They still haven't come through yet, ma'am, they're probably large this. It's
okay. It's not your fault. It's the internet. It Ain't you recording in progress.
I
think that's the
my police officer sit on there. Yeah,
good
evening, ladies and gentlemen, it's my pleasure to welcome you to the regular schedule. I'm sorry the Highland Park City Council in person and virtual regular meeting scheduled for today, october 21 at 7pm for our opening ceremonies, we are blessed once again to be welcoming new members into the Highland Park Police Community. It is my pleasure to turn the floor over to Officer Monroe and also to our clerk to preside over the swearing in ceremony of Highland Park's newest officer, sir, what was yours?
Good evening to the honorable body. And this is Highland Park officer, chief's office. Chief senses. Regards to you all, yet emergency very last year to but I present to you all today candidate Brian Browder, who's coming to the police department. We're grateful to have him. We're grateful to have him. He's a Highland Park resident. He is the epitome of perseverance. He went through some days, you know, get injured in the academy with the subject, stuck with us, and he satisfied all the requirements for Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement today. He's one hold on.
One second, um, can I can I get you to do something I cannot see you in the camera, so I want you to if you want you guys, don't mind moving to the podium that way we can see you both. Yes, sir, we want you to be to show this to your family. Can
you see him? You going to get on my nerves, because imma ask you to switch sides. You want me to switch I want his smiling face to be around that camera. Raise
your right hand. Repeat after me. I repeat your name. I Brian Browder, do solemnly affirm, do solemnly affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States, that I will support the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of Michigan, the Constitution of the State of Michigan, and the Highland Park City charter and the Highland Park City Charter. And I will discharge the duties, and I will discharge the duties as a police officer for the city of Highland Park, as a police officer of the city of Highland Park according to the best of my ability, according to the best of my ability, congratulations. Thank you. Very
much, sir, thank you very much. Thank you and thank you everybody. You
which you'll see when you go home and watch that tape, because I made sure that there was a video of you and your mother behind you, videotaping you at the same time. Y'all all in the picture. Okay, thank you. Miss Preston. Alright. Appreciate congratulations. Thank you. Think, okay,
Madam Deputy Clerk, if you'll be so kind enough to call the roll for tonight's meeting. Councilman and Shafi house. Council. Councilman Shafi present. Councilwoman Martin here, Councilwoman Manica here. Council Pro Tem Robinson, Council President Thomas here. Thank you very much. Moving on to Item three, we're looking at the approval of the agenda. City council. What's your pleasure on this item?
Good evening. I'm moving to approve the approval of the agenda.
For Monday, October 21
support. We have a motion to approve the agenda for tonight, made by Councilman Manica. Support is offered by Councilwoman Martin. I see no hands, no questions, no concern. Would you go ahead and take the role on approval of the agenda? Councilman Shafi, yes, Councilwoman Martin Yes, Councilwoman Manica Yes. Council Pro Tem Robinson Yes. Council
President Thomas Yes. Motion carries moving on to the approval of the minutes we have the in person and virtual workshop meeting held on October 7, 2024 City Council. What is your pleasure on these the minutes for that I move to approve the proposed minutes
in person and virtual workshop meeting held October 7. 2024 support, no support from Councilwoman Martin. The motion is made by Councilman Manica to approve the workshop and virtual the workshop virtual in person meeting held for October 7. Madam Deputy Clerk, would you please call the roll? Councilman Shafi Yes, Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman Manica Yes. Council Pro Tem Robinson Yes. Council President Thomas Yes. Motion carries. The next is for the in person and virtual regular meeting held on October 7 for the 2024 City Council. What is your pleasure
for the in person and virtual regular meeting held October 7? 2024
support. My Motion is made by Councilman Manica to approve the virtual regular in person meeting held on October 7. Support is offered by Councilwoman Martin, if you go ahead and call the roll on this item now, Councilman Shafi
Yes. Councilwoman Martin, yes. Councilwoman Manica Yes. Council Pro Tem Robinson No. Council President Thomas, Yes. Motion carries, moving on to the corrected in person and virtual, regular meeting minutes held on October 16, 2024 Council. I'm going to give you a minute because there was a criteria that needed to be met for these minutes to come back. Want to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to look at those. And then when you're ready, you want to entertain A Motion for approval. The chair is open. You
I'm doing a motion, yes, ma'am. But I want yeah. I wanted to make sure that there was a criteria for this to be met.
Yeah. A motion on the floor from Councilman shaffy to approve the corrected in person or virtual regular meeting minutes for the meeting held on September 16, 2024 do we have support? Hope? I heard a voice Miss Manica offers us support. She go ahead and call the rule the role on the corrected in person and virtual regular meeting minutes. Councilman Shafi Yes, for corrections. Councilwoman Martin Yes, Councilwoman Manica, yes. Council Pro Tem Robinson Council President Thomas Yes. Motion carries, ladies and gentlemen, this is the portion of the program that we turn over to the Mayor's Office for every meeting to allow our opportunity to address the public, Madam Mayor, if you'll be kind enough to join us,
thank you, honorable body to the citizens of Highland Park, Council and Administration. I'm going to take my time to honor someone, if she's here, is Miss cotton here. Miss cotton served in Vietnam, and she was not able to get her pen when we did the pinning ceremony at Soul Harvest ministries. And so I asked her to come in, and I was going to utilize my time to make sure that she receives her just award. You You
talk as loud as I can. Have oral surgery so my mom, so Vietnam, mattress lapel pin. This is why you present purpose to recognize, thank and honor United States military veterans who served during the Vietnam War, Living United who's eligible Living United States veterans who served on active duty in the US armed forces at any time during the period of November 1, 1955 to May 15, 1975 regardless of locations, are eligible to receive one these lapel pins will be presented in dignified matters to each Vietnam veteran doing public events held in their communities by commemorative partners according accompanying Remarks should reflect the nations thanks for their service and sacrifice, and in their instance, when an honorary cannot attend a public event, Japan may be presented when a private This is considered the private ceremony because she was not able to be able to come to the you know. So the symbolism the eagle, the eagle represents, purge, iron dedication service to the nation as one of the most recognizable and notable American symbols, it is embolized with distinction on numerous military insignia, the blue circle and on this pin, that's what's on here. It looks like this. I don't know if you can see it
all. Okay, so the blue circle, the color blue matches the Canton of the American flag and signifies neglect, perseverance and justice. The circle shape and blue color also match the official seal of the commemorations, the wreath, the time honored symbol representing victory, integrity and strength. Strikes. The strike behind the eagle represents the American flag. The stars represent six allies who serve sacrifice and fought alongside aside one another, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Highland and the United States. Message a grateful nation, thanks and honor to you. It's a voice on the back, close, close to the heart of the will. Also the official name of collaboration is included in mind each veteran that this is the national, national initiative, and the this lapel pin is the nation's lasting momentum of thanks for returning home. Safe
House, please stand is
presented
to you from the state of Michigan. And because you ceremony, you want to make sure that you receive your pen. As most of you know, Vietnam veterans was not welcome home properly. They did not receive all of the accolades that they should have was when they came home. And this is a way to iron. So this is your pen.
Try to get it.
Marcus,
Joe. I'm waiting to get in touch with him, and as soon as that happened, I'll be able to get him his feet. Thank you for your time, Council. I appreciate that. Thank you very much.
This, else. Get my timer here. Okay, so ladies and gentlemen, this is the portion of the program that we reserve for citizens participation,
for agenda item. And for those of you have the agenda in front of you. We have items of the administration approval of the cdacs under community development. We have We brought the solo
ordinance, the solar zoning ordinance, back to us, the resolution to issue an RFI to seek information regarding potential demolition of large structures under recreation. We have two items receiving a gift from, say, Detroit, a resolution to issue an RFP for the spark grant, professional construction management services. Resolution to accept the Detroit area on agency grant, and then an outside communication from the prayer temple of love. Do we have people that want to come and speak? Please come up to the podium, and I will let you say your name, ma'am, and then I will start the time. Hello, everyone. The name is Miss fry. I got a nice new podium. Alright, um, what is RFI? RFI mean? Resolution for each RFI request for information, and that's the demolition for the Highland towers.
If we our this is just a thought, if the money is just for the Highland towers, and you use it for that, but there are so many in the inner city of a community that needs demo demolition, and I'm thinking, whoever purchased that land, they should demo. You know, it just depends on how to go, but we have to look at the what's happening in the community, because it's, it's for safety reasons and all that. And you've been living next to a building for so long that needs to be general on that list. So in
the seniors, what would that grant be used for? And how would it be
Thank you, ma'am. We I see a lot of people taking notes so people may try to answer those questions for you. All right. My name is Gracie
Wooten, 249 Eastern Street. And for the Agenda Item number seven regarding the solar ordinance, you know, really in support of that being adopted, you know, that resolution, you know. And I just wanted to just talk a little bit about, you know, in my two minutes about like the history of getting to this point, about two years ago, there was a community collaboration between the city of Highland Park and Different organizations solidarity being in the league, but other organizations supporting the that particular collaboration, which was called communities lead and What? What? What that was about. The Department of Energy actually gave Highland Park $500,000
in trying to help them in technical support that they needed in order to get things done, you know, around progressive ideas like solar And MCA worked on updating the engineering manual. And also what happened was this solar ordinance was, you know, worked out, um, I remember Eric, who's part of MCA, worked on that. And also Raphael was very involved. He was a member, he's a member of solidarity. And a lot of hard work went into that when this solar ordinance has to be adopted, you know, we need a solar ordinance. You know the community development. You know, community and economic development, what they did at the invitation of the Department of Energy, they were able to apply for a grant because of the fact that all that effort went into communities leap, it put Highland Park in a real good position to be awarded other grants from the state and federal government. So that particular grant that's see site grant, which is tied to the this side, this the support or getting through with a solar ordinance. You know, what we're risking is like $2.5 million that the city can have, you know, to actually do some work in solar and, you know, there are other communities all over the country. I was so proud of Highland Park, and Highland Park didn't I didn't hear this from Highland Park. I saw this on the Department of engineer, Department of Energy's website. They said, Congratulations to about 12 communities out of 100 that were awarded this C site grant. And I said, oh my goodness, because I didn't know that Highland Park had even Well, yeah, I did. I knew that they had applied for because back in the spring, that's when the council supported community development in applying for the grant. So I was so glad. And I said, dang, we need to be, you know, trumpeting, you know, like, really, you know, shouting out the fact that we actually won something, you know, that we are moving forward. So I just, you know, like I said, I'm very in support of us getting the solo ordinance, because we need this, you know, we need the progress, and, you know, the things that this can actually do for us. So I, you know, that's what I wanted to say. And I know I'm not even up here talking about how you know Hamilton needs to be lit. But this particular grant, remember, includes other things that can happen, other than solar lights. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am.
