Budget Hearings - Mayor's Office
Detroit Documenters1h 50min
President Sheffield04:55
Right. Good. Good afternoon. I will now call to order the expanded budget Finance and Audit standing committee for the purposes of our fiscal year 24 budget hearings. Madam clerk or Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
Speaker 105:10
Councilmember Scott Benson. Benson aye. Councilmember Schrader Hall, the third present. Councilmember Leticia Johnson, present councilmember Gabriela Santiago Romero. Present. Councilmember Mary waters as a council member Angela Whitfield Callaway present. Councilmember Coleman and Jana second. Yep. Council President Pro Tem Jane State Council President Mary Sheffield. Present. We have a quorum present Madam President.
President Sheffield05:44
All right there being a quorum present. We are in session and we have the mayor's office as our next budget hearing. So those who are with us can join us at the table. And as you guys are coming up, number hall you wanted to make a motion regarding something for Executive Session.
Speaker 206:00
Yes, thank you, Madam President. And just to clarify, and I know we did it before and we've been rushing through this and always appreciate the great work of Mr. Corley and LPD. But just to make sure that we are clarify. I would like to make a motion to put in the HRD budget. A request for $2 million to fund a program that for senior citizens and disabled residents to be able to make upgrades to their homes. And that's the first motion Madam President.
President Sheffield06:30
All right motion has been made. Hearing no objections that action will be taken remember there. Ha
Speaker 206:36
Thank you, Madam President. And then my second motion is to put in the GSD budget $100,000 appropriation or an assessment for the gun. Shooting Range at Rouge Park. To be able to house and feel and definitely the sounds of gunshots.
President Sheffield06:59
motion has been made. Hearing no objections that will be added to Executive Session. Thank you, Mr. Hall country remember
Speaker 307:07
the spirit of making motions. I wanted to make a motion that I had in the Executive Session for the demolition department that they would have cadaver dogs for my understanding, that would be more the requirement for them to have that would be more than what their had the capacity or willingness to take on if they don't want to DPD and they already have a grant for that. So guy just put that in closing I'd like to make a motion to put that in closing resolution instead. Thank you.
President Sheffield07:38
All right. motion has been made to add that to our closing resolution, Hearing no objections that action will be taken. Thank you member young and good afternoon to you all. Mayor's office. We have your presentation and so the floor is yours. Just make sure your microphone is on by pressing. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 407:58
Yep. So thank you to this honorable Council. We'd like to just make quick introduction. So I'll start to my left.
Unknown08:05
Ray Solomon, Director department neighborhoods.
Unknown08:08
Definitely Washington Chief of Staff.
Speaker 508:10
Sad bit of sun deputy mayor Tricia Stein Chief Strategy Officer,
Unknown08:14
Carrie Jones, Deputy Chief of Staff.
Speaker 408:17
Okay, so I will kick it off. So good afternoon. Once again. Thank you for allowing us the pleasure of presenting our fiscal year 2024 budget and this year's budget we are requesting a 3% increase which is below the current rate of inflation. This budget is designed to provide increased effective and efficient services and opportunities to enhance the quality of life for residents. Firstly, I want to thank all of you for being stewards of excellent partnership and collaboration as we address the priorities of Detroiters through intentional initiatives, your thoughtfulness has led to the creation of a myriad of impactful programs for Detroiters, and we thank you sincerely for raising concerns and partnering with our team to address them. As you know, we receive as Do you substantial volumes of calls and concerns regarding blight removal and pathway pathways to opportunities. Additionally, we have heard from you and the community regarding the concerns of behavioral health, sustainability, violence reduction, and we have heard it loud and clear. And so we believe we are working through intentional initiatives that address them as a result of substantial expansion of the city's programs and initiatives and services. We've added six new positions. Let me explain to you what those positions are. We have a chief strategy officer Tricia Stein. She emphasized she has an emphasis on behavioral health, climate change sustainability without a substantial increase to the budget. We have a policy and legislative tracking coordinator slash advisor. So this person is not in place now but they will help us track the 10s of millions of dollars at the state and federal levels and connect these funds to city departments. Additionally, through all the initiatives, the expansion, we have a media coordinator that helps us to be more responsive to the increased demands from social media and media requests. Additionally, to address customer service experiences with our residents, we have two additional administrative positions that we will be adding. Additionally, we have a Harvard fellow to continue to work on special city initiatives. So today, my colleagues and I will speak to our budget and highlight a few initiatives that are coordinated in partnership with community groups, your offices, and the Department of neighborhoods and all the city departments. With that being said I'd like to allow Brad Deke, who is joining us virtually, and Ray Solomon to provide more context on blight elimination and beautification programming, as well as outline some of the popular tactics to residents to eliminate eyesores and create meaningful neighborhood partnerships. In addition, Deputy Mayor Madison and Tricia Stein will provide context on programming that delves deeper into remediating remediating some of the root causes of what we've seen has led to neighborhood decline. After our brief presentation, Carrie Jones and Steve Watson are prepared to address your budget questions. And the rest of my colleagues that are here with you today will address your general concerns and questions. Thank you. And I will kick it over to Brad Dick Emery Salomon.
President Sheffield11:55
Thank you, Andrew Clark will note we've also been joined by potentate. Thank you,
Unknown12:01
sir, no, Madam President. Thank you.
Speaker 612:04
Good afternoon Council. Department neighborhoods in conjunction with general service department department and other departments are responsible to make sure residents have access to beautification programs. So elicit those programs start with coming up fast as mostly makeover we're getting ready to roll that out. We'll be reaching out individually to your team like we do every year to let you know and give you the dates which are may 6 and may 13 and may 20. So they will go districts one, two, and three for the sixth, District Four and five for the 13th and District Six and seven for the 20th. Also, Ally cleanups has been a popular program. Black clubs that are registered to the city of Detroit can register for ally cleanups led by GSD. Joe Lewis Greenway cleaning out the breeze over the last couple of months have had been a huge success. Also flower planning this year. We are tripling the amount of flowers we are giving out for Motor City makeover this year. Last year it was 40 45,000 this year we'll have 100,000 flowers to give out. So this motor city maker will focus more on beautification initiatives instead of illegal dumping, but we will still do community cleanups still pull out illegal dumping but we are encouraging community gardens and black clubs to do more planning more beautification programs. Thank you. Right?
