home like you said that is in lockstep with the historic guidelines reflecting the homes that are in between that was reflect the homes next to the lot, and I guess for us, it was transparency. We moved here because my sister passed away, and I adopted my late sister's two children. We live in a multi generational home right now. My parents, the grandparents, are there right now. The two children are late. We're also here because her sister has stage four breast cancer. So this is a big, multi generational home that we have our whole family living in Paris. What
would you do with a lot of extra hold on
our do what we're doing right now, having the family care for it and like care, we care for it with dignity. I mean, I'm sure you can see, based on the photos the tree removal, if we're not just doing this, paying services, this is me and the children laborers in these are together.
So, I mean, I respect all that. I just can't quite figure out. I mean, we have, we have this obligation to be fair and even handed with everybody in the city. And believe me, as you know, anytime we step one iota off the edge of our absolute rules are on the website, hear from people like him, scary people, you know. So that's why we're I don't actually know what we would do with an opinion. Just ask
one other question. So okay, so. I'm we need the historical opinion of this. But two, if you market it, and she put it on the site or market it, how long would that marketing period be? And then if it didn't sell, then that period of time, because it's already been marketed before, yes, and there's already been inquiries about it, and it has sold. So how long would that period of time be? And then what would happen after just right now, it
does still vary, and that's that's what how we feel. And I understand that your process is to protect, fair and even and try to get the market value and all of those things. But this has been going for quite some time, and we've been talking to the land Bay for two and a half years. I'm sure there are exceptions. I would just really explore, like, what is good for this? Our presence has truly lifted the property value of this lot of our neighborhood, our streets. So actually exams,
where we have it for people's thoughts you don't understand. People know the number of angler, and there's a reason we're meeting our lot in our bill, because we had some, because people were so hot.
So yeah, bulls exist,
sure that as well. I hear you,
and I think I really feel like we need to market
it, so
I guess I'm okay with I mean, I hear that from the exception piece, so I understand the rules. So I'm just saying, so if this property, which has been marketed before, it never sold. It has been out there to purchase.
I don't think so. I don't think well, there's a difference between active remarketing.
We get
inquiry marketing, so the world knows
and say, but that's how long would that process be, and
what was the deadline of that at that point, if it doesn't sell, then what happens?
So the minimum number of days, or the minimum time to put something on the market park policy, is 30 days. Wait. Is that right? 30 or 21 something like that. 21 and 30 days, we typically leave it on the market a little bit longer and and then we've had stuff that stayed on the market for two years until we get responses enough to be able to make decision on what we do with the property. So
Richard, I think you're familiar with this. Yes. So any comments? So
my my understanding is that this is all occurred after, you know, we really put it out there, just how big of a deal it is. Lots of property goes past the the what is it? $2,500 value, such that it becomes a market. It's, this is happening all over the city. And so it's and so, so this entire event occurred after that policy. And one of the things we had for being sure that, since this kind of put on blast, how they gonna do because as as neighborhoods, and some neighborhoods pop way more, you know, and percentage wise, the insurance for us, right? And so, because it only went down so far and such that you really have people going from, you know, potentially $100 lot to a $30,000 lot in North theater, or something along those lines. And so making sure that that we made this very clear, because it's such an issue of saying what is in the best public good, making sure that we're able to absorb the cost of things like the buyback program and, you know, just getting people back there foreclosed houses and and, and, you know, only need so much money from the city. So because we operate at only based upon how much we could get from the city to keep operating, then we're expected to manage the funds very efficiently. And this is one of those things where, where we were specifically trying to avoid having a scenario where we were offering something that was, you know, 100 times the value for this $100 it was to get in in those early days and for side lots, not build up a lot. So, you know, I completely understand it was just well past the time that we set this policy up to address this specific problem.
I think our position has been that we are willing to pay a fair. Equitable price for the sidewalk. But I think when we start talking about, like, $30,000 given the amount of
labor that we have put into it, it just, I think, yeah,
and I think we spent longer on this one issue than we ever have on any issue in any board, and we're trying to understand, but not I mean, I think, I don't think we should hold up marketing.