Any more citizens like to be heard from seeing
Oh, are you coming up? Good
evening. Good evening. Ma'am. My name is Michelle Jones, seven, six, Colorado Street. I am also trumpeting Miss Gracie um. Highland Park needs to come out of the dark, but we have an opportunity to do so in a way that will be a global model to other cities our size. That's what they can do. We have the resources we've got backing and it's time for us to move forward into the light. Okay, um, the world is watching. Detroit is watching. Michigan is watching. Let's show them that Highland Park comes together, not just the residents, but the residents. And the governing body comes together and says, Hey, we are here, and we're going to let you see us. And we can do this, if we will work together to support the ordinance being done whatever needs to be done. I'm not a technical person. I'm just a resident. I will be honest. Okay, I don't understand all the tech now, technicalities, but I do understand that I want to see my street lit up. I do understand that I want to see my children, my grandchildren, be able to play out in front of the house and not constantly looking I do want to see us in a position where we're not dependent on someone else. When an outage happens, my street gets pitch black. In an outage, that corner, the only thing you see if you turn your phone on is the stop sign, and that's very dangerous. We have an opportunity to light up Highland Park, not only with street lights, but with all the means necessary to push us forward into the future. Let's take advantage of it. Let's work together, and let's show the world who we can do. I
8081, Florence. My name is Sheron cotton. I live at 81 Florence in Highland Park, been a residence in 64 and my thing is for Florence street, I need to get some signs up there for these people to slow down when they come off of woodwork. And those stop signs, they just run them like crazy. Now, one of them of second, and my street was down, I made one and put it up and put lights on it and called the police department and told them, two days lady, maybe a day later, I had a sign up there, you know. And I just, you know, because our blocks from Puritan we do have kids now, you know, kids are moving in the neighborhood, and I'm telling you, the people are flying up and down the street like crazy. I need some signs. I'll put the lights up. I don't care as long as my street. I asked for the little roll things, but they said no, because the police, the fire department, all that have to be able to come down that street to get to other streets that don't go all the way, understandable, but that speed coming up, that's a no no.
Thank you.
Okay, seeing no more bodies move towards the podium, I would thank you all for your input, and we'll move on to item six under community development. That is a resolution. I'm sorry We're on Item five under the Administration resolution to fill the vacancies for the citizens district Advisory Council, CDAC and the city of Highland Park. Let me move over to that.
Whereas, in accordance with section 7181, of the city of Highland Park chart, the city of Highland Park show, establish cdacs to meet with residents in their prospective districts and discuss ideas pertinent to those neighborhoods, to share ideas among various cdacs and with the city officials to promote a more efficient and enjoyable city. And whereas the city of Highland Park adopted the CDAC ordinance October 5 of 2020, and whereas there shall be five members, two of the members shall be appointed by the mayor, and two of the members shall be appointed by the city, and the fifth members will be selected by the city council, with the fifth members being selected by the four members already appointed. And whereas all CDAC members must be Highland Park residents and reside within their respective precincts, and whereas the city of Highland Park desires to follow the charter and improve the quality of life for residents in the city of Highland Park, they established by establishing the cdacs, now therefore would be a result that the city of Highland Park approves the following appointments to the cdacs for the city of Highland Park beginning November 1 city council appointments for district one. Precinct one is Nikki pedrell, Tamara petway. District One, precinct two is Pastor green, Kenya Jackson. District Two. Precinct three is Natalie Oliver and Carrie Easton. District Two, precinct four is famika Roberts and Brandon Lopez. District Three, precinct five is Marjorie Thomas and Cassandra Walker. Precinct three. District Three, precinct six is Doris Harris and Shannon Bryce. Mayor's appointees for district one precinct, precinct one would be Sharon Wagner and Angela haskew. District one, precinct two would be Kelsey Hall and Lisa Butler. District Two, precinct three will be Beatrice Hamilton and Janice Walker. District Two, precinct four will be Clifford Chapman and Tawan Fagan. District three, precinct five will be Yolanda Roland Muse Sandra beer. District Three. Precinct six would be Mark Ashley price and Renee Ford. That is Item five, resolution to fill the vacancies for the cdacs. That's the citizens district advisory councils in the city of Highland Park council members. What is your pleasure on item five?
I move to approve the resolution vacancies for the citizens district Advisory Council, CDAC and the city of Highland Park. We have a second from Councilman el Shaki to the motion made by Councilwoman Manica to approve this resolution the field of vacancies, Mr. Sharpe, the floor is yours.
That way.
Pick 1361,
time. Look that way what we're seeing. Okay, so
I would like to request to previously
there was a mark wise Junior on the CAC, just to keep him on there until I'm able to find someone else. District one precinct one, yes. District one precinct one, Mister wise is currently appointed Yes. Okay, okay, well, he's not. It expires. Okay, so you want to reappoint him Yes. Okay. Question, does that go like that? Can he just reappointed? I'm sorry that was my Miss, Miss COVID.
Let the record show that Councilwoman Manica has in response to questions about the list, she has withdrawn Tamara petway and replace that name with the reappointment of Mr. Mark wise. Mark
wise
M, A R C, M, a r c, thank you. M, a r c, not K. Yes.
We so this, those are your people in district Two,
yes, yes,
yeah,
point about a city administration.
Shapiro,
Yes, Mister shapi, can we get that correction made on this, on the motion? Yes, yep. So with that, so that, as I read the names that were listed, ladies and gentlemen, I read the names as they were listed as submitted by members of council the various districts prior to the meeting. The amendment to that will be for district one precinct, one the person that will be nominated will be Nikki pedrell and then Mark Wise, who is currently a member of the CDAC. This is a reappointment for mister wise, and that is, again, this list that is that is turned in, that is provided at this meeting is a list of the names that the members have selected. So let I made a note to let the record show that she will be removing and we replace them also. As we read through this resolution, if I could get your attention, ladies and gentlemen on the council, to go to the third whereas, whereas there shall be five members, two of the members shall be appointed by the mayor, and two of the members shall be appointed if you would, strike through by the city with the fifth members being selected by the city council. That is a redundant statement. It's a grammatical error. The clerk just informed me of that. So it should read, this is the third whereas there shall be five members, two of the members shall be appointed by the mayor. Two of the members shall be appointed by the city council, with the fifth member being selected by the four members already appointed. Okay with those changes, we still have a motion on the floor. That motion was made by Councilwoman Manica. Was supported by Councilman el Shaki. If there are any additional questions, I will be happy to entertain those questions. Otherwise, I'll go ahead and call for the vote, yeah. I have additional questions. Yes. Ma'am, please. This is only what city account city, city council appointed. The mayor's appointments are at the bottom. Yes. Ma'am, okay, that's it. And let me just inform the audience. What I didn't read is this is a three year term ending October 31 2027, the appointment will begin on November 1. So the term is November 1 2024, to October 31 2027, Madam Deputy Clerk, would you please call the roll on item five, Councilman Ashby, Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman Manica Yes. Council proton Robinson Yes. Council President Thomas Yes. Motion carries moving on to item six under community development, a resolution to approve the amendment to the planning and zoning ordinance to include a solar energy systems SES provision City Council. What's your pleasure?
Statements first. Is that possible? Do I have to make the motion first Make, make the motion and with, and you can say, with amendments, with, you know, I moved to approve the resolution to approve amendment to the planning and zoning ordinance to include a solar energy system SES provision. First Reading, final. This is final. I'm sorry.
No, this is the first reading. No, it will be a final. Because we did the first reading will be a final as presented previously, because we haven't made any changes. It was a stalemate at the last moment. What was the change? Tell me it no longer
included. Was a different that was a different that was that was a different one, that was different that was a delegate, that was the grant that came.
It hasn't changed.
Okay, so it should have been the second reading. It says first read time, so it should so that means it should say we had a first read already. We read it into the record, right? It came before the body. We had a member absent. We reached a stalemate. It was also among the members additional discussion necessary to fulfill whatever their concerns were. And drill down to that we are, we have brought this back because it would did not get a proper vote again, we ran into a stalemate. If mine is, my understanding is correct, this document is the same document that we have for the first reading. It hasn't changed at all, and we were prepared to vote on it for a final reading at the last meeting, right? Thank you, Mr. President, yes, I believe it's already been published after the first reading, and then as it would be passed as presented, you wouldn't have to do the additional reading like you did the first time. So that's what will be required within your motion, madam, you have to make a motion to approve it as presented. Okay? As soon exempted, yes, ma'am, basically the same motion that you made, but you have to put I guess. I want to be clear. I think all of my jobs, this is the final and not the second week final. It is the second reading. It's the final reading, the first one you did previously. Okay?
So we had a motion. Do we have to put we haven't had a motion yet. We have support. Where are we running to meet that motion is here. I would like to make motion to approve resolution. Resolution to approve amendment to planning and zoning ordinance to include a solar energy systems SES provision as presented. I'm sorry, as presented, so we have a motion on the floor made by Councilwoman Manica for the to the resolution to approve the amended planning and zoning ordinance to include the solar energy system SES provision, as presented, this is a final reading. Do we have support? Support from Council?
Yeah, as presented, so
that's should be taken Okay, let's make sure we get this thing right. We're going to do it on the front page now. Therefore, it be resolved through its first reading only. That needs to be stricken from the record. We're going to do it. We're going to do it correct. So if you would go to the first page of item six A Now, therefore, be it resolved at city council Strike Through,
through its first reading on approves the amendment to the city planning and zoning, including the provision for utilization, regular regulation of solar energy systems. Okay, so we have a motion on the floor by Councilman Manica, supported by Councilwoman Martin. Do we have any additional questions? Concerns? Additional questions, concerns to say, Madam Clerk, would you call the roll on? I'm sorry. Go right ahead, mister. Okay, so my concern with
this, I wanted to thank the residents on Facebook and concern citizens for all the comments. Comments. I'll give
it to you as it is. I'm concerned about this ordinance, because in this ordinance, I see no protections for those residents who are currently
in a city that's already doing. So that includes you, Councilor, I don't see any protection in here anywhere. Father is for those dresses.
I don't see well.