Speaker 713:37
Yes, sorry. I couldn't be the reception on the tail end of a cold and the guy fight keep it my office versus bringing everybody there. One of the things that the chief operating officers office will be focusing on this year's against supporting the department neighborhoods, all their efforts, and making sure that we're focusing on beautification from going from blight to beauty. One of the things we want to launch is to give residents a more of a tool in their hands so they can report problems of blight and we're working together with a marketing team to relaunch the Detroit app, we're gonna focus on a router that see it, click it, fix it, and that will be monitored through my office and with the director of constituent relations on how departments are answered. We all know you can pick up put a ticket in but if it's not answered, it's not going anywhere. So we'll make sure we're checking on the status of those answers and making sure that residents are getting being gotten back with the issues being addressed. So those are some of the things we're working on beautification. I think this on robotic knows we're launching starting next week on April 1. I've got residents be happy to hear this the cleaning of the freeways. There's a lot of people looking forward to that. That will be commencing next week. And also throughout the month of April you're gonna see close to 2000 trees and as such being planted this spring throughout the city. So with that said in my comments.
Unknown14:58
All right, thank you.
Speaker 815:00
So let's and so I'm greetings. Definitely through the Chair. Just want to say that my background of course, you know, the 27 years with the police department and now in this role and have had the opportunity to talk to each and every one of you and know how concerned you all are when it comes to violence in our community. And so oftentimes advocating for, you know, an investment in DPD, which you all did regarding the raises, and then also in the technology aspect of it, and so had the opportunity to call in and advocate for the ShotSpotter and you all passed it in a definitely thank you for that and so with this community Bayless intervention piece in talking with community members and activists and working very closely with them as well, one of the things that we heard over and over again, from our community groups was we need an investment in people, you know, you know, an investment in in prevention, and so it's one thing to invest in technology. It's one thing to invest in law enforcement, but what's happening around the country is what's called CVI community violence intervention. And so through the White House with the state, there have been ARPA opportunities. And this is one of the things that we're doing and so I'm definitely want to thank the mayor, we're actually increasing it from which was roughly allocated for 4.2 million and he actually bumped it up to 10 million for this investment. And so what we're looking at today, and he highlighted it during the State of the City, and that I'm definitely proud of, as well is $2 million in investment in the two year program. Right now. We are put out a no foot notice of opportunity, funding availability, and so that's been published. It's on our city website right now. So for community groups, individuals that are operating in this space, they have an opportunity to get funded, to get resources to get performance, be it contract with the city to be able to do the work they'd be already doing in the communities. And so with that, wanted to make sure that that I definitely didn't get in the way but when we looked at it is they are the experts of this. And so with a three to five mile CBI zone that we're calling it, they'll be able to propose their own strategies, tactics to reduce violence in those CVI zones, and want to make sure that they had the funding opportunities for their base budget so that we could set them up to be successful. And so $700,000 base funding and when you tie metrics into it as well for those that are successful based off of performance, if we're talking about the category of homicides and non fatal shootings, they can actually if they score in the level one aspect of it, they can get up to half of that performance bonus for that quarter if they get to a level two they can actually get the same as your base amount for that quarter. And so with our program goals is to bring down gun violence by partnering with the community groups, measure the results. And then for those that prove successful in their areas, after a year, look back on they'll have the opportunity to take on expanded areas as well. And so definitely very excited about it. The application period closes April the 10th and we expect to make a ward So of course we're council approval in the early summer.
Unknown19:03
We have one more slide. One more piece.
Speaker 519:07
That's our transition time Madam President. Excellent. Thank you. I enter the chair. I'm Tricia Stein, as the mayor's Chief of Staff said I am the chief strategy officer and I am responsible for a handful of initiatives. So I'm going to talk to you about two of them. One is the Office of Sustainability. And if you haven't seen the news yet today, we did announce our new director. It's his first day so hopefully in the near future we will I'm set up a time for him to come up here and introduce himself but it's back. I can go Soto and we've got a press release out and as I said we really want to look forward to having him come up and introduce himself but along with Jack now I lead the efforts. That is cross departmental. And it really is this work covers all city operations and needs to as we go off for that and and deliver on the mayor's climate strategy, which is to reduce emissions and improve resiliency and adaptation across the city. So we've got four key initiatives that I want to walk you through. One is zero admissions and building out that infrastructure. To that will support zero emission vehicles. One is to transform our city fleet. We'll be bringing a contract in front of you hopefully in the next month to have a consultant that will think through how we transform and transition our fleet to zero emission vehicles. Also building out the charging infrastructure across the city and making sure that it's equitable. There's also an Eevee car sharing model that we're that we're thinking through and putting ourselves in the best position to be awarded federal dollars that just started to be announced last few weeks. So more coming soon on that. Our second priority is transition into clean energy. This is really where we can find the most benefits from reducing our carbon emissions. So we are looking and reviewing viable solar options with vacant city land and then also on rooftops of large buildings and they're here now or soon to be in the future. And then also researching our bulk purchasing agreements and having discussions with our partner dt and how that looks. Or third is energy efficiency improvements and electrifying our buildings. So we've identified we're benchmarking first of all, all of our municipal buildings to see what their energy uses currently, and then really prioritizing the critical buildings that have high energy use and operate 24/7 and targeting improvements in looking to improve 25% of those in the next three years so we can reduce our emissions and then any new buildings that we will be building will be electric ready or have full electrification were available. And then our fourth one is protecting our vulnerable citizens and increasing resiliency, particularly around flood mitigation and heat mitigation. So we'll be targeting tree planning around our most blighted areas to improve air quality and heat mitigation, expanding our protection programs like renew Detroit and the base of backup initiative and then also continuing to invest in our green stormwater infrastructure. And then my last slide this will be our last one is mental health. So I also coordinate our response to behavioral health which is part of the new role that I serve. It also is a coordinated response across departments, which is why this position is in the mayor's office because it has to coordinate with DPD EMS, the health department HRD just to name a few. And then also work with our largest partner which is a D when Detroit when integrated help that work, and just want to lift up acute few of our priorities here as really addressing the high utilizers of emergency services. So working with DPD and EMS to put our arms and put a plan together for these individuals. That are repeated calls for service and have had at least one or more mental commitment last few years to then address what their needs are and increase our capacity and have continuum of care which will be from crisis mobile crisis to crisis intervention. To inpatient beds to long term residential facilities. Provide a coordinated services for unsheltered which really will be about getting housing and getting services and increasing our network of positive supportive housing options. improve education around resources, I think we have a long way to go and working with D when so folks know what services are available. And then I'm finally invest in the partnership of our CO response which is done currently now with DPD D when and HRD. And so expand that out. The chief has announced a plan and we're full support of it and to ensure that it is staffed 24/7 and that it is meeting the needs of this mental health crisis that we're in.