So I hear you, guess I'm just asking for so if you market it for 30 days, it doesn't sell. Usually we market separate changes. She said that they the normal is 30 days, but they have the minimum
is 30 days per policy. And then we have left things out of the market until it's special.
Discovered that we thank
you for
coming in, guys,
enjoying a great job. I
wish we had talked earlier before you started
making friends. Reach everybody just trying to get I'm sure we're not the first people that say to contact the land bank. As you see how prepared we are, we're not opposed to contacting, reaching out all of that, it's it's been a bureaucracy.
We're working hard to we're working hard to try to improve that. And you're right. We haven't come back from COVID as much as we need to, and I think everybody knows that we're working on it. But thank you for coming in. I appreciate it nice to see you. Did we have any other thanks? Number
online.
Slappy,
if you can unmute,
Hello, yes,
we can hear you.
I can thank you. I was here at the board meeting last month, September 24 and you gave a name, John, and I didn't get the last name. You said he'd be contacting me, but he never contact
and can you tell us an address or something so we can sure
yes, it was 1438, canton street, Detroit, Michigan, 48307,
what was the name of the street again,
Hampton? C a n t o n, yeah. C a n t o n, and the application ID is a, k, T, E, B, T, yeah. And you said, John, and I didn't get the name, and you say he'll be contacting me, but he never contacted us. And then this last week, on Wednesday, the 16th of October, I spoke with Amanda Watts, and she said she will return call. I spoke with her directly, and she never returned a call.
But you do me a favor and tell us, right, because are you buying a side lot, or what is it you're seeking to do? Yes,
it's a it's a project, and it's really a side lot to our sideline. And we were working with I split the name the last time, S t, e n, n, e, t, t, and that person was very difficult to work with, and so that's why I came to the board meeting. You know, I was here last month. That's right,
remember, I'm sorry, ma'am, I forgot. Okay,
so, and then it was for project. I know you mentioned that, okay, project takes longer, costs more. You know, that's no problem. But on 60,
this was for your son, right? Yeah, yeah, this for my son. Okay. Now I'm remembering a little slow today, but I remember now.
Thank you,
Donna. Did you find out about that? Yes,
if I recall, I did speak with Martina and with Senate, about the dialog between you and Senate, which I don't think was appropriate, and so I believe Senate was still waiting on some information from you, but I'm going to have Martina and I Martinez, the manager who oversees the project applications, So Martina and I will reach out to you to follow up, but there were some outstanding documents that were still requested. I think it was your son who would apply. Maybe
you check in with your son and see what documents they asked for faster we can move. Okay, this
then it sent on an 18. He said, Any
Oh,
said it Anita. We sent in a credit card. We always pay with a credit card. And then that person sitting said, Oh, that's a line of credit. So I'm like, Okay, we always pay with a credit card. So that wasn't a problem. I just it's hard working with people. You know, it's hard to work with. So that's why, when I spoke to Amanda Watts, I said, can it be somebody else you can't get anywhere with, somebody who's not you know, able to work with you?
But there's no problem if they if they want his
man. There's a very difference of opinion about Stan and on the board chair. I know him. I've talked to any number of other people who dealt with him, who said he's the best there is. So there is obviously a personal clash between the two of you, and I'm sorry about that, but it's interesting that he worked very well with everyone else, Martina and John, oh, are his bosses, and so they're willing to work with you, provided you get us the information that we need. So you could talk to your son, find out about the information, and then get it by email to send it, since that's your contact, but Martina and John, oh is two levels above him, will be involved,
okay, and what? How do you spell John's last name? Because I call Martina a lot, and that person is not returning a call Martina
orange like the fruit and John Oh, J A N, O, Anna like H, A N, N, A and
what is John's telephone number.