I'm concerned. So we need this ordinance to spend this money. Is that correct? With with the ordinance, I believe Funding is provided to us if we have an ordinance. Okay? So I'm concerned about how we got this funding, so I was going to keep this in house, and you just discussed it among the administration and the council members. But the but the residents of Highland Park, they had such a lovely concerns and questions and disrespect all concerned citizens since I thought I respond, of course. So my concern is, how you got this funding? Okay, according to the website, according to mister website, the city was awarded this great in May of this year. However, you didn't come before this council. Well, I shouldn't say you, I should say the administration did not come before this council and ask for permission to apply for that grant until September the seventh. They came back two weeks after that and asked for us to accept the grant September the 16th. Now that's moving real fast. I've never known the state to move that fast, so I did a little bit of digging. Apparently, somebody applied for this grant back in April and did not allow this council to get permission or be notified in any shape, form or fashion. Being on top of that, I look at your application, and I look at the rules, and the rules clearly state that we must already have a full time CED director before we even apply for this grant. Carlton wasn't approved as full time CED director until the 16th of September. They applied for this grant in April of this year, and they got it in May. So somebody lied on that application about car to be in full time. That's the problem. Excuse me, I didn't ask any comments. I'm making my statement, and then you're more than welcome to retort afterwards. Okay, hold a second. So, so, so all I'm concerned about is how we got this grant in the manner in which it was received. Now everybody's sitting here. They beat me up about, well, I didn't approve the lights. Furthermore, we got 30 street lights. Nobody's telling us where it's going to go and what neighborhoods is going to go to, excuse me, I didn't ask any comments. No, no, I'm talking to them. I see that. Okay, okay, okay. Uh, nobody's telling us where this money, uh, where these lights are going to go. But the price tag for these 40s, these, these, these 30 solar lights, uh, comes out to a little bit over $400,000 nobody is also telling us in this grant where the other $2.1, million are going to be spent. There's no oversight. There's no concern about rules or regulations. Council didn't put anything into place to say what can be done and how it should be done. So we're leaving another $2.1 million in the wind for anybody to do as whatever they see fit, with no guidelines, no rules, no restrictions. But you're asking me to sign off on something. I'm looking at fraud. I'm looking at deception. To this council, somebody applied for this grant in April and said nothing to us about it, but you waited until the deadline of September the 20th, you came back to us on the 16th and want to force it down our throat and say, sign it. Are we going to lose this brand. You had all of that time to come to us and give us a heads up as to what's going on, but nobody did that, and nobody's paying attention to that, and nobody seems to care. And that's the funny part about it. Y'all too old to be this naive. I'm sorry. We're too old to be tonight. Okay, so something is amiss here, and I need it addressed. I need some answers to it. I want to know who applied for this grant in April and then tell us about it. And furthermore, why was it approved? Why did we receive the grant in May of this year? According to the website, but you didn't bring it to us until the deadline of September the 16th. Okay, so so much is there, and I'm just concerned about it. Everybody is telling me, oh, we need street lights. I agree with you on that, and normally I wouldn't turn down $2.5 million in free money, but, but I got a feeling that this is going to be something that's going to backfire on this, if we accept and it's fake. I remind you that it's been 10 years since the last time the federal government gave us any money. Can anybody remember the last time the federal government gave us the money? It was the NSP two program, when they built all them houses on midnight, they built all them house on Midland, and everybody in here knows how that turned out. A lot of that money had to be repaid out of our pockets, so I'm just concerned. Okay, I understand that we need lights. I agree with you 100% okay, but you're asking me to accept something and to approve something that's got a lot of questions and concerns for me sitting in the seat, and I just can't be a part of it if nobody's going to answer that question for me and and I'm asking the administration and the council to give me some clarification as to what's going on here and why the deception. That's what I want to know, why the deception. And I yield back. Okay. Thank you so much. So at the very beginning, you mentioned me as a I'm not, I don't have any solar systems running. But I looked through this ordinance, and I went to permitted use of solar energy. Systems are permitted, SAS, unit types, allowable, zoning districts, all districts, roof mounted, building integrated. Yes, ma'am, I'm answering and I'm going to pass it. Somebody can answer the other questions. I'm sorry, it's right here. This is on the pages are not numbered. This is under. Let's go first page, second page. Go under. So 1264, 12 major uses go to the next page. You start out with intent, and then you have permitting uses. I'm answering the question of the gentleman, so that is roof mounted, building integrated, or ground mounted, all districts principal use, ground mounted less than an acre, all non residential districts. Principal use ground mounted one acre or more, all non residential districts, principal use ground mounted, any size, all residential districts. So all districts can use Roof Mounted building integrated ground mounted systems that would include anybody, okay, as much as much, grandfathering the people that currently got such it says allowable zone. So it would include, for example,
Mr. Shannon's facility he came to the Zoning Board of Appeals years ago, that area was rezoned specifically for the type of project that he's working on. He came to us in a proactive way, and he asked for zoning changes. So those zoning changes were granted. So something like what he's doing over there at Parker village would not be affected by any solar ordinance. It would not circumvent the park the work that he has done, particularly being one of the lead advocates for that leap activity. He was a part of that coalition as well, along with solidarity, it would not circumvent any of the activity that solidarity has been doing in the community as well. That ground placement. Again, they went partial by parcel. They went individual by individual. There was no helicopter money all. Each project had to be accounted for. So there was a pretty a tight rein on the type of funds that were brought in, and it was specifically to the vendor. There were no middlemen to be able to siphon funds off. It was the actual part that had to be delivered, and the people who did the mounting and all the wiring, they were paid directly out of that grant. So there's no wiggle room for where funds are going to go once they have been dispersed and the areas have been identified. I guess Mr. Al Shaki, the decision on where they go should and would come back to us. We'd have to decide we have three districts, two at large members. I'm sure the five of us could come with a map and put some dots on it, if necessary, and come up with that the other questions we would have to address with the administration. So I wanted to make sure that I give the mayor an opportunity to speak once we got that first part out. And I know Miss Manica and Miss Robinson have both wanted to address that Mayor. Could you if? Could you do it in a brief, a way as possible? Could you address some of the concerns that he had? So first, I'm going to start with the state. You said you contacted Mr. This is not a Mr. Grant. I looked on to the website, and yes, it's on the website. This is a federal grant. This grant is called seaside. This grant is $3.5 million in the facility upgrades, funding opportunities. This grant was for solar. And worked on this grant with numerous people, NCAA, also the CED department. It was partners that was on the site was that this has nothing to do with the appointment of mister.
This grant is for city building upgrades. This building is one raincenter solar battery two. That is $1,000,000.12
112, $1.2 million is for the upgrades here, solar powered street lights was after $800,000 and efficiency city vehicles is $600,000 so that's where the for all the money will go. Okay, so let me I don't mean, what was that information given that it was presented at a workshop. You all have this workshop. We didn't have this information. You had this information because here it is, right here, and it was presented to you all in your packet on the workshop. Not remember that? Okay? Um, whether you remember and I serve, okay, go back to the workshop. Okay? And this is what I want to say to the council members that keep asking me for stuff. It's easy to verify anything. If you go to the clerk's office and pull up resolutions, pull up she's, she's the keeper of records, you can get all records there. Also, if you look in your packages, I don't know if y'all throw them away, don't keep them. I used to keep I kept mine for two years when I was on the Council for the whole four years. Back em up, pull em out. All that information should be in there. But this grant for the solar lights, as well as the other. Solar efficiency was presented to council and was approved by Council. Page 20, exactly. Thank you, Miss and so at this, at this point, this is the information. So all these at this at where we are right now. It's either you're voting it up or you're voting it down. This is a solar ordinance. It's not for the grant, it's for the ordinance. The grant has already been approved. The ordinance is what we need to go forward. At that they made it clear that it was once we got there, once we received the grant the next step for us to do creation ordinance, and once we go through that, we cannot do anything until we get an ordinance. We can't tell you where they're going. We can't tell you anything until we have an ordinance, because the organs will guide us on the procedures of how to do this. Now you're talking about other people's being protected, private lights on personal property belongs to the person, to the company. We're talking about, lights that will belong to the city, or this governs that. Now there's possibilities of there's nothing in it, you said nothing in there, the private properties and put up lights on their property. They can't put them up on our property without going coming to the city, but they can put them up on their own property. So that's one that's the other thing, and I was trying to do it as far as the Miss. Misconception that someone is manipulating money. First of all, that's what I didn't say, manipulating money, ma'am, give it to me what you said. I said, I said, My concerns are about how this application was done. The rules clearly states. The Rules clearly state and the applications came before us and in there. And in that application that was put before us, it said that we must already have a full time CED director. So how do we get awarded this grant? We didn't have a full time CD director. That's not the same. No, it was not, but it was presented to you that was not in there, the sequence of information. Yes, we're discussing Atlanta right now. That's exactly we're voting. We're voting on importance.
So let's talk about the ordinance. The ordinance is, as you said, you need to have information on where these lies, is on, and what, who, how they're going to be erected, and who's going to be in charge of that. None of that happens until we get an ordinance that will govern how this works. Ordinances are lost. They govern kind of like putting the cart before the horse then, well, so you have to have a law. You have to have a ordinance. It should have came first.