Speaker 424:05
Madam Chair, man, with that we conclude but I do want to say we were remiss in not introducing we have Homeland Security who who's joined us virtually so if they could introduce themselves. Okay.
Speaker 924:20
Good afternoon to the chair, Deputy Director Hilson Kincaid, Detroit Homeland Security and Emergency Management. All right, good afternoon.
President Sheffield24:27
Thank you for joining us. Do you have any remarks or comments but
Speaker 924:33
I just wanted to mull Island to introduce himself as well. He's still there.
Speaker 824:39
But I've known to the channel tomorrow I will be trained Homeland Security Emergency Management.
President Sheffield24:44
All right. All right. Thank you all for joining and we will go straight to questions and we'll start with councilmember Young.
Speaker 324:51
Thank you, Madam Chair. How good to see you guys. So it's a pleasure. First of all, I just wanna say deputy mayor better say thank you so much for the work. You've done the gentle Start program much appreciate it. I just want to ask to whoever this may pertain to. I want to ask Has there ever been any thought of creating an office of poverty in the mayor's office? And I think particularly Stein, you're talking about Stein, excuse me, you were referring to the issues of mental health? Has there ever been any kind of connection between mental health and poverty at all? I don't know who answered the first one, but it
Speaker 525:28
was a chair of Absolutely. There's an intersection and certainly addressing the needs, particularly with unsheltered population to ensure that they have housing, they have access to jobs and not only mental health, but physical health support as well and it is a whole wraparound approach and as I said it's part of the newly created position that the mayor has tasked me with to ensure that we are taking a holistic approach across departments and with external partners. So I appreciate your question and feel that that is where we need to be. And because we are in a crisis, and our police and our fire are on the frontlines, and they shouldn't be doing this alone and so we should be working with our housing and our providers of mental and physical supports to ensure that it is a coordinated response
Speaker 826:15
in both the cheer bucket, chime in and just add to it as well. It's all hands on deck and so when it looked the mayor's office and what Council and with everyone, we got a one shooter, we're not gonna provide that to you and other other things, but we've invested just in wraparound services to help with poverty, just a holistic view of it over $480 million just in wraparound services because we understand that with the city of Detroit in our current state and with so many of our residents living in poverty, that's a top priority for the mayor. So everything that we do from our office, we're definitely concentrated on ensuring that is equity in ensuring that we get those direct services and secondary services to our residents. So that's it just runs in the core of this administration. So I don't I don't know if this office is necessary is the mayor's office and it's city council and every time I talk to each one of you as well, that's one of the things that you do so I think it's all of our jobs do.
Speaker 327:23
Exactly I want to ask as the same thing, but I'm looking at community violence intervention and I'm looking particularly up on the shot stoppers perspective. There have been cities around the country that actually create offices of gun violence, or gun violence prevention. I just want to know, is this just something that's part of a program that you're working with that you're investing in? Or is that something like the office sustainability, that you have what you don't call it that?
Speaker 827:48
So the I've done the research, been to the national conferences and really looked at it. And when it comes to Office of Violence Prevention, the Deputy Mayor's office, the mayor's office, we are that office. And the reason that we're the office is that I can touch pulse departments to ensure that I get those services if it was just a one to one off, this is in the Deputy Mayor's office. And so I have the experience, the expertise, and then being able to pool all resources under the mayor's office to to address these problems. And so as you can see under with my recommendation and the mayor, we took it from what was in the budget for See by 4.2. We've taken it up to 10. And so laser focused on this.
Speaker 328:41
Okay, no, excellent, thanks. I appreciate that. And it's my final question I want to ask is do we have a department Homeland Security that's on the line, I just want to ask where are we in terms of our hazmat response? Where are we in terms of are we are we prepared with the rest of the country in terms of where we need to be? Do we need to improve what areas do we need to improve in and how much money would that cost? If there's an area we need to improve in?
Speaker 929:10
Through the Chair? Yes, I believe we're compatible with other cities. We're always looking to improve and this hard to say give $1 amount for certain things. But we have a specific liaison from the fire department. Sergeant called Milhouse, who deals with all our 302 sites are the sites that we consider to have volatile chemicals that can affect the city adversely. He's also the president of what's called our el EPC. Local Emergency Planning Committee, which deals with those types and make sure they all had emergency response plans where police and fire should have a clear response to those locations. But we coordinate that with our entire citywide evacuation plan, as well as our connectivity to the businesses to make sure that the first time there is an incident. We're just not meeting the people there who control the emergency response. We're now going into the community as well, to make sure that preparedness issues are addressed in the communities where these businesses and whatnot reside. But we're always looking to do more as far as emergency response in reference to our hazmat situations. I've even been afforded the opportunity to go to Harvard, where I was trained in nuclear response and whatnot. So we every time something comes up, we try to stay on that cutting edge. When new programs, new processes or new equipment is needed, when we definitely be coming to council to ask for those things are improvements that we have. But I think as a city goals, we continue to stay prepared. And we don't operate on a situation of if we operate on situation when it happens. We want to make sure we're prepared.
Speaker 330:50
All right. Well, if you have like a budget of course you know, this is budget so you have like a financial request. You know, don't be shy, please let
Speaker 930:56
me know. Yeah, yes, sir. Yes. Yes, sir.
Unknown31:00
Thank you. I appreciate man for it. That's my time. Thank you, everyone. Appreciate you.
Unknown31:02
Thank you, member Yang. President President.
Speaker 1031:06
Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon. Thank you all for joining us today. A couple of quick ones. We will send some of the other questions in writing. But looking at and it may have been discussed. I apologize for my tardiness. But we're sitting here and page 33 Dash seven a neighborhoods was goes up from 2 million just a little over 2 million to 2.2 million for this upcoming budget in jumps up to 2.3 proposed in the forecast rather and 25 What's what's the reason for the increase and what are the services under that through the
Speaker 631:48
chair. The first thing was the deputy managers all got a increase. We moved them up to 75 Just really making sure we kept good timing like we had turnover that was going to place pace we just couldn't manage. So we were able to do that increase and so we can keep good talent.