John O is a big boss over all the sales Martina supervises the whole big area, including Senate. But I think you're making a mistake about Senate, because he's a great guy.
Yes,
can I just step in for one second? Erica, just to address
this is Martina. Ma'am. Hi, hi. I
spoke with you before. Yes,
yes, you did, and steno did reach out to you last week. We have almost all the information that we need from you, but he has stated that he needs from you proof of funds. We can talk offline, but he did contact you last week, so we have spoken to you recently as within the last three days, but we can speak offline to let you know what types of proof of funds that we can receive from you, but once we get all that information, is when we can then move forward in processing your application. So it's been noted on your application. I just talked with Stena. He's actually out sick today, but he did chime in to let me know that he did contact you. Last week he and I were talking about your application specifically because I did get your call. So we have acknowledged your telephone calls, and thank you so much for giving us a call. We are actively working on your son's application. There's just one outstanding item that we still need from you. And so if you're not very clear on what we need to get as a proof of funds to purchase the property, we can talk with you offline to let you know that, okay,
I call you after two today.
That fair. We can give you a call tomorrow. I'm actually in meetings this afternoon, and standing is out sick today, so if you can give us till tomorrow, close the business to get that information. We'll just let you know what we can accept. I believe Stan has shared that with you, but we can share that with you again, but we are actively working on your application. Perfect. Thank
you. Oh, no
problem. Thank you for calling in.
Thank you very much for chiming in. Really appreciate it.
Oh, no problem.
Thank you. Okay, Adela, any
other members of the public that would like to speak for public comment, please raise your virtual hand.
I do not see any hands.
Okay, that brings us to me CEO report, and
my presentation will be the audit presentation from George C Johnson, so I'm gonna let them take over.
Good morning.
And I'm going to pop up on the screen a copy of a summary, a wrap up package. Can everyone see that? Okay, I'll take that as a yes. So here's an outline of what we're going to cover. And so we have substantially completed the audit of the dlba financial statements for the year ended June 30, 2024 we conducted the odd in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards as well as government auditing standards. And we do expect to issue an unmodified, or what's often referred to as a clean opinion on those statements. Our objective was to obtain reasonable, although not absolute, assurance about whether the financial statements are free from material misstatement. We say that because of the course of conducting an audit, we don't look at every transaction, but we utilize risk assessment, sampling and understanding of internal controls to focus our audit efforts. We'll talk a little more about that when we get to the next slide. Our scope was the same as described both in our engagement letter and the audit plan summary that we provide to management before the start of the audit, the resident information we requested were available for us to look at, and we did receive full cooperation from management. On this slide, we summarize some of the key audit areas that we focus our efforts on. So included the organization's revenue and its related accounts receivable, its expenses and the related accounts payable, the payroll and related liabilities and also the property held for resale over its inventory. Next couple sites, we go through certain matters that were required to discuss briefly with the board under professional standards, noting the financial statements contains the significant accounting policies and practices used by the dlba, there are no estimates or disclosures contained in the financial statements that we consider to be significantly sensitive. There are no changes in accounting principles adopted during the year. I'm pleased to say that there were no material misstatements that we identified in the course of doing the audit, and there were no unrecorded misstatements. We're not aware of any consultations that management had on any accounting or auditing matters with other independent public accountants. Nor are we aware of any situations where management reach out to other independent public accountants to get an opinion on how to apply generally accepted accounting principles any particular type of transaction. There were no major issues that we discussed with management before we were retained to perform the audit. There are no significant issues or difficulties that occurred during the audit. Upon approval of the draft financial statements by the board, we'll perform our wrap up procedures to bring our procedures up to date in real time, and then we'll get a representation letter from management before you should assign audit report. And there's no discussion we have mentioned concerning any alternative methods of accounting for any types of unusual transactions. The next few slides go through a summary of the financial results as of and for the years ended June 30, 2024 and 2023 and to walk you through those, I'll turn it over to the principal and our engagement. Laurie Zhao, thank