This actually should've came first. Yeah, please go ahead, but that's your job. That's your job. Let me just be clear, the job is for the council to create ordinances. Thank you. Thank you. Ma'am. Okay, Miss Manica, you've been very patient we had, Johanna, was it something that you wanted to make sure we address? Yeah, that's what I'm Yeah, who created that? Because the definitely created by all the floors turn over to Miss Manica. Thank you very much again, here's here's the question. There's so
much again coming at us and so fast and it doubles off. I don't care. So listen, y'all. Listen, we're talking about our ordinance right now. We're not even talking about the grant. The issue is, we need an ordinance to make anything else happen, whatever grant come to the table from here forward, whenever anything solar, whether it's a grant or a resident coming and saying, Hey, I got a solar panel. I want to put it in my backyard. I want to put it in our front yard. This ordinance says, Hey, you can't put it in your front yard. It tells them where they can put it. So right now, what we should be voting on is only your ordinance. So that brings you back to our first question last week. The issue was on the grant. And so we read the grant. We read this, the sea site, however you say it seaside. We read that last week. That's what we read. That's where mister ashapi had his issue with mister clay born being in that now, now we're doing the ordinance. So again, I don't think anyone on the council was against the ordinance. I think what we're against is the process of what you're trying to give it to us. Anybody? No,
nevermind. I'm sorry, the process of which is given. He's asking now, who wrote the ordinance? Is it approved by a man? It wasn't college and wrote ordinance. I know that it says on here that mister Damon Geary helped write the ordinance for the soul energy. So if I'm incorrect, you you wrote it right so many
things, there's no truth. So when that brings me to my next question is, can we have mister Gary come forward to answer any questions in regards to the actual proposed ordinance for solar energy systems, and we are not discussing the seaside wind. Okay, so let me before you go, Mister Garrett, let me just say, when this issue came up to us, okay, when this issue came up to us at the workshop, I went and looked in the calendar right now, I rolled back up to it. You can hire a consultant to write help you write an ordinance. You can hire a team of attorneys to help you write an ordinance as it related to solar energy. We are fortunate enough to have proverbial experts in the field that work here every day crafting the framework for this ordinance. They said this to us in a workshop was a process of looking into the world and find best practice and correlate those best practices into an ordinance that will be feasible for any city, but particularly for a city of our size, a team of engineers working I'm still in mister Garrett thunder, because I can see the frustration in his face. They actually said these things, and yes, I keep all my folders. They said you can hire anybody to write an ordinance for you as consultants, this is our area of expertise. And we went out and we harnessed the best information we could, and we put it in a framework so that when it became law, it was effective, it was also modifiable. He's about to repeat what he said to us back in May. I know where the folder is right now in my office, I can literally see it in my head. They explained to us, we can write an ordinance, or you can hire a consultant to write an ordinance for you. And they were the experts in the building, and they did that. And so I don't know, Mister Gary, you always got a lot, but I just want to speak the truth, because it's a lot of stuff that not, not on purpose, but let's go back to the federal money. So what mister shapi said, we accepted the seed leap grant in 2022 which Miss Wooten pointed out, right, that was $500,000 of federal money from the Department of Energy for technical assistance and under the Sealy is where this ordinance was written, not by MCA, but by the Department of Energy. That's where they wrote this back in 22 okay, so they wrote a draft, and what we do, it was not us, though. I'm just stating the facts. I just want people to know where this came from and grow it. We can. We can go down a timeline. That's all. I'm trying to set it straight so we everybody is in the same conversation, because we are in multiple conversations. The C league that happened, it was federal money. It's $500,000 they wrote this ordinance that we have before us that we are trying to do the second reading for. It is not the C site. The C site is different. And the C site was brought here in a presentation, and Carlton asked for permission to submit the application. I will say, even know there was a press release, we have not been officially awarded the money, because the grant agreement needs to come before what body this one so there is. We don't have that money yet, but the presentation was given about the Rec Center, about the EV charging, about the solar lights, about the building improvements. That was a presentation. Can Can he submit? Yes? The answer was yes, submitted. And then the city was amongst those 12 that were awarded. That was the C site in the whole CD. Director, part time, full time was a part of the C site, but it is not the solar ordinance. So those two things are separate. This council approved the C site. Okay, that already happened. What happened was, is people said, Well, did we approve Carlton to get whatever? And then we started backtracking, and then we started voting down on something that was already ready for the second reading that had nothing to do with that. Okay? So, so now where we are today is trying to get this ordinance that was written by the DOE, not MCA got you even though I have expertise in that, we got free money. We had not, you know, we didn't want to spend the city's money. We got to spend somebody else's money to get this. So that's how we got this, not by me writing this, not by my staff writing Okay, so now we're here today for the second reading of this seaside is done. We don't need to talk about that. This is what's on the table today. Now we had back in 2023 we updated our engineering policy, and it's and it's all kinds of things about solar, lights and poles and inverters and all of that. But this is just a policy. This is just our standards. This is not important. This is not law. So you can either choose to follow this or not. But this has been out for over a year. Again, this kind of stuff came out of that doe money, that Sealy money that the city got, they helped the city do these things so we didn't have to do them. So these documents that we have before us were done with federal money, part of the C League, which was done in coalition with other nonprofit organizations and DOE. So there's a lot of goodness that's been done for the city. Now you fast forward to the C league thing, and that EV chargers was pulled off the table. They did not it was only approved for $2.5 million which was rec center, the 30 lights and fixing this building, which HVAC, that's what, that's what has been out there now. Now there's a six month process where they make you fill out all this federal forms for all this federal money. When all of that is all done, then that grant agreement needs to come back before it needs to get submitted to council, for council deliberate on review all of that. So we don't have that $2.5 million yet. Why? Because we don't have the vehicle for you to accept it. It was just a press release thing. Highland Park was awarded. But we don't really have the money yet. So that's kind of where we are with Sealy, and that's where we are with this. Okay, now hopefully that clears it up we should be because I didn't know how wrong I was. We're not pointing fingers. We're just trying to stay it was something different that's authenticated me. All I'm trying to do is make sure everybody has information and I have and so that we can all us concerned citizens, we can all be on the same page about what's actually happening. Now, I will tell you, you don't everybody's talking about lights. We got lights here, lights there in in this seed site grant, you can get a technical assistance in that to put together a lighting plan, because we shouldn't be doing anything until we have a lighting plan for the entire city that studies the city and says, light goes here, mid block here that we don't have guys right now. We got money saying lights. Well, why would we go start putting lights? So somebody can be complaining we put lights over here in district one, then put them in three. Nope, we're not doing that. We need a plan written by someone else, not the engineers, because I don't want to get in that that says this is where the lights should go. So we can come and present that, and then there's a plan, just like when we start doing that service, like people like, well, you're gonna go over here and a, b, we had to have a plan that is what we need to follow. It's not by where I wanted to go, it's by a plan that's established by others. So that's all the factual affirmation that I have, hopefully that provides some clarity, and I can not be grimacing over there about mixing up the ordinance with the grants and all of that, but I can assure you nothing under the table was been done or is being done with the money. That's not I'm not involved now. I don't want to orange soup. I'm not in that. Okay? I'm not getting anybody who's doing that. Okay, so now I can assure you that now maybe you know you need to backtrack and see when the presentation was done for the C League, what we approved, when, when we started? Okay, some of that is out there in on the record, as was pointed out, but there's not anything being done under the table about where these improvements should you be? We haven't accepted any money. We don't have the thing to accept the money. So that's, that's what I have on all Thank you, sir. Okay.
I just wanted the
other day, in all fairness to council and to the residents, into the administration, and we got a lot of grants. We probably need a running list, running list like we have the running list of our legal cases, where we have a quarterly review on a legal update. We need a grant of it, because we have so many, and so many of them starting prior to this council term. You know, they're ongoing, their grants we get all the time, and then council had a list, almost like a cheat sheet. Then they would have when the grants came before them, when they when it was awarded, when the council approved it, so that we don't get them confused. In all fairness, it's a lot to try to remember, and I think that's something that Councilman shock and I talked about the other day. I think that the administration meant to providing that list because they needed to, just so we stay on top of it, not get confused. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Mister Ashanti, so Miss square, definitely we get on the head exactly without because I'm getting, I'm getting conflicting dates here, okay? If the grant was approved in May, it had to be applied for academic, okay, but they didn't come to us and ask us about the grant or permission to apply for the grant until September the seventh of this year. Then it came back to his September the thing for its approval and acceptance. Okay, so there, there, there are four dates out there that's making no sense to me, and it's making me question the whole outcome. I just have questions and concerns, not being a jerk. I just have questions and concerns. If I'm looking at four dates, when was it applied for? When was it awarded? When was Council given? When did Council get permission to apply for it? And when did Council accept it? Those four dates right there and then jumbled up and I'm not understanding. Okay, so point of order. Point of order. We are. We are point of order. We've had an extensive discussion, and I want to remind members what is on the floor right now? It's a resolution to approve the amendment to the planning and zoning ordinance to include solar energy systems SES provisions as it as presented, we have a motion on the floor that was made by Councilwoman Manica. It was seconded by Councilwoman Martin. Do we have additional questions? So we can go ahead and take a vote on this item. I just have a statement. Go ahead
and make your statement, ma'am, so we take this vote.
I just wanted to make sure that he's understood why we're
not reading it. Doesn't enter my motion. I read the statement.
Ask the presented, so that we no longer have to read. Yeah, we all participated. The three of us participated in the reading of the record, so we're on you. You myself and Councilwoman manic are on the record for reading the ordinance, and it hasn't been any changes to the to the nomenclature. So with that being said, I don't see any more hands moving. So Madam Deputy Clerk, would you please call the roll on item six, a community development resolution to approve the amendment to the planning and zoning ordinance to include a solar energy systems SES provision as presented today. Councilman Shafi, until I get a clarity on it, Imma be on the safe side and vote no. Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman Manica Yes. Council program Robinson No. Council President Thomas Yes. Motion carries moving on to item 6b under Community Development resolution to issue an RFI request for information, to seek information regarding the potential demolition of a large mixed use building located at 1285, boat, Woodward Avenue City Council. What's your pleasure on item 6b
so I moved to approve the resolution to issue an RFI to seek information regarding the potential demolition of a large mixed use building located at 12850, Woodward Avenue. With questions, you got support? Second, with questions, go right ahead, man. Mister Shaka, you'll be next. Okay, so my first question, why are we doing an RFI? If you don't get out of my head,
you don't get out of my head, Miss man.
Council, so we are doing a ri because we just want to know what it would take to get that building down. So we don't have anything identified, we don't have any money earmarked, but we know that that building needs to come down because it's a huge eyesore and it's holding up some other development. So we're only looking for information on what it will cost and what it looks like to get the building down. So just in case anyone does not know an RFI means request for information, personal requesting for bid. My next question is, it sounds like it's really a quote. That's what it kind of sounds like, but I understand the information. So my next question is,
is there a development entity that is interested in purchasing the property, but would like to have the city demo it before they actually purchase No, what
would be if we were to demo it? What would be the benefit for us, because it's a huge blighted eyesore. The neighbors behind it have been sitting there looking at it for a very long time, and we also own an apartment building across the street that's going to take a lot of money to rehab, and in order to make that more attractive, we need to get this building done. So what happens if we demo it and nobody purchased the land, which I know is going to happen, because it's whoop what, and the amount that it's going to take to demo it. And so I guess my questions again are the signs wanted to find out about demoing. What exact questions Do you want to know? Do you want to know how much charges, how much it will cost to bring it down, how much, and we're going to compare that to what? What's going to make us say that $5,000 is too much, so we put it out. Putting it out, it's not 5000
she was fine. We put it out for information so we can see we don't know those questions. That's what we're asking for this information.
Everybody understands that I do. So what? What you're asking you're going to first, let me go back again. Where are we going to put this
RFI in. We going to put it? Are we going to sit? Just did that?