Speaker 1032:10
And so getting increased again and the forecast or the forecasting and additional increase.
Unknown32:16
Turn it over the budget
Speaker 1132:20
through the Chair. Good morning, or good afternoon and thank you so much for letting me talk about our budget here today. Part of the reason for the increase in Department of neighborhoods is there's an additional position allocated for volunteer coordinator. The volunteer coordinator position has typically been a grant funded position and are the grant that we had for that ran out and we really felt that it was very valuable position that person leads our efforts in recruiting volunteers for things like Motor City makeover for Halloween in the DEA all sorts of initiatives across the city and they really are our point of contact with the faith based community, the corporate community, community groups to really make sure that we're engaging our community to help help Detroit are so that is the reason for a part of the increase as well, who held that position in the past in the past it was Breanna Sullivan. And now it's Tony Stovall. I'm probably mispronouncing it
Speaker 633:22
to share Tony Stovall and before Brianna, Chelsea
Speaker 1033:28
Okay, and then my last question that I'll ask here is regarding and we've talked about this in the past and Trisha, this was before you that in terms of behavioral health, I'd ask about utilizing our rec centers as hubs for our young folks and seniors and everybody in between, to be able to obtain some of those behavioral slash mental health services in those particular facilities because we don't really do that today. What has the conversation look like? Moving forward? I know you and I, and a deputy mayor, we've had numerous conversations, we're going to be doing something big as we move forward, but just kind of parking it right now. Looking ahead. This is budget time. What does that potentially look like our behavioral slash mental health efforts and rec centers?
Speaker 534:26
Through the Chair to President Trump, this is the first time I've heard about this and I know you and I have talked about expanding education and expanding access to counseling and partnering with DEA when to ensure that all justices are known. The Rec Center specifically is known so they take that back and figure out what type of programming could happen and what what makes sense particularly partnering with DEA when because they do have the network. And let me get back to you
Speaker 1034:53
that just think it's important. Again, I don't mean to surprise you with this question right here has been asked in years prior, but just want to make sure that when we provide access to the services or the opportunity for the services, we also have access and having these rec centers in our neighborhoods, to me is a great opportunity for us to bring the services closer home, closer to home, if you will get have a number of questions here and respecting Council President's request for two questions only I will yield the floor. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you.
Unknown35:28
Right. Thank you broke down. Councilmember cowboy.
Speaker 1235:32
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon. Um, I'll just ask one question. The mayor has an internship program through the Harvard Business Leadership Program. Just Can someone tell me what that's all about? Is there a cost for it? How was it selected? Because we have wonderful universities right here in the city of Detroit with leadership programs. I'm sure you're aware of those but by Harvard, how much and what's the benefit to the city and a description of the program? And if there's a person sitting in that position, a little bit about that person?
Speaker 1136:10
Certainly I can take that question. So this program started four years ago. And it came as a result of the Harvard Fellows Program. And so the Harvard Fellows Program is the universe the University says, you know, we want to incentivize our Harvard MBA students to go and work in the public sector. But a lot of times there are cost prohibitive with doing so. So the salaries in in public sector positions may not pay as much as somebody who's going to McKinsey Consulting or someplace else. So they really wanted to offer a pathway for the MBA students. To give back. So they approached at the city of Detroit as many other cities across the country and offered this opportunity. So they said it we will pay for 50% of this position. And you know, just ask that the city match the position with an additional 50%. And that I mean, they match it with the other half of the 50% but, and then also pay for benefits. And so this has been the fourth year of the program. We currently do not have a fellow in the position, but some of our previous fellows have worked on really important initiatives like COVID response, they've worked on refugee settlement, and they've also worked on gun gun violence prevention. And so the program has been very successful. We are currently in the midst of reviewing applications for the next batch of candidates the next position, and this has been in the budget in the non departmental budget, but we've moved it into the mayor's office because the position reports the mayor it just seemed like it made more sense for it to be housed there.
Speaker 1238:04
It was a 50% match and what are the benefits? Does Harvard pay for the benefits or are we splitting that
Speaker 1138:10
it persists? The City of Detroit pays for the benefits in the 50% match is based on the salary I believe it's up to $55,000 I'll have to confirm that and get back to you. But the but Harvard pays for for the half of the salary and we pay for the other half plus the benefits. Yeah.
Speaker 1238:27
What would be amazing to me as if we had I don't know if this is the case here. A candidate that selected maybe has some ties to Detroit. Have we had any African Americans in this position or women
Speaker 1138:40
we've had two women, two Indian Americans and a Caucasian woman?
Speaker 1238:46
Have we had an African Americans? Oh, no, I'm sorry. No, we have. We have not no. It would be nice if we could, you know, maybe tweak the program a little bit to maybe bind someone in the Harvard Business School Leadership Program who have ties to Detroit. Okay, that's that will be wonderful. So far so far. We haven't had any African Americans in the program when the fourth year. Um, that is correct. Okay. All right. Thank you. That's my other question. That's my last question. I'll submit my other ones.
Unknown39:14
Thank you so much.
Unknown39:16
Thank you, Councilmember Doha.
Speaker 239:19
Thanks. Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon to you all. Just a quick comment. Again, I want to thank you, Deputy Mayor for your work on shot stoppers, participating in the gun violence task force. I know a lot of what we are what is wrapped into that so that say, comes from the community and their responses that they say and or what they speak about, and that's great to see that type of work now come into fruition and then have the opportunity to be able to penetrate our neighborhoods and our communities to ensure that we're looking at public safety and addressing gun violence in a different way here in the city, and so I am glad that program is going off, look forward to continuing that partnership that we have for the gun violence task force to even push more recommendations for this really quick. I know we talked about, he talked about a little bit about the Office of Violence Prevention. I know that was something that was discussed in the taskforce as well, just from some of the stakeholders who have been around and been around the country. One of the concerns with that was is that if we just create one office that doesn't have a level of sustainable funding, like they've done and other cities, that we may be at risk of the work stopping. And so just having those conversations and putting it under there. I look forward to having more conversations of what that build out looks like relative to input from the community and those who deal with gun violence. So that was just a comment. My question is dealing with the Office of Sustainability. Something that's very exciting when we talk about how corporate industries are now looking deeper into sustainability and what that looks like. My question is, and I know we talked a little bit about infrastructure, what does that kind of look like as far as we're looking down the road to become committed? Should I say comparable to other cities and municipalities our size? Do we know what they're kind of doing now as far as their budgeting and how much they're spending on infrastructure? through to
Speaker 541:33
the chair to member Dr. Hill? Excellent question. We partner the city's been partnering for a number of years with Bloomberg associates. And part of that partnership is taking a look at cities that are comparable to us and chartering where their best practices are and what their budget looks like and and how they are setting up their their Office of Sustainability and what measures that they have taken so that partnership has has yielded great success in setting up the department by in 2017 and then provides feedback and input on a regular basis for us to do exactly that. In in resilient infrastructure is exactly one of the priorities that we have to have for sustainability. In looking towards the future. We had 100 year floods back to back a couple of years ago as you know, in your in your district. So ensuring that we have green stormwater infrastructure and and infrastructure that is resilient and has flood mitigation and adaptation is essential and a priority and taking a look at other cities and seeing what they're doing is all part of them.