you, Mike. I'm going to start with the page that shows you the summary of the total asset held by dlba for the year ended June 30, 2024 versus a year ago. As you can see, the total asset has been pretty consistent, only with a slight decrease by about point 3 million, and that includes a swapping change in cash and the investment. The cash decreased by about 10 point 2 million in 2024 and the investment increased by 13 point 7 million, and this is because the cash was used to acquire new investments in the current year. And then the total accounts receivable also had a slight decrease by about 3.2 million due to the receipt of the city funding receivable from the prior year. And then the property for sale, for resale, has been quite consistent, with only about point 6 million decrease in 2024 and next page, we're looking at the summary of the net position, which is the total asset net of total liability. And that is showing a slight increase by the end of june 30, 2024 which shows 1.8 million increase, and that's entirely in the portion that is unrestricted. And that increase is due to the net income in the year, in the fiscal year ended June, 30, 2024 and there is not change in the donor restricted net asset. And then we'll look at the revenue comparison for the two years, the total revenue has a increase for about 2 million where the grant income increased 2.8 million as dlba received some new grants in the current year, including the ones from Quicken Kresge and also the Citizens Bank, as compared to the prior year, the sales, which includes structure and side lot sales, and that's that of loss, had a decrease by about 1.5 million in 2024 that's because of both decrease in the sidewalk sale and also the. Increase in the discounts that were given, such as the city employees discount, education, educators discount and so forth. So the net result is a decrease for 1.5 million. The other revenue that is the yellow right. Yellow portion has an increase by about 500,000 and that's mostly due to the investment income in 2024 because there's more investments that was acquired in the current year. And then next we'll look at expenses. The Total Expense also has an increase for approximately 2.1 million in 2024 the demolition expense, which is a very small portion in 2024 compared to the prior year, it went down by 2.4 4 million, and that's mostly because the prior year demolition expense included a litigation settlement that was paid out, And that settlement didn't occur in 2024 the acquisition and the maintenance, that's the gray portion has a total increase for 1.5 million, and that's driven by similar increase in the property acquisition. In the current year, the compensation has a moderate increase by about 600,000 and other revenue has a 2.4 million increase in 2024 the other increase, the other expense increase, is mostly due to a 2.2 million bad debt expense that was posted in the current year, and that is related to the city's receivable That was deemed unlikely or likely to be uncollectible, and that's related to the admin fee associated with the demolition program. All right, so that's a very high level overview comparison of the financial results for the two years. Is there any question at this point? No. All right, as Mike mentioned, as part of the audit, we did look into the internal control at the dlba, we didn't identify any material weakness or significant control deficiency that we need to bring to your attention. And and with the approval of the draft, we will work on subsequent procedures that are required before issue the audit report. And for that part, we will work with Reginald and his team.
Yeah, thank you,
Gloria and Michael again, as always, just
just a few comments, kind of, I don't want to go back and redo their report, but just a couple things to identify. When they were talking of the city of Detroit, the bad debt write off that was it's been on our books for five years since the conclusion of the demolition program. And the as she was saying, the amount of it is based on an admin fee versus something that was like an actual check that the dlba cut to a vendor. So the city has kind of taken a position that for those fees, they are not going to reimburse us, and that was the $2.2 million that was talked about. So I just want to provide a little bit more clarity to that those, those over 25 funds,
that's it. That's the case. If a house cost more than 25,000 panel to demolish. The city said, go ahead and demolish it, but we'll cover everything above 25 now. They said, well, we'll cover everything about 25 except your internal costs. So they anything. We wrote a check for the over 25 we got it first, paid everything over 25 then they stopped. We haven't gotten anywhere getting them to give us the rest of the money that they had promised. So eventually you have to write it off. And so that should ring a bell Richard and that particularly, that's
why I want to just highlight that under other expenses. It jumped up by 2 million because we had to book that as an expense this year. But unfortunately, so I know so I appreciate the board allowing us to move forward with moving cash that we did not utilize, that we are not utilized in the current period to investment accounts. We continue to do that, and it's had a significant return on the investment. So we will review our cash flow now for this year, and we will look at doing the same thing, doing three, six and nine month investments to maximize the you know, the investment income, right? And that concludes the article. There aren't any additional questions.