Do we still use we're only going to use Vietnam for now. That's a safe
national I
think. We looked at checking with the county if they have any interest in any particular area that we owe, if they will be able to assist us in demoing. I know we have to give them something. I mean, I know my money, but they sometime have an entry in the county will sometimes assist in that. Have we looked at that? Yes, we have. And no, that's not an option. We need to know what it's going to take to get this thing knocked down. And then we can go back into our partner list. You know, we are working with the state. We are working with other agencies,
like the Department of Treasury, the state land bank, and those partners that we're working with, demo or to purchase, not purchase. We need a demo. The city owns it. I know. Okay, it's a good okay,
state land bank for your buildings, state land bank, if you all recall the state land bank around high school. And so, you know, council passed the MOU last week for the McKenna group and that MOU has a joint group now of Michigan Department of Treasury, nishta M UDC, Wayne
County Land Bank and the state plan. So there is an opportunity now for conversations to be had with the state land bank regarding that building, so we get some information back from the building. Maybe that's a project that the state land bank, in our new partnership, can help the city with. It's an opportunity. Thank you. Mr. Shock, you don't know? Yeah, no, go right ahead. Mister Shaki, floor is yours. So, so Miss Manica, tonight, you are all in my head. You gotta get out of here. Okay, alright. So, yeah, so
I've spent at least 30 years of my life, most of it as a kid with my father working in constructions, a building of that size to tear down is going to be anywhere from 1.5 to $3 million and that's depending on if it has asbestos, and seeing as how old it is, yeah, it's got asbestos, and that's going to Have to be cleaned up properly, you know. So, so, so we're looking on the higher end of $3 million but, but Miss Manica D will point out exactly what I was going to say. Is there anybody who's looking to purchase the property and asking us to demo it before they purchase it, like, uh, so it costs more money. Okay, no, okay. So, so, you know, a price tag of that size, if we were to demo something like that, and it came out of this city's pockets, that's gotta be added into the price for the sale of the land. It's gotta be, we need to get that money back, otherwise, it's something that we're not going to do. I cannot, in good conscience, use the taxpayers money to tear down the building, and then somebody comes along, we spend $3 million to tear down this building, and then somebody comes along and asked to buy the land, and we sell the land for $250,000 that's a loss to us. That's a great loss to us. Okay, so, so I'm, I'm I'm pre warning everybody. I'm pre warning Council and the administration. That's something I would fight until I die nowhere in hell. Imma, spend that kind of money and then take a loss on top of the cell of the land. Okay? So if we demo it, if it comes out of our pockets, that price tag of what it cost us to demo it is added on to the sale. And I yield back, okay, a man approach him. You have going to go around because I'm Yes, Carlton,
I'll ask this question, who picks which properties are to be demolished? And I ask that because it's a brand new development on Highland that has a horrible eyesore, and it's ready for this move in, ready, and it's a building right behind it, and the people that move in it, that's what they're going to look at. So who picks which building is to get commodity? This is something that the administration came up with. So we Yes, do you
have anything? Miss mark, okay, so wait, oh, let's go ahead. Miss Manning, so you mentioned we have in the other building, when we get that RFI or that information, will that be part of information that maybe it doesn't need to be demo, or it could be rehab, or somebody has that kind of money just wants to but
say, is that part of that information as well that maybe no, we don't need to demo it. We can
just read No, yes, and so you say administration, does that mean CED and the mayor just
something we discussed as the administration, and this is something that we want to move, how much it would take to knock that building? I think
that's my question. Is up right now. I'm thinking I asked you one about the rehab since you mentioned that, and I do agree that. ISO, I do know that someone wants to rehab the other building.
I just want to know why RFI persons just go ahead and so I got, we can't.
Oh, to mister shapi on the 2 million or whatever it might take, there may be an option that that developer will have some other benefits. So whatever it is, I don't hear mister, there has to be some benefits or something to the city, because everybody comes here ask for their tax break. So I guarantee you, we need a tax break, and we need funding something almost as big as what's there. That's just my opinion. I'm ready for the vote. Okay, hold on a second. Now, everybody had their statement, and let me just Yes, Ma'am, it's my turn. So
I fully understand and respect the comments made by my colleagues here, but I think the only difference in our perception of the process is that this is something that I've been working on for a long time, trying to understand, not to do, just trying to understand what Mr. Clyburn said, is correct. It has to be RFI and not an RFP, because, I mean our RFQ, because we're not asking for a quote for anything but the complexities of demo, of demolishing the first building in the state of Michigan with underground parking, a building that is over 100 years old, that is a very complex process. You must if you drive an old raggedy car, I got an old raggedy pickup truck. Before I can get it fixed, I have to go get an estimate. How much is it going to cost for the bond, or how much is it going to cost for the paint? I can't just say, I think. I'm just going to go without any information, transform this, this thing, into something remodeled in the city of Detroit right now, and in the state of Michigan, there is not a trough of money available for poor, distressed cities to give out for demo. We had the county come here and try to give us money to demolish properties that work deemed worthy of demolition. All they wanted to do was be responsible, not come over and be responsible for the little plot of land, and that would have been a benefit to us, because they would have cut the grass that would have been less properties that we would have had to manage. And we said no, we had the county came here before we told them no. So there's no impetus for them to come here before there is again, there's absolutely no reason. Look on the screen at this big excuse my language, this big ass building that I was standing in front of. They couldn't even get the development started until they went through and demo all the hanging metal and asbestos. Those developers spent ten million of their own money. This was a city owned property. They spent ten million of their own money on demo before they could even close it out. It's huge. When you get a huge building like that, it costs a lot of money, and they spent tons of money, over a million dollars, on estimates alone, out of pocket. So I want people to understand that the process is, although we would love for it to be easy, what mister Clyburn is doing is not easy. There are no funds. We come to the truck with our pockets turned out every time. So it would be fantastic if we could magically make people want to give us money to do. They call it mold work, but we just don't. That's all I have to say. Miss Martin,
um, so my understanding is we're just requesting information. Correct, correct, yep. Um, are we absolutely going to demolition
this? Okay, so my next question is, and all the information you gather, what would be, what would you have to I guess I want to say here to be like, No, we're not moving forward. Am I making sense? You making sense? But there is no tricks. We just need to. We just want the information so we know. So as we sit down and we work with this group, the partnership group, like Miss square talked about, we can put that on there, or if it may come up, like, hey, what would y'all like to see? Or, hey, you know, we got this money. Let's knock that down and let's be already so we know what are the
costs y'all like to see. So when we took in this group as as the city would like to see done, that's the city administration. Okay? And then you get the information the next step would be, after that would be, what to see what happens. We don't have a next step. We just, we're getting information to see what it's going to take. And then as we sit down and we start working with the partners, then if it comes up, it comes up. If it doesn't, it doesn't, but we would like to know what it would take to get that building out. So you already got partners, already considering the partners as the Michigan State Treasurer, the state land bank, NEDC, Mister Connie,
okay, and that's this whatever. Imagine it being worth ten million and you say 10 million plus 2 million that we use for demo so that means the developer has to come to us with the understanding how to mister Clyburn has his data. We could say that that piece of property right there on a train line is worth ten million plus whatever it cost to demo it. So they will have a full understanding. But without that knowledge, we really can't assess a value. We can't bake that into the cake. We can't even bake in appreciation until we know what it costs with the current destroy structure cost to have removed. Would that be accurate? That'd be accurate assessment. Okay, alright, and then we'll, we'll go ahead and Miss Manica, you had it. I was ready to call for statement about money. We can have the honesty, it's more money out there. We just haven't looked in all the places yet. Nope. Okay, yes, ma'am. Okay, so I'm ready to call football if anybody else have any objections on Item 6b resolution to issue RFI a request for information, to seek information regarding the potential demolition of a large mixed use building located at 12850, Woodward Avenue. The motion was made by Councilwoman Manica, supported by Councilman shapi Adam, Deputy Clerk, would you please call the roll? Councilman Shafi No.
Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman Manica, yes. Council Pro Tem Robinson, no. Council President Thomas Yes. Motion carries, moving on to item seven of the recreation under item a resolution to approve the gift of playground equipment. Updates with store Park from say, Detroit City Council. What is your pleasure? Motion to approve? Have a motion. So we have a motion to approve by Councilman ashapi, second by Councilwoman Manica. Questions concern, dissent, yes,
yes, ma'am playground equipment,
and please come to the court.
Say, Detroit is committed to doing a lot of work in the city, and what they do is we work closely with them to go to the different parks in the city and look to see if that there's ways that they can assist us. And they try to do a project once a year, and they do it around this time of year, their partner with Michigan recreation construction company, and they go through their inventory and see what they have, and see where there's areas in our parks that may need some assistance. So this year we looked, we've already done work at Casey birchmann. We have grant funding to do some things at the Rec Center and McKinsey field. So we were looking at store. And a lot of this is based on the fact that we have a sheet that we do weekly Park inspections, and on that inspection, it says, How many people are in the park, who's using the park? What is the equipment look like? So we have an idea of which parks are being used the most, and those are the ones that we kind of concentrate on doing them.
Additional questions, concerns, okay, thank you, ma'am, Madam Deputy Clerk, would you please call the roll on item seven? Roll on item seven eight. Councilman Shafi Yes. Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman Manica Yes. Council Pro Tem Robinson Yes. Council President Thomas motion Yes. Motion carries Under Item 7b under recreation resolution to reissue the RFP for the spark grant prime professional construction management services, city council, what's your pleasure?
Motion to approve? What questions we have? A motion to approve the resolution by made by Councilman el Sharpie. Do we have support with questions? You have support? Support offered by Miss Manica, Mr. Sharpe. Go right ahead with your question. Um, so this is, this is this is one of yours? Am I correct? Yeah. Okay, so I got, I got a little bit of insight into it. I understand that. Probably one of the reasons that bids the income at the last Council meeting was because the,
yeah, Mr. Is doing this, right? No, not who's doing this. This is state money through DNR, okay, and there's a Michigan commission that's a nonprofit, okay, working with the state. Okay? What happened with this is when the original grants went in, it's all on based on points, and it became a David and Goliath situation, similar to the things that Carlton is going through, where we have to have partners to assist us in doing some of these things. You look at Detroit, their recreation division has an entire landscape design division. They have grant writers, they have graphic designers, they have engineers, all just in their department. We don't have that so the smaller cities were missing out on some of these funds because we don't have that support. So they took the pot of money and they split it. They put one half a pot over here, Apple pot over here. The bigger cities you guys fight for this, cities like Inkster, I believe, glad we're in cities like that. We're in this other pot of funding, which we're going to be given assistance in some architectural pieces, some engineering pieces that won't take from the grant itself. Okay? So there's, there's non profits that are going to be working with the organization to assist us with the engineering pieces, with the architectural pieces, where we we have this $900,000 we're going to end up spending 400,000 of it for architects, the designs and everything, so they're trying to get that piece out. So we have a larger piece of money to do our project, okay? And some of the people that would normally bid on a million dollar project, once they saw some of the additional work, they were like, great. So they went back and revisited their RFP, and they made a couple of changes, so they're asking us to resubmit. Okay, all right. I yield back. Council President, additional questions and concerns, Madam Deputy, please call the roll on item 7b Councilman Chaffee, absolutely. Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman Manica Yes. Council Pro Tem Robinson No. Council President, Thomas, Yes. Motion carries. I want to besiege my colleagues here to call a two minute recess. So moved.