Speaker 242:42
Well, I appreciate that comment. I mean, that is the biggest issue, just not here in Michigan and the city of Detroit but across the United States and to know that we're now taking a more serious approach of addressing that whether that's connecting with DWSD or connecting with DPW. That is huge. And I look forward to that continuing here. There are some state dollars floating around for our state folks who may be listening we need them here in the city of Detroit federal dollars through loss of federal dollars. So thank you for that. My second question goes to the department and neighborhoods. Give a shout out to Ray the seventh stand up please and that's a that's a good good district. Great district should I say and speaking to D seven obviously Miss Mona Hi Lee, as well as Alexia Davis are the dance in our district. And I can tell you every meeting I met there, and I can tell you how exhausting that can be at times and how much that is a lot of work and they're connected with other programs. They have a downcast and all of that going on which is great. My question is, is have we looked into the expansion of maybe getting one more person to meet the needs? You know, I can't speak for every council member I know I'm very close with my district managers. I believe that partnership helps fill in the gap and disparity that may exist between constituent concerns helps us get faster responses to the department sometimes we play good cop sometimes we play bad cop right. Have we looked at how we can increase though the presence or not the presence should I say because the presence is great, but increase maybe one more position and add one more position so it can we can penetrate the community a little bit deeper.
Speaker 644:32
So today chair, I mean, the short answer is we have not we rely a lot on the partnerships go to partnerships with counsel. The partnerships with the different departments is the strength right? It is the teamwork that helps us get the job done. So the short answer is no. But you know, thank you for the partnership and we'll continue relying on our partners.
Speaker 244:54
Now that was a great answer. That was probably the most political answer heard all day. But that being said, though, again, I would just urge you know, the administration obviously you sent your saying you know what your needs are. I'm telling you, they do an amazing job, by the way, they're everywhere. But we'll be good to see at least one more assistant in the department and neighborhoods to be able to, you know, help more with more constituent complaints and, and things of that nature. And again, they do an amazing job. That's not saying that they don't. I'm just saying that one more you know, person on the ground would be helpful. Even connecting with my team, who was always on the ground as well. I think that would be good. So that was my question. You answered it. Very short and precise. You know what, I appreciate that. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you.
Unknown45:49
Thank you member Doha. Council member waters. Thank you. Good afternoon.
Speaker 1345:57
Quick question. Remember, Callaway certainly did ask one of my questions. So thank you remember Callaway um, and then we'll email the rest of them. What are their professional and contracted services that are either being eliminated or reallocated and, and why?
Unknown46:20
I can take that question.
Speaker 1146:21
So there aren't any particular contracted services that are being eliminated. You know, we held space in the budget for certain enough, you know, certain things like thinking, Okay, we may need contracted services for this or that. We ended up not using those. And so we reduce the amount because we have a policy that if we're not using funds that are allocated, we don't get to hang on to them for the next year. So
Unknown46:50
simple fancy. Thank you. That's it, ma'am. President Thank you.
President Sheffield46:56
Thank you, member waters Member Santiago Romero.
Speaker 1446:59
Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon. I have a number of questions. I will start off by just clarity. I believe it was noted that the administration is focused on sustainability, mental health and that we're doing all of these things without added funding. Did I hear that correctly?
Speaker 447:24
Through the Chair, so it's it's minimal. Additional funding understood, so you know, to be in line with the 3% increase. So we thought with these new initiatives that you know, would be substantial increases, but we've managed to keep it minimal.
Speaker 1447:40
Understood. Thank you, and thank you for that clarity through the chair. So that brings me to my my, my focus here is that I actually believe in that a lot of investments and things like mental health and sustainability and violence prevention. So happy to hear that we're focused on here now, but initially, we need funding to back up our focuses and would like to know specifically to mental health. What are we doing to improve continuum of care? What is some of these initiatives that we can look forward to noting that we're not really putting the funding behind it yet? So I'm hoping that we do at one points, but what are some of the improvements that are going to be coming through the continuum of care and through the chair before before you get to that Trish, I just want to also make a note that I have been hearing horrible stories of inpatient care when it comes to local providers or hospitals. And I'm not sure if you're aware of respite care centers, there are some across the states. There can be state funding for these as well. But wondering what is the city doing now for continuum of care, and wondering what discussions you might be having with the states for things like peer supports respite centers?