Thank. To any other questions for the board, did you want an executive session with just board members?
You know that would? That would be, of course, a question, you know, for the board to decide they would like to have an executive session with us.
I'm looking at the board members. I personally don't have anything that I would report an Executive Session. They wanted to raise it because that's the appropriate thing to do. We're all good. We are happy to say that we have nothing to share with you. Okay, all right, anything else you need from us today?
We're good, if the board is good. Yes,
we are good. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you very
much so that he did meet the board to adopt the draft, so that they can do the subsequent so I think we have to accept the draft.
Oh, okay. But because we accept the final
Yes, we will, as a like I, once they send it over, then we just submit it to the board. For, you know, we've done in the past for information. Okay, submission. So
do you mean the approval is today. Today seems a little odd because they didn't give us the report. They just gave us. So
the it's, it's in draft format, until they complete reports, because the subsequent information allows them to just add their back with the financial information. Okay,
so this is what we're approving today. Yes, the draft financial reports, yes, didn't, didn't go to too many Finance and Audit. Reviewed it more carefully. I'm not, no, I mean, at least at other boards that I'm on, the draft goes to Finance and Audit, you guys review it more carefully, and they make a presentation to the board, then we approve draft, and then when it comes back in finals, it's pretty for pro forma, by then, it's already been studied. So I'm a little I mean, having been handed it yesterday makes me a little nervous, because you guys haven't seen it before, either,
right? But I think we have time in between, right? We find something weird that we don't like. We can. We can. What
I'm hesitating about is whether we should approve this now
or wait until what are the consequences of wait until next month?
I know that they just need to acknowledge it being received so we can do subsequent information. But I know as long as it's submitted in the month of November, I believe like the actual deadline would take like September 15, so I think we'll be fine. I can double check the the draft was set. But then we waited as long as we could to hear back from the city, didn't hear back to the city issue, and that's why the actual draft so I in our committee meeting, I discussed it Erica, I'm
looking through my notes here. Actually brought the audited financial statements for a vote in November of last year. And sounds right. The good news, depending on who you ask, is due to the Thanksgiving holiday. The November board meeting has actually moved up quite a bit. It's only about 21 days away. So
I would feel better if Richard and Carol actually physically had a chance to look at this and ask me with Roger and ask questions, because I kind of rely on that, since finance is definitely not my area,
you were a counselor of the deal. Let's say and so with the permission of Reginald, you in particular, I'd like to say that looks good for now, Dick. Go ahead and you know, but I don't want to adopt anything that blesses it before we sort of are ready that. Okay. Okay, thanks. Moving on. Great success. That means we have have our incredibly few number of resolutions today, except I guess I'm already behind. Okay, the first resolution approves the option to purchase and develop agreement to maintain property from your child. You
Good morning.
Morning.
Good morning. Thank you again for jumping in before.
No No problem. Should I go ahead and represent this? Or should I ask. If there are any questions about it.
Pleasure of the board. You guys all had it in committee right? Then I think just ask if there any questions, okay,
or are there any questions about this?
No deal.
Okay, thank you.
But I have a motion on premier tiles work All in favor, opposed Hearing none the premier, top project is approved is the or property to the city of Detroit for solar. I don't know if Doug is on.