So called a two minute recess. I'm up. Go take it to two minute recess. I'm not going to stop during citizens participation for all the coffee that I drink, but I'm also not going to embarrass myself as a 53 year old man, so we're going to take A two minute recess. Ladies
Gentlemen,
yes, No, no. I
Okay, What's
That's the
and
I
parked
in the Lodge. I and going
okay, so Okay. Thank you very
much,
members of council for that. How open the floor for a motion to reconvene our meeting. Second all those in favor, aye. Meeting is now back in session at 8:31pm, we are on to Item eight, which is under the seniors department of resolution to accept the fiscal year 2025, Detroit area, to approve Area Agency da grant for $19,794 we have a motion from Councilman Shafi. We have support for that. We have a second from Pro Tim Robinson. This is a resolution to accept the grant from Detroit area on ages, area area agency on aging questions, concerns, dissent. Madam Deputy Clerk, would you please call the roll on item eight? Councilman Shafi Yes. Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman Manica Yes. Council proton Robinson Yes. Council President Thomas Yes. Motion carries for Item nine. Outside communication, this is a street renaming request from the board of directors at prayer, temple of love and we are
okay. Let me just go ahead and read this. This is brought to us by Reverend Saint Richard a Smith was the organizer. This is from the prayer temple of love. Cathedral at 12375, Woodward Avenue sent to us on October 15, 2024, honorable City Council of Highland Park at the Robert Blackwell municipal center. Um, greetings. Honorable City Council, the board of directors of prayer, temple of love. Cathedral, humbly request an adage to the current street name Highland, located at the corner of Woodward and Highland town our late pastor and organizer, Reverend, Reverend Saint Richard a Smith. It is our request that Highland will carry the name of our late pastor, Reverend Saint Richard a Smith, who has been a respected pillar of this community for over 50 years, our pastor, Reverend Saint Richard a Smith, passed away April 16, 2020, due to COVID. And this is our way of inaugurating his legacy into the very fabric of this great city. Reverend Smith was the congregation of prayer, temple of love. And I'm sorry, Reverend Smith and the congregation of prayer, temple of love, cathedral moved into their current edifice located at 12375, Wood Avenue. July 1977 has been actively involved in the community. Reverend Smith has been an advocate for the city of Highland Park, and has worked tirelessly to provide resources to the citizens of this great city. He and his collaborative efforts with many officials of Highland Park dedicated themselves to maintain a beauty, to maintain and beautify the city, provide guidance and leadership and maintain peace on Highland street. When Highland became bombarded with drugs and prostitution, he worked closely with former mayor Blackwell and Miller, serving as Human Rights Commissioner, as well as with the City Council. He organized operation feed, all funded by Wayne Metro, and fed the community at 17 Highland for 25 years. Currently, the church has partnered with the Forgotten harvest for BI monthly food giveaways. Reverend Smith also organized the ptlc drug program, mental health counseling with the licensed therapist. Wednesday, homework help and the ptlc Saturday educational tutorial computer program for students in kindergarten through high school with certified teachers. All programs were housed in the church's Activity Center located at 17 Highland. The Board of Directors of ptlc is requesting that the installation of the street line take place in November of 2024 as we celebrate and close out our lay pastor and First Lady's 50th pastoral anniversary, we look forward to the council's response, praying that this prestigious honor will be granted for our lay pastor, Reverend Saint Richard a Smith, humbly submitted the Board of Directors prayer, temple of love could be cathedral. So let me ask a question before I entertain a motion, I'm gonna ask this up Mr. Mr. Boxer, the city council, in our capacity, are we in a position to help with the renaming of streets in this way? That's something I would have to
look into renaming, right? It's just a matter of getting a declaration from the city and hanging it would basically be like an additional placard under the official street name, I would have to see if you have is that how you've done it in the past through I'm sorry, there is no please. Thank you for that information, because I would like to this is the second time we've had a request like this. And if you could direct my if you could direct our office to look into it and come back with an answer at the next council meeting. Maybe we could revisit this at the next agenda. Okay, that would be November.
When's the next? Well, actually, is there a council it's the 18th, yeah, the next meeting we have is November. 4. 3018, 1818, we don't have one on the fourth. Okay? Trying to figure out members of council after reading that. Does anyone have anything to add? Because what we're doing is we're just receiving this outside communication. So I will have to ask for a motion to receive. I'm saying our next council detail 18. What happened to the four? It's in the schedule. It's we survived, no, but they're
going to be devoting I can't answer the question, but I'm assuming that by always comes if the election falls, is this been a tradition? Yes, okay, we can look into it, but that's our next meeting. Is good? Uh, madam, pro tem, can I make a suggestion please, attorney to get back with us information and we can call the surgery so they can celebrate special anniversary? Please? Yeah, I would back to us like this week. Sure.
Well, I guess when in November is their anniversary? Is it November 1 November? Yeah, yeah. So we could,
okay if, depending on when it is in November, you may not need to call a special meeting if it's after the 18th, but I'll, I'll get the I'll try to get you something this week. Okay, the information will be, be extremely useful. I know that they've done it before with wheelers, with wheelers way so we, I just want to find out what that process Sure, sure it comes up again, and we have, we, yeah, we've lost some, some pretty strong pillars in the community, and we don't know what the their neighbors may want to do, and I would like to learn what that process is, sure we can address the chair would entertain a motion to receive a file. Okay? You made the first does it matter? No, okay, okay. Mr. Chaffee made a motion to receive and file. This communication seconded by Councilman Manica, would you call the roll on item nine? Councilman Shafi, yes, the receiving card. Councilwoman Martin
No, okay. Councilwoman Manica, yes. Council Croton Robinson, can I say for the record, Please, madam Detroit, that attorney is going to get back to us Yes, so we can make a decision if we have to call a special meeting or not, so that this could be renamed in a timely matter. Yourself something for you this week. Thank you. Yes. Council President Thomas, yes, we have decided to receive and file this document in our official record. So now we're at the portion of the program, but we turn the podium over to citizens for citizens participation. I will set the clock here for two minutes, and the citizens are welcome to queue up at the podium and share the information if you're pertinent for city council to know. I will not start the timer until you state your name, and after that, the floor is yours. Good evening. My name
is Charlene Turner Johnson, and I am here on behalf of the Each One reach one initiative. You may know that I serve as the president of base and base, along with partners at the Michigan I'm sorry that's sitting
here so long. I'm just going brain dead. Uh, yeah, yeah, the pastors, the pastors and ministers. Network, along with D Don which stands for defending democracy action, working network has set a goal to try to double the number of voters in Highland Park that voted in the primary. There were about 1200 voters in the primary. We want to at least double that number for November the fifth. How are we trying to do that? We're trying to do that by reaching out to everybody that voted and asking them to reach one so that so that will double the number. In addition to that, we're reaching out to the churches, asking the pastors to adopt a block to pass out flyers to survey their neighbors to see how many of them voted, to see if they will vote in November. We're working with the block clubs, asking the black clubs to assign black captains to survey their neighbors to see if they're voting, and we're passing out these little flyers. So I'm here this evening to invite council members to join us in passing out these little flyers. These little flyers give us two pieces of information. The first thing that they do is they tell us about our voting rights. So on one side of the flyer is about five little bullet points that tell the residents about their voting rights. On the other side of the flyer are three points that we pull from the michigan.gov/vote website about three things that residents need to know. Number one that early voting starts in Highland Park october 26 and ends November 3. Number two, that people can register to vote now online up until the day of the election. And number three, that people can get absentee ballots. So we want people to know those things to help more people get out to vote on November 5, or by November 5. So if city council members would agree take a few of these flyers and get some representatives in your districts to pass out a few of these flyers to your neighbors, then that'll help to spread the word Councilman Shafi in your district we've already covered from Mac Nichols to Puritan with these flyers, and in some of the other districts, we've already covered a few because we have volunteers, of course, who are going around passing out these flyers. We discovered in talking with folks at the Michigan Democratic Party that there are over 3000 registered voters, over 3000 registered voters in Highland Park, but only 1200 voted in the primary. So if we could at least double that number, we feel like that would be a great thing to achieve. And this is all a part of community engagement, all the community engagement work that base does, it's all a part of community empowerment and just getting people working together to improve the quality of life in Highland Park. It's non partisan, because we're 501, c3, we can't promote any candidate, but it's education about voting, and we would like our city council members
to help with this initiative and get these little flyers out. The flyers are posted on Facebook, on the Concerned Citizen page, the Highland Park residents page, other pages, there's an article in Chris's newspaper about the Each One reach one initiative. The word is getting out. So council members, you're welcome,
you're welcome, you're welcome, you're welcome, you're welcome to help Highland Park at least double the number of voters in November. Alrighty, you and Miss Gracie, going to make me look bad because I can't you know, I saw the timer go off, but I'm sitting, I'm over, sitting on my hands. I don't have enough. I was raised different, so it's hard for me to even have a conversation with you about the timer. So how are you going to pick up these flyers right now?