Unknown48:54
For your better finished with question, right,
Unknown48:56
yeah, with that one, yes. Through the
Speaker 548:58
Chair to member Santia Romero. So you you was a perfect lead up to my answer is that we are working with the state and we are working with also on county and D win. Because that's where the funding is to increase the crisis stabilization units. So Dewayne is investing in two crisis stabilization. One is on Nowalk in Milwaukee and Milwaukee excuse me, and will be open this fall, which will have a number of crisis stabilization of chairs, if you will, as as how they're usually referred to. There'll be also increased mobile mobile units to go out in the field and then crisis residential which is up to 14 days, crisis services and chairs up to 72 hours. So working with them to ensure that build out and meet the crisis now model which is where the targets that we're looking toward, to to expand and then communicating to the state. They've allocated funding for an additional facility which hopefully will, the construction will begin and we'll open it in fall of 2024 on seven mile into increase additional crisis services in crisis residential, and then continue to build out the continuum of care. So you have mobile units that can be called into the field and having a more of immediate response. Crisis Stabilization, 72 hours crisis residential is up to 14 days inpatient, we've I've been meeting with a handful of behavioral health hospitals StoneCrest Detroit receiving Sinai grace, Henry Ford, part of this role that I've been in since December is meeting with them and understanding what the challenges are. They too are getting hit in their emergency rooms and try having extreme trouble of finding placements and matching the acuity levels of patients and lack of beds and lack of resources. So working towards their challenges and understanding them and ensuring that if there's additional ways that we can be helpful to increase inpatient or increase care, and really working with the state to find what can we do then beyond the 14 days and that's really where the mayor has our work tasked is to increase that level of service for additional supervised capacity for 14 days and beyond. Because the acuity level is is is so great right now and in our police officers are on the front lines when we launched CCO response and I did that before I left DPD in December of 2020. On average DPD received 20 calls for service a day with a mental health Nexus. today. I know you know these numbers because you were absolutely ingrained in it. Today they receive on average 36 calls a day for mental health Nexus. So we're trying to put our arms around the high utilizers that have multiple calls for service that have a violent history and in assuming we can then match their care with appropriate levels. Permanent Supportive Housing is another one that we need to increase in our housing revitalization team has a pipeline of 230 beds to come online here in the next year or so I think we do see an increase on all levels of care which is why it's that continuum of care and using state and federal dollars to match that and then partnering with DEA when to provide services and or build out facilities in their network
Speaker 452:42
through the Chair if I may. I would also encourage and we could walk in and pan together. We've been lifting the capacity for you know more mental health beds with our state lawmakers. So maybe this is an initiative we can all walk together on because you know it's quite prevalent here in the city so we can talk offline if you'd like
Speaker 1453:05
through the Chair. Thank you. Think you trishing Oh, this is gonna be a lot of work and happy and eager to support in this work. Both as a social worker and community organizer that's been doing this before I came here have a lot of ideas and passion for for this issue. Want to ensure that we get to a point where our police are not responding to nonviolent mental health calls. That should be something separate. There are other cities that are doing this around already very successfully, and actually would like us to urge to look at peer peer to peer respite centers compared to the supervised ones by frankly, social workers or doctors. I'm hearing that the peer to peer care centers are much more successful, cause much less harm than the other facilities that a lot of our residents are in right now. Madam President, I would like to add to a closing resolution. Since I've been here, there are so many things that the city does that residents don't know about. And frankly, I don't know if we have annual or quarterly mental health reports on the money that we're getting them from the federal and from the States, what we're utilizing with it, what we're what we're doing with it, what our partnerships look like. So I would like to add to a closing resolution that we conduct that we produce reports we can figure out what that looks like but a report that that shares with the public what we're doing to address mental health.
President Sheffield54:36
I would like to make that motion, Madam President, and he says to the executive session or closing, closing resolution, motion has been made, Hearing no objections that action will be taken. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you so much. Councilmember Benson.
Speaker 1554:51
Thank you. Thank you all for being here today. And it's just want to say thank you to each of you. work that you do. We work closely with all of you. especially glad to see that we now have a focus on the Office of Sustainability. We've had the wealth generation Task Force efficient transfer of wealth adopted, we're looking forward to that had long relationship with former boss living in a third district director of neighborhoods and so he's really worked and with the deputy mayor who really helped this year when he came to the sister city initiative with DACA. That was a huge lift and thank you very much for that opposite sustainability. While not totally housed within the mayor's office, house and GSD and with this expansion of services and expansion, the focus is really concerned. Don't want this job to be seen or become the punishment of Sisyphus. We want to make sure that we're going to fund this properly and ensure that the new director has the support that they need. And so looking at the budget, there it is identified as having one FTE for the sustainability director, but unless I'm missing something, I just don't see the supporting staff nor budget for operations for that office. Can you explain that please?
Speaker 556:08
Of course, through the chair to member Benson. So there is well that FTE is located in GSDs budget. You're absolutely right. The Office of Sustainability does reside in the mayor's office now and does report up through me that is a new change and mayor's chief of staff did say that in her opening remarks. I just think it's worth repeating that it is a function inside the mayor's office. For this reason, it needs to cut across all city departments. There has to be a champion there has to be FTEs within all departments that are focused on sustainability this has to cut across operations and not just be in a single department and a single focus of a unit. So it was on purpose to put that in the mayor's office and to ensure that there are FTAs across every department and champions that will lift up and do this work because the the needs are too great. The mayor has us tasked with a climate strategy that will cut across all divisions.
Speaker 1557:08
So good funding and support so we have one FTE to director. So what type of support was the budget for the office? There's nothing identified that I can see it maybe it's just embedded. It is
Speaker 557:18
and his team will then be crossed all departments. And we're identifying and that's the work that you've actually seen us note twice are leaning in and those two day session just last last week and you saw us at the end of January, bringing in all the departments and identifying their champions so he will have that cut across. And so part of the support is in GSD part of the support is in DPW the infrastructure D that it it that's where it needs to be and it has to be cross departmental. Okay.
Speaker 1557:49
So still looking for a number for support within the office have a number one have a budget would have the ability to fund initiatives. How do you see that being funded through the city? General Fund?
Speaker 558:01
Currently it's in the FTE count that's there now and then in the future, and part of it is I mentioned is the CFI grant that was just announced by DOD and the Department of Transportation, which is $15 million. Is this the total that we can ask for on a community level for the charging infrastructure and to build out and get us ready for zero admissions. We will go after that aggressively. There are so much other nofas that are about to be led with the IRA funding and the infrastructure money. That's just on the federal level. There's also state level we just won the smart grant that will help support these initiatives as well and we will continue to be very aggressive and grant funding and then build out represent staff that needs to fulfill those duties.
Speaker 1558:50
Okay, then we see the office then being funded primarily through grants and not being funded to the general fund moving forward.
Speaker 558:58
So through the chair to member Benson, it is funded in departments currently, and it's it will be funded through grants, prospectively as well. Okay,
Speaker 1559:09
maybe I'm just not hearing what typically I would hear when it comes to the funding. That means zero amount Do we have a just as a million dollars we expect that the office will utilize I mean just is there a number
Speaker 559:23
I can't quantify it because it needs to be deep and it needs to go across departments. And so today I can tell you what is needed inside a handful of departments but then tomorrow to to attack a one of the other initiatives. It could require 10 positions across the city, but those are already FTE is baked inside departments that exist now that have to be champions and have to take sustainability responsible and pick take the responsibility of sustainability and be held responsible. It can't just live in one department and that be their their responsibility. I don't feel that that is set up to be successful. Okay. And that's my job to cut across I am and that's my job to make sure that all departments take this seriously and have the requisite staff to be to fulfill these these priorities in the climate strategy at the mayor set forward.