Hi, Doug. It should be Good morning. Hello, everybody. I know we talked about this in committees, the resolution here is to transfer three parcels of vacant land to the city so that the city can use those parcels in exchange for some land that they need from private owners in that solar footprint that we all talked about in August. We did our best in August to try to draft a resolution that would have covered any possibilities of land that would be needed for this project, the Solar Initiative. But we missed there through further negotiations, these three parcels that are just south of seven mile were not included. So we need to do this separate resolution now, just for these three lonely parcels, my
version is not that we missed. I don't
want I mean, no, no, no, we didn't. No, no, it was. It was negotiations that occurred after the resolution, not by us, but no,
no, yes,
I guess it's also another way to say, I can't promise I won't be back in a month,
just so it's not another special meeting. No, please. No, maybe on Christmas Eve or something. All right, any questions for Doug, no, okay, could I have a motion on the additional solar property? So moved support. All in favor. All opposed Hearing none the resolution carries. Good luck. Doug. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Solar point one, solar point two, solar point 73 next is the adopting encroached upon property policy. Yes, this is a good idea. Thank you so much. Erica,
I think this is a very niche sales policy to help us sell about 50 portions of structures where we own someone's sunroom, attached garage, etc, for a fixed fee.
Is a fixed fee of $50 or something $250 Oh, good. Reginald,
got to buy your
bathroom.
I can take no credit. This is all dogs handiwork, but I think the concepts great. We worked on it with the Jono team, very, very closely. And I think this is a really effective tool for this small but problematic group of properties. And
we've done some one offs like so I think it's great that we need a policy. Does keep happening. So any questions, hearing, none. Can I have a motion so moved. What All in favor? Opposed Hearing none the encroached upon property policy is adopted. Next up is a question,
very quick, is this some kind of way that when a person purchases purchase a home and they have a lot and they buy it, if they are required to combine those vessels, so that way it doesn't happen like that anymore. Just quit.
That is not typically part of our sales process. However, we have made a part of this sale process given the complicated nature of a structure on multiple parcels. But, you know, I think we are looking at ways to encourage our buyers to do the partial combination. But candidly, I don't know city has the bandwidth to do all those partial combinations given the scale our sales. So we're trying to do sort of, you know, encouragements and education rather than a hard best rule.
So my people lose
their properties, lose the lots due to not being together, because if that, if I go to a closing, I think I'm closing on one parcel, right? And not two and
three not paying taxes on you, yeah, at the very beginning, we talked about combined before we sold, and some people didn't want it, so that didn't and then we talked about after the fact, asking them if they wanted to pay us to do the combination for them, and nobody wanted to pay us. And at some point, we gave up. I mean, we tell them to make it clear that it's two. Most people tend to buy the house and then later on the side lot, so they're very much aware that there are two. And you. Know. That's
the only way they normally know, because I know my mom purchased the home an investment property. And of course, she did not know that the lot was totally separate because the garage was sitting on the lot. She didn't know the lot was totally separate from the house. But did she buy us from us? No, she bought it from a wayne county tax,
yeah, and they don't, you know, it's an ongoing problem. I mean, some if somebody, before they gave it to us, like Wayne County, would combine them. It seems to be an almost insurmountable problem getting those lack combinations done in any efficient way without no end to hassle, because that's the assessor's office. Which is a problem as well. Now, Adam, you're right. In principle, you're absolutely right, but we tried a couple ways and failed. But I think we try very hard, though, when people do buy a lot in the sidelines, remind them that combination would be a good thing for them to resell it, for them to pay their taxes. I
mean, I think that's part of the briefing. It's mainly to keep them from losing it, because you could, you could easily forget, or if you become ill, and your family members, you know, pick up the swaggers taking care of the situation. They don't know it's two parcels that they have to pay on. They only know it's the home, and sometimes they may pay the small the smaller parcel, which is the lot, and not paying on the home, and lose the home. And now they got a lot
but, but they do get noticing that
to the side, lots coming back to us. Now,
they do get notices. And maybe, I honestly don't know what else we can do, because
we offer that combination for a fee to anyone or just to our house, just our houses.