Okay, I can just leave a bunch of them here. Yes, ma'am. Recently, I ma'am,
alright. Well, thank you so much, ma'am. Imma go ahead and have, okay. Oh yeah, correct. Okay. Now, Imma go ahead and have that patient young man behind you. Go ahead and take his 24 minutes. You know, I'm holding you to the clock, right? I want to thank you for allowing her to speak, as long as I respect her as well, and what she was saying was very important. Yes, sir, absolutely. I'm here for different
type of conversation I want to I put I posted some stuff about you guys on Facebook, and I have a huge thought. A lot of people checked it out. Lot of people out of town checked it out. In Kentucky, where I went to college, and DC, a lot of places, and they got back with me and asked me, What's going on. And I told him about Yeah, I've been accounting in a while, and I was shocked about this lighting thing. I didn't know much about it, and when the vote came around, we didn't know much about it. So that post allowed me personally to find out about it. I want to thank you, Charmaine, and I want to apologize as well as you as well for calling me personally and telling me, what was that all about? Why did you vote no? Why did you vote no? And the reasons was, what you explained today, you didn't know. You didn't have the information that you needed to know. That's, that's, that's, that's in poverty. If you don't know, you can't vote. I get that. I want to apologize myself. This is not Parker pride. This is me, and the post didn't go for Parker pride. It went from me, and when I saw what I saw, and the people that I talked to saw what they saw and heard what they heard, they was leery what's going on. They want to know. So I'm here to tell him when I get back and I get back on my Facebook page, and imma let them know they revolted. It passed, you know, you got your information, and I commend you for digging what you how you dug. That was deep, man, I gotta give you that you dug up some things we didn't know, and we wanted to hear you you don't know how and what and who was going to watch this money, but my man got up, and he really nailed it. He he let you know what was going on and how that was all put together. That's what I mean by this city has to grow. We have to do things that will allow us to grow these grants and bills and things you guys come across. Get into em, get em to em early so we can pass some stuff. I mean, we should have Christmas lights going all the way down board saying you're in Highland Park now it's dark on web and it's dark on six mile. And then you got us. I mean, we don't have just England of money to put some lights up to say, Welcome to Highland Park. We do celebrate this national holiday. We're going to do this light show. We're not light show anymore. It's a festival. We're going to put this festival on December the seventh, in partnership with the city Highland Park. And rehab Highland Park. And I got a couple other sponsors who saw that Facebook page. They want to get involved. A few of them want to get involved and buy businesses here. They want to they want to buy a property. Yes, guess what? They told me, I'm scared. I said, why? Man, your council vote everything down. I said, what they named YouTube. They both know every time there's no no, we can't I'm scared. I don't want to go and do this. And we, you know, I said, just give it a shot. So some few people is going to come and ask you, can they buy these buildings? And they want to know, can they be a part of our community and want to add money to this community, real money. So just listen to some of these people. And if you gotta investigate and investigate, but try to keep your nose to a minimum, especially if you can research and see who the nose is. You know what I mean. So in saying that, I want to apologize to the council as well, because you guys are part of one body, as well as you Charmaine and you for saying what I said, How I said it, without having it, information that I needed, but I got it now. Thank you. Alright, thank you, sir.
Okay, seeing no more people come up, no coming towards the podium. I'm just going to be killed by the clock today, though, I decide I want to take a rest. I'm going to get killed by the clock. My name is Jack Fallon Hall, and I live at 54th road. My issue is next door. I believe it's 58 road. And I think the property is owned by the Housing Commission. I've asked him to come out and cut the yard, cut the backyard. It is a jumbo back there. There are, I don't know if they're possums or what they are, but they are big, where I have a big trash can, and they are pulling my trash can down, and they runs over there in the in the 58 world, I think that's the address, but if it's a jungle back there, and every time I call, they said, Well, we're going to send somebody out there, but nobody ever comes. So it's like, I don't know what to do, like when I go home. Now I'm going to have to have my car lights on so that I can make sure that it's nothing out there. So that's my that's kind of my issue is, can anything be done? If they can come out and just cut the yard? And it's trees sometimes I, you know, will cut the trees too, because they're, whatever it is, they crawl up in the trees and they're making noises. I don't know if they're going to jump out. I don't know what's up there. Okay, thank you. Thank you, ma'am. You I'm
not going to favor anything. My name is Gracie Wooten, again, 249, I just want to thank you you know for that passing that that ordinance, you know and you know. And also to say that I didn't mean to confuse people. I was clear that the ordinance was separate from any kind of grant application, you know. And it's probably because I've been involved, you know, in that thing since 222 since 2022 when the lead grant was awarded that $500,000
to Highland Park for all this technical support. I, you know, I was aware of that. So I just thought Council knew that the ordinance was separate of any kind of grant, you know, applications. Because, you know, as you know, it was said, you know, we're going to have a lot of grant applications. In fact, back in 22 Highland Park was awarded money from the the state of Michigan poor solar lights, which have never been installed. You know, it was like $200,000 you know, and you know, I kept asking, you know, Mister Bosman, you know, will this happen? But he said that, he said the grant wouldn't expire, so hopefully that kind of money can go on with even this. Plus, I'm also aware that solar dairy has money. They have people who've awarded them money to help with this whole Solar, solar thing. Plus, I understood that the sea site included other things other than solar lights, you know, I was clear on that, you know. And so I'm sorry if I confused the council, but I, you know, I knew you were supposed to be just dealing with solar the ordinance tonight, and not any kind of grant stuff. Now I want to thank you for supporting that, and also for the resolution for the recreation center. That grant, that grant, you know, is to do improvements on one of the parks. You know, I think it's eyes where they're supposed to do some it's for baseball fields and also pickleball. I don't know anything about pickleball, but, you know, I would like to learn how to play. You know, I'm not too old to do that, you know. So, you know, these kinds of things, these kind of improvements, you know, I just want to opportunities, you know, improvement opportunities, you know, I'm just thankful that those were approved, and also Councilman Chaffee, since you're my you're my district person, I mailed you, I emailed you a cop, not emailed you, I text you a copy of the council meeting where the city council gave the citizen the, what do you call it community development, the approval to apply for that cite grant back in May, I just mailed it to you so you could see when you did that. And so thank you very much. Come on, Miss fry. Ain't no clock tonight. I'm just, I'm just I just like, You know what I said? You know what? Come on, y'all, this is David, when is this water bill gonna go down? You said six months. You said six months. And I go and pay my bill this time I'm paying for we never said it was going down. Is it six months? Though, you got a temporary increase in the middle of the year? Now I ain't hear no temporary increase. I was here. It said six wheels, six months. I feel every month is $550,000
and are we paying it? We barely. Are we paying it? We are barely making did we pay it? Barely? Are we paying it? We can't wait every month to the 25th did we pay it? Have we paid one bill? We paid pay June, July, August, September, it's October. We hold our breath. We know we bad here paying bills, and you still the city administrator. We going to hold you accountable. You gotta make sure these bills are paid. Listen, I'm doing the best I can, but I'm not a miracle worker. I understand that, and the people in Highland Park,
the bottom line is, those meters gotta go. Well, hey, we paying for extra money. My bill went up extra dollars. That's messed up. The bills went up because that was the deal. It wasn't the deal. I thought it was no deal. Was the deal? The deal was Highland Park. Your bills are going to go up and we're going to give you all this money. That was the deal. No, you didn't say that was in the dealer. We weren't going to be responsible for the bill. It was off the citizens, I don't know. It just got through on I understand now how y'all doing it, but it wasn't like that. What's the deal they came here? No, it just wasn't explained to that. We know these papers of this thing, it's like read the fine print. That's how we doing right now. Read the front print. But it should have been saying like that, we that's a lot of money. Highland Park had a repelling amount to the world that you owe 50 million. Y'all should have been paying the bills. 70 million. I don't even know how to deal Highland Park skin
in the game was that they had to have a mid year increase and and that they wait for their adjustment to go down until the meters going it No, it was,
excuse me. Excuse me. Ladies, excuse me. Ladies, don't let her fail. Okay, it really was
having a community, excuse me, thing to deal with this water, because it's super hot. Okay?
So I suspend. I spend
everybody don't qualify. We understand that your payment arrangement $400 versus 120 your water's not shut off. Of course you gotta keep it on.
Your tax. I understand all of that we do. The problem is it was said that it would be to you. No, it was not, listen,
ladies. I opened up the timer on citizens comments so the citizens could comment. I did not hope to entertain the kid discourse between the two of you. That's not what I was trying to do tonight. I want to leave as much time for the citizens to say as much as they wanted to say, but I didn't want to open up the channel for a heated discourse like that when the factual information is available and the two of you could talk in private, if you could show if Miss, miss or Frank, you can meet with Miss square and she can show you in print the things that she was saying. I don't want you guys to have to have to argue at the end of the council meeting. What I'd like to do is turn it over to citizens. It was a discussion. True, true, but it but it was different than what we allowed here earlier, and I didn't. I didn't want us to get too far off the rails. Time was not important tonight. So if we could go ahead right now, thank you very much for those citizens who are participating. No good deed goes unpunished. I try to make it possible for a little deviation. And is there written by on one? Thank you so much for reminding me of that. Thank you. I when I say thank you, I am not joking when I say, thank you that because that is a real
God, it's great. No, there are no hands raised online. So at this point, I'm going to go ahead and move into Council affairs, starting with the councilman from the third district, Mr. Al Sharpie, I'm going to turn the floor over to you. Okay to get us lean towards the door, Mister Bostic, um, have we had an opportunity to study the request I asked you at the last Council meeting, yes, Mr. Councilman, I'm looking into it regarding the property taxes and their effect on seniors and the impact potential development on their tax rates and the council's concern about the affordability and them being able to stay in their homes. I hope to have something at the November meeting in memo form. If not, then by definitely by the first meeting of December for you. Okay, I appreciate that. Okay, so imma get a little bit, little bit personal here. So there's
only one person that sat in this chair since I've been in the city, that I respected and appreciated, and that was Councilwoman Mamie Posey Moore, may she rest in peace. Really good woman, always had the love and feel for the city, never turned her back on the residence, Never, not one time, didn't have time to talk to a resident who had a question or concern, and in that same spirit, I sit here now hoping to honor that legacy of looking out for the residents and making sure that you get exactly what you need. Having said that, I want to say to the internet, tough guys on Facebook. Don't huff and puff behind the internet. Come say that to my face. I love to hear from you. If you're as tough as you claim you are, say it to my face. My tolerance is low, very low, for garbage. It's so low you have no idea the restraint I have sitting here. Tolerate these meetings. You got something to say to me, don't be on the internet like the cowards that you are. Say it to my face whenever you're ready. My Council number is 313-348-1255,
you can reach me 24/7, whenever you're ready, whenever you're tough enough, come on with it. This is not a popularity contest. I'm not here to be your friend. I'm not here to be your buddy. I'm not going to come to your house and eat dinner. We not going to watch a football game and have a couple of beers. We not going to do none of that shit. My job here is to make sure that you survive, whether you like it or not. You don't like me. I really don't give a damn, and I expressed it with a whole heart. You don't like me. I really, really don't give a damn. But imma sit here and imma do my job as long as I'm here, whether you like it or not. Now I get that in this, this particular role, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't, but at least there should be a level of discourse and civility, some level of professionalism. You got a problem with me? We should be able to discuss that, but instead of you doing it the adult way, and most of you are way too old to be doing the things that you're doing online. A lot of you are are old enough to be my grandparents, and the level of disrespect is amazing to me. But the moment I get disrespectful, and there are levels to it, and my disrespect is greater than yours will ever be. If you want to test that water, I don't care about nothing but the survival of the city. I will sit here and I will do my jobs. I know it's damn if I do and damn if I don't. Some of you won't like what I have to say. Some of you don't really don't care, but you got something to say to me, don't be on the internet like a bunch of cowards. Say it to my face. If you're man enough to type it, you should be man enough to speak it in person. I don't throw a rock and hide my hand. So whenever you're ready, and I say this to the cowards out there, whenever you're ready, so am I. Let's get into it and you have a lovely day. HP,
Miss Woody, can you let me out this damn door please? Thank
you so much.