Speaker 1501:00:20
Okay, in every city city needs a sustainability arena. And so I'm just hoping that what we have is just something easier to wrap our arms around so questioned in the community or amongst the amongst the practitioners or amongst the green Taskforce. Members will Councilman Benson was the budget for the app sustainability, how many FTEs they have? Well, I was totally at the table that that's wrapped into the other budgets, those staff members are already those other departments. So I don't have an answer for you. But I do have is that you'll see. And so just it will be good to have something that's a little more concrete that we're able to express to the community and to the residents, when they ask about what we're doing what we anticipate that budget illustrates for them and as we've seen in Seattle and in Minneapolis and in San Francisco, and they all have very robust offices of sustainability with independent departments with independent budgets. We also had to start somewhere. And so understanding we're now we've started the office, we're now doing a sustainability 2.0. And so just really looking forward to something just a little more for me concrete on how much we plan to spend, what those activities will be amongst the different departments. And then what type of support that that person can count on, I understand is going across different departments. But typically you'd also have one or two staff members at least to help support those and help guide and things of that nature. So just still seems a bit ethereal, maybe because we just don't have a concrete budget one line item we can identify what we plan to expand and what type of resources we committed to that department and then office. Does that make sense?
Speaker 501:01:56
It absolutely makes sense. And I think that's fair. But again, I just want to restate it can't be one line item and it can't just be inside one. Department. I don't think that sets the city or collective actions up for success.
Speaker 1501:02:11
Okay, then, is there a department that we can look up to as an example that's been run or set up that way where you don't have a line item in one area and it's been placed amongst others?
Speaker 501:02:21
I think that is a good takeaway for me and I will do my homework. Okay. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Mr. Whatever.
Speaker 1601:02:29
I just wanted to reiterate, the other day we spoke about the need for an executive organizational plan. And I think that might help a lot. You might not find it, if they're organizing it such that the budgets are sort of mixed up, at least the narrative will be explained, so that the public will understand where various functions are carried out and they can look and track that in the appropriate department. But executive organizational plan may help greatly we've done the resolution that council asked and circulated earlier today.
Speaker 1501:03:09
So yourself to Mr. Corley, just in your years of doing budget work. How many times have we seen this type of budget or office configuration where it's been less typical than what we've seen in other but departments
Speaker 1701:03:25
and president is typically the areas that department typically there's you know, a department either a new department or a new function within a department. So the habits spread out through other departments. You know, that's kind of new. And so, hopefully the administration can spell out which individuals will be performing dual roles. It sounds like going to have the same employees also performing office assistant sustainability roles. And so they need to spell that out. And if it gets to the point where people in different departments are only providing services for the Office of Sustainability, and I really do think there needs to be a separate department at some point.
Speaker 1501:04:11
Okay. And Madam Chair, this is just the statement and so I appreciate the fact we are here we are we starting as 2.0 We've got thinking outside the box just also just helps for us to be able to do our oversight role. We can have something a little more typical and maybe a little more just what we've seen in the past here, always willing to look outside the box and think differently, but just have to be up for oversight. I mean, what is this costing? How many FTE are we utilizing? If we have mo use with the departments, how much time are they spending and and how do we just quantify what is costing us and what type of resources we're putting into the Office of Sustainability if we don't have a regular line item just for oversight for us as well. And for our own staff. We need to help us with oversight to be very, very helpful. Understood, thank you.
Unknown01:05:01
Thank you, member Benson member Johnson.
Speaker 1801:05:03
Thank you Madam President. And good afternoon, everyone. So I'd like to start talking about small businesses. When the DGC came before us, I did talk to them about what are we doing to attract small businesses to our neighborhoods, and I know that the business liaisons are more focused on reacting to the current small businesses that we have within our neighborhoods. There was a request for us to create an Office of Small small business affairs and I know we put that into Executive Session. I know that it's not in the mayor's budget, but can you all talk about what you do relative to attracting small businesses relative to addressing like streamlining internal processes to encourage small businesses to come to the city of Detroit, particularly within our neighborhoods?
Speaker 601:06:01
Firstly, I told the chair so our business liaison is correct. They're more reactive, but we also have a backlog of entrepreneurs reaching out to say, Hey, I'm looking for a building I'm looking for a structure so what we are currently doing now is serving the city. So if there's an abandoned commercial property, we're making note of that reaching out, trying to find that owner to say hey, there's a motor city match program, we potentially have a tenant for you. So that is ongoing these last two or three months. We kind of kicked it up a little bit. So yeah, we are working on trying to feel those empty, empty buildings. So do you
Speaker 401:06:42
all I'm sorry, through the Chair, if I could add. So additionally, we have a new role to complement what they're doing at the DGC with Amanda Elias so she's the deputy group executive for neighborhoods and you know, small business development and things of that nature. And I will tell you, we have heard this and I don't know if Nicole sharara Freeman addressed it in her budget hearing but this would fall under her because it's a jet position. But I know she is is structurally feeling good about the direction of you know, really developing and helping small businesses expand in the city. She is always willing to as we all are always willing to take you know, I guess advice or suggestions and hear the concerns of the organizations that represent small businesses so you know, we can provide you more information on that and I can have Nicole Turner Freeman reach out to you directly directly.
Speaker 1801:07:43
Okay, thank you. I would love to have that conversation because I do have some small businesses in the district that are having some challenges and having challenges with connecting with the city of Detroit and staying afloat because of that connection. And so I think there are some things that we can do internally to smooth out that process and make it a mutually beneficial for the small business and the city of Detroit.
Speaker 601:08:12
Due to chair, if you send me that information, we'll follow up with them immediately.
Speaker 1801:08:15
Thank you. Thank you. So my other question is relative to the Joe Lewis Greenway. So I know that, you know, this is a 27 and a half mile stretch that is all on the west side, that is really focused on economic development. Can you all talk about the economic impact of the Joe Lewis Greenway and then somebody have some forethought and tell me what you're going to bring to the side that that equals or succeeds the level of work that you're doing on this Joe Lewis Greenway?