I think we've talked for years about renting our services. You will recall there were some rented a great controversy when we first took over the board for that that didn't go really well, pretty
process, maybe
I should market myself to do that
great service to humanity and make sure I
have had as I had to do it for some of my commercial clients, sure, Combining it or splitting it, sure. No, it is. You
know what you're doing, yeah. Okay, the resolution adopting amendments to the structure, sales balance,
have you applied for changes in the structure? Sale policies basically have to do with candidates for demolition, and people are buying them without the money to pick some up and meet by definition, if they're on the down the list, they're in much worse shape even our other variable houses. So the idea of adding a requirement that people have money for these, just for these, I think it's very wise, because otherwise they continue to sit there and deteriorate, and they were on the demo list. So demo polls is what this applies to. So anybody have any questions or comments on that? None can I have a motion the move support, all in favor. Opposed. Hearing none this amendment to the structure sales policy passes next is conveying property of the city of Detroit. Routine inventory management. That's you. Robbie, yes,
Erica, this is the latest chapter in our sort of, you know, quarterly roughly, process to exchange properties back and forth with the city. We're still finding properties that they've not know that they owned, and they still have deals they want our land for it. So it's kind of an ongoing process of sorting. But this chapter includes 14 properties headed to the city and 72 properties headed to the land bank. I'm excited to say, this includes a number of vacant homes that we would take from the city, that we discovered through our ongoing surveying efforts, that the city was unaware that they owned. So this is a way for us to really do some wonderful cleanup for the say, for our neighborhoods, and address the of these, you know, very, very problem.
So attribute the tribute to how much better our sales force system has been followed for long term city property, and that's it. That's a great service now that says, All right, any questions for Robbie about the routine back and forth? Can I have a motion please support. All in favor, say, Aye. All opposed. Hearing none the routine inventory management virtually month for resolution, and finally, is the agreement for the purchase and sale with the DHC.
I. Give you just a brief background. Erica, this is a land swap with DHC. They have a project to expand the Smith homes on the west side of the city, and need some of our vacant lot for making land in that area. They, at the same time, maintain an inventory of kind of scattered vacant properties throughout the city that we'd love to acquire to make available to residents through our programming, and so we are asking the Board to approve a land swap, to swap 38 properties to the DHC and accept 31 from them. This is a slight tweak from what we took to the board last week, because we had to strike one property headed to the city and one property from them, because we found a home occupied. We want to work with the
I think this is a great step forward. I think many of you knew Arthur Jennison when he was in town, and thank God he has come back, because who knows what Richard gave him. We don't want, we don't, to take over the DHC, and they have a lot of property, just isn't going anywhere, and we can do something with so I think it's a real service to them, and they're working on the project. I think this is very exciting. I hope it's the first of many
me too, and so, do I recuse? Or do you do? Okay? You recuse. Don't vote
any questions on the DHC deal, okay, hearing none. Could I have a motion from somebody other than Richard? Thank you. All in favor. Opposed Hearing none with a recusal by Richard for the minutes, and that's the DHC deal is approved. I do not walk on a walk up, yes,
let me first apologize because we did not brief this for committees, but we, I don't know how this has gone this way for so long, it occurred to leadership that we do not have a discount for veterans. And we don't know how we've gone this long without one, but we'd like to implement one. It would very much mirror our educator discount like almost word, but word, except it's for veterans. We've done the research to understand how they would verify their status as a veteran, but we'd like to extend our discount to veterans. And I know it didn't brief you, but the time sensitive nature of it is because Veterans Day is before our next board meeting, and so we wouldn't be able to socialize and then bring it to you next.
That's a great idea.
I don't you guys should have to veterans
that
were helping
everybody wanted to did we do that? Okay, well, we
were waiting for this long middle time,
right? Planning.
All right, so we just want to, you know, get the board's blessing on implementing that, that discount adopting that file. Yes.
So would Someone move that we adapt to policy? Thank you. Or All in favor opposed hearing none. We have a veterans policy. Thank you, Tammy, wow. I can't believe you didn't have one second. Now, that's awful. I am advised by our general counsel that there is no need for a closed session, so I would take a motion to adjourn.