Thanks. Miss Martin floor is yours.
Not sure what that was all about.
Definitely, Hello, can you guys hear me? Yes, that was an interesting invitation. Wasn't it very interesting. But what I'm gonna have to do is rebuttal and say that's not what city council meetings are for.
That's not what being in this seat is all about. It's not even about survival. It's bigger than that. So there's a such thing called freedom of speech, and you can say whatever you want to on Facebook or on internet. That's the beauty of what was. What's the a minute of freedom of speech. You can say what you want, but City Council is not for that. That's number one. Number two, I do want to say this, though I do appreciate I know he just left, and that's Sydney. He just left. I do want to say I appreciate him apologizing. However, at the same time, he also has to realize that he is Parker pride. He is the face, the voice, and he is the name of Parker pride. Every time you hear Parker pride, you think of him first. So anything he says, Yes, Parker pride is attached to it, he has branded Parker pride. So that's something he has to realize. So anytime he says that it's not, it's really hard to separate the two. I'm a little excited about him putting on the December 7. He said the Christmas Show. I'm excited about that. Number two, I do want to say that there is a Halloween event that's going on at the Rec Center on the 26th between 12 and five o'clock. All are invited. There's our flyers downstairs at the booth. Feel free to pick one up. With that being said, I always say thank you for coming out and staying here as long as you did. I appreciate that so much. And I'm gonna go ahead and turn this over to mama. Thank you Good evening, and I want to echo, I echo all that sentiment of Miss mark, and it shows an example of our growth, whether you know it or not, even in our meeting, we disagreed. We had quite a few discussions, and still was able to vote on the other items. Some of us, all five of us, some maybe not, but we were able to go on and get through and that's what a meeting is about, and that's what growth is about, and we will continue to grow. So what Mr. Chavez let it be realized or not, all of us have with that, I want to say that we voted on an ordinance. Please understand that we voted on an ordinance, so when that ran situation come back up again. It's not the same thing. Just want to make sure that that has very clear. In regards to funding, we have been a city without we have been a city didn't know how to find. And the biggest thing is, you all know what you don't know. And so there is money out there. There are ways to create situations that you can make things happen. They may be small monies put together to create big ones. So I've spent this year visiting other cities and seeing that so that's why I can say that in hearing how they were able to make some things happen. Well, we have been a city who doesn't have and we still are limited in our resources, more so in than we are out, and so we do have to look out to find them. Now we're going to ask those tough questions at the end of the day, we still going to work together. We have to work together. So I just want to make that clear a little bit there. And also I want to request, or I am going to request Miss Miss square touched on it. Uh, Mister sharp. He said I was in his head, and that is from this point forward. I don't think that we should really be accepting or voting on anything else, unless it's absolutely pertinent, until we get that list to see where money has gone, what's been completed. And I have asked, and I did tell some people that I was going to email them just what I'm asking them, so nothing's a surprise right now that we need to know all the grants, because even miss Gracie came up in and could write her off. Grant says, I think she mentioned one, but she doesn't even know if it's complete or it hasn't been used. So I'm going to again say that that is going to be a request. And I've said this before, sometimes you have to stop and take an evaluation of where we are before we move forward. So please, again, be patient with us. We have houses that are selling whether I think they should sell for that much, there's no query, because if you sell that much, kind of helps us. But we need people. We need development that's going to bring people, to bring revenue. We also have to be patient with our engineers, our people here in administration, and we have to be patient with each other. So I'm really asking that I did see a lot of comments. You never really see me comment. I don't think you ever see me comment, and that's because I know sometime that's misinformation. And so again, it came out really early. So that is my request, and also to the lawyer, that as well as we are prepared, that not that you don't come prepared, but that you come prepared as well to be able to maybe answer or direct. Because I've seen a couple of times that I thought that we should have better choices, better answers to some of our questions. I'm hoping that I'm covering everything that I really wanted to say this evening. It's always nice when somebody else kind of covers it. Like I said, the square mentioned that I really think we should have a money. Listen, it's no thing. There is in a budget, what was spent, where it went? Do we have any left? Let's close those out and find some others. So again, be patient until we get that staff where we can just have somebody who sits and looks for grants and ranks them other than the people that we have, we we're spreading people thin. On a good note, there has been some things happening in Highland Park, I think I've all been mentioning. I would also like to see if we can have also present a list of it, knowing that people or that administration know what's happening in the city, what developments are going on, what what improvements are being done, because there are fees, so I'm welcoming. I think they come next week. Am I right? It's where, what's the name of
the McKenna's November 7. Okay, that's the new firm that's going to be replaced in Saint bill. We get to come up with a date for the development committee. That development committee is going to be very good opportunity for the city. It's state land bank. You know,
a lot of the pressure came up of who makes the decision about a building being demolished. A lot of it depends on who owns it. The city doesn't own a lot of buildings. The city owns multiple houses, and so a lot of these buildings are owned by the state land bank, and especially the state land bank, you lose your property to the stage and you don't pay certain taxes. But having that committee very good, because it will be state land bank, Wayne, County Land Bank, Misha mevc and Department of President
or the council is right. There may be some resources out here to help tear down that big building on what we're having to jump start some action and some energy in the community, and there will be an opportunity to get back to that conversation with may County about the demolition of our properties that they wanted to council president. They wanted to keep the property. Wasn't that we didn't want them to do it. They needed to own, and our charge was allowed for it. But I think it's a great opportunity for everybody to be involved, for the council to be involved, for the citizens to get involved, this whole jump, sharding of redevelopment. So I think it's going to go up here. Thank you again. I am I we see the AC and district one, and I'm gonna be honest, but I'm not being biased. I really would like a gentleman or someone who is up and coming and want to learn and do things in the city to go forward. So please still come and see me, or inbox me, or call or leave a message at the first step that, Hey, call me. I'm interested in CPAC. Okay, because I don't want to keep somebody there too long in that position. Also, Juan Shannon had a little thing today for Miss mural that will be going up. Um, it's not going to be finished this year, but Donald goings. If you don't know who he is, just look into it, read about who he is. His works have also been taught at Brothers University. So it would be a pleasure to have a mural up in our city, um just period. We know that project that mister Shannon has going forth. I want to also say thank you again, and many prayers have done to all of the officers, as well as the new officers that we have received and they got this year. Other than that, I think I'm going to close out we're almost done, guys, you have a great night. Thank you for being patient.
That's it for me.
Thank you Good evening, everyone. First, I would like to acknowledge that my pastor is here and my sister, Joyce. Thank you for coming.
I want to talk about first the noise ordinance, because I get a lot of phone calls from seniors and other residents in regards to loud music, and I know our ordinance states at least to be shut down residential areas.
But that's not the case. Not even where I live downstairs, my wife's pretty good with it, because they were my age, and I know I did experience last week and they didn't shut their music off to 4am but I would really like to put some teeth into that no noise or next. And just like Miss square said, there are a lot of buildings that we do not own, but I've been asking for that information, along with a whole lot of other information, since January of 2023,
and also when we took our seats, Carlton gave Christi the outline of everything that he did and adopted when he was on council. And I'm going to make you guys a copy of the heaven for your next council meeting, because I use this as a weapon,
and I think that's it. Looking forward to getting these streets renamed in an ordinary fashion. And God bless everybody. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, ladies. Um,
I don't take the internet serious at all. In fact, on the advice of my father, I don't take anything with the power, but serious, if it can be turned off, I don't really care what people think, what somebody says on the social media platform. I had to announce to my friends on social media, Hey, y'all, I'm not on here. No more so don't send me no more messages. But you, you my real friend. You got my phone number. Call me at home. Uh, as the council president. I'm my email is available. Better than even phone calling me. Send me an email. I get tons of emails, believe it or not, I actually read them. I respond to you because I have four email addresses, but I read them.
And since I fight on a regular basis, y'all stay ourselves at home. If you crazy you want to fight somebody who find somebody else to fight, you're not gonna find a 53 year old man who used to fight, who used to get thrown around a choke to be looking for a new fight. I know better. Okay, go somewhere with that. That, like Mr. Shaki said, That's not our job, so that's not what we're here for. Just know that I don't take anything that said on the internet or in the news about me seriously. It's not real, as far as I'm concerned. What's real is the work that we do here in this room. And to miss Panic was point. You know, some progress is being made. We still don't agree on of significant number of things, but that was never. The goal sitting in these chairs is to agree on things. It was to be decisive about how would we respond to talking to nine other people in the grocery store, at the gas station or in any store, any park and Highland Park, if you got 10 people together, ourselves, being a 10 person, how would the group decide, what would they think is best for us? If you ask 10 people, and we should come up with a consensus, and if six people decide this is something that's good to be voted on, then as a representative of the group, we would bring forward the idea that the majority of people would think would be reasonable, and that's how we're supposed to approach our voting practices. Here, I would encourage the people in the audience to the point of our earlier presenter, who advocated increasing the number of people to vote, I would ask you to to collect the campaign flyers. This is a ritual that's taking place in my house for years. I think probably since we've lived there, we try to collect the flyers from the election. Every election we collect and put them in the envelope. Can you can imagine the amount of paper that we're talking about, but they are very interesting time capsule, because if you go open these things up, 234, years from now, it'll give you some sort of insight into what people were actually able to do different from their campaign promises. I think it's very informative. They don't teach civics in the high schools anymore, and most young people, if you have a conversation with them, they are totally disconnected from the process that has it was a thing that we fought a war over to form the country, is our ability to vote our own conscience. And so I would definitely advocate getting people out to the polls. But I would also advocate remember, remember the the last election and the one before that, that will have something to do with the number of people who feel compelled to come out and vote, and the numbers are sad, and I'm among the people who did not come out and vote because at the time, I thought I had more important things going on that day, I just couldn't find time for it. I regret it. I regret it. I regret that I didn't at least add my name to the tally of people who had something to say. So that's all I have for you. Ladies and gentlemen, chair we entertain a motion to adjourn tonight's meetings, I move to adjourn all those In favor. Meeting adjourned 919, have a wonderful Evening.
You.
First person left.
Yes, ma'am,
Both so I
and I thought,
maybe I Need to Prepare.
I'm
me, Yes,
Sir, You
Yeah,
Yeah, I'm going to take Jesus And sit downstairs in the lobby. I