Speaker 701:08:54
I can answer that to the chair. to Councilmember Johnson. Councilmember as as I, as the gentleman who is in charge of getting the job Louis Greenway build I understand because as you know, I'm your neighbor. I live about a block from you, and I would love to see the Joe Lewis over D four. We are focusing on getting the content that Joe Lewis constructed and then we're also looking at connectors we can use to connect over to other parts of the city that they can connect into maybe the Conner Creek Greenway. We're also looking to connect over to other areas of the city as well, too. So I think that's our focus is getting the current Joe Lewis Greenway built. And while with the planning study going on planning developed, we have completed several meetings, and we're going to look for those potential areas where we can then connect into other areas of the city business corridors or other greenways as well, too. So that's coming soon. We'll be glad to share the study with you. And in case you haven't heard, we did just hire our first full time Executive Director Miss Liana medley she starts next week. And Miss medley is a resident Defour also, I think you know that Councillor Johnson? I'm sure she's gonna want to do what she can to get the Greenway brought to the side as well to
Speaker 1801:10:08
Excellent, thank thank you and congratulations. on that. That appointment. I think Leanna is absolutely amazing. I'm glad that she is from District Four because I'm sure she will certainly continue to push that conversation to make sure that we're doing something equally as great on the east side.
Speaker 701:10:26
I promise you that I can ride our bikes together down there one day, hopefully.
Speaker 1801:10:31
So Sounds great. Sounds great. So the only other thing that I want to add, I've mentioned via several or during several of our hearings about a disaster mitigation plan. And I think that's something that's going to cross several different departments as well. And so Madam President, I'd actually like to make a motion to add the creation of a disaster mitigation plan, specifically relative to basement backups and flooding. That will essentially be a plan of action that the city can take to address these types of issues that we have within our neighborhoods. I'd like to make a motion to add that to the closing resolution.
President Sheffield01:11:13
All right, motion has been made. Hearing no objections that action will be taken.
Speaker 1801:11:20
Thank you, Madam President. And the only other thing I wanted to add is relative to to the opposite of sustainability. I really, I think it's important for us to consider helping to develop resilience hubs throughout our neighborhoods, because we're having a lot of challenges as we all know with DTE and our residents being reliant upon DTE and so you know, for vulnerable residents who may need to refrigerate medication or, you know, during the warmer months need to cool off or in the winter, you know, to have access to some heat. I think it's important to start to put a focus on resilience hubs throughout our neighborhoods. That is all that I have. Thank you. Thank you
President Sheffield01:12:06
manifesto. Did you want to add that to the closing resolution? Sure. Thanks. Great idea to
Speaker 501:12:12
the churches real quickly to member Johnson. There is one that is coming online soon in near you with the old Lenox of centers. That is exactly what you're talking about. It will be solar powered, but it'll be a storage facility as well. So it's exactly what you're talking about. And the goal that we have for the next three years for our sustainability goal is to have additional hubs exactly like that around the city. So more to come on that.
Unknown01:12:36
Excellent. Glad to see that. Thank you.
Unknown01:12:38
But that's in the closing resolution. I'll help me get my job done.
Unknown01:12:42
All right. Remember, Jonathan, you want to make that motion. I'd like to
Speaker 1801:12:45
make a motion to add to the closing resolution, the development and creation of resilience hubs throughout the city. of Detroit. All right, motion
President Sheffield01:12:54
has been made, Hearing no objections that action will be taken. And I have questions that I will submit in writing but I did want to touch on one issue and that is customer service within the mayor's office. And I think someone mentioned to additional staff members that we'll be addressing customer service, oftentimes, and I've actually answered the phone and we'll office a few times and they will say I called the mayor's office and there's no answer. Nobody's answered the phone. And a lot of times those calls are directed back to council as well to when some of the could be addressed at the mayor's level as well. So can you talk about how the two FTE will be used? Are they directly going to be call center customer service assistance and just how they're going to be utilized to address the volume of calls at the mayor's office gets his will.
Speaker 401:13:42
So through the chair and we're hoping you're hearing that less because we know that that was the has been a concern and it wasn't a concern last year. So right now we have four individual individuals dedicated to constituent responses, complaints and to address them as well. We anticipate with the two new positions or two additional positions that we're asking for that those people can add some support to customer service response, as well because as our you know, initiatives have enhanced tremendously. Yes, we're getting a lot more calls and we want to take the load off of you off of counsel as well. So we were hoping to have six people dedicated to this. We also have with you know where there's one and the four individuals that we have now where it's it's you know, they may be on a call and it may be someone else calls in and well you know no one's catching that call. Now we have a roll over system where the other administrative assistants who are quite familiar with all of our initiatives are also responsive to them too. So I guess that would be a total you know, full time for and then the ones that rollover is about five or six assistants. Additionally, we now have two receptionists where we had one before when we came out of COVID. And we find that's been very helpful, as well as in Brad can speak on this but enhancing the improved Detroit app as well. So Brad, do you want to expand expand on that?
Speaker 701:15:19
Yes, the chair. One of the things I'd like to focus on and our Clos offices expanding the use of the improved Detroit app, it's out there we launched it many years ago. I think we need to kind of dust it off a little bit and get a user group together. To kind of look at it to see how they can use it number of Google Play that might be difficult to use, or they're not sure if the questions are being answered or not. So I want to set up for the CEOs office with the assistance of the constituents relations director as a way of monitoring that after we relaunch it and we're focusing on customer marketing lines around see it, click it fix it, kind of that is the kind of area in the theme that we want to focus on. So that will be coming out the next couple of months and we're working with Department of it and problem neighborhoods and other departments who the bulk of those requests be GSD DPW and such to the authors and how we can how we can improve it
President Sheffield01:16:20
all right. All right. Thank you Thank you lead to additional people would definitely help with the volume of crime. I'm sure you all get tons of calls, but there's you know being able to manage that volume. So I will submit my additional questions in writing. Is there anything additional that my colleagues have? Yes. Councilmember Young.
Speaker 301:16:39
Thank you, Madam President, for your patience through you. Thank you again, wonderful presentation guys. Have me hello. I just wanted to ask it. Deputy Mayor Betty says want to add something really quickly. I'm involving the issues involved community violence intervention, does that also include a person with expertise in epidemiology, or treating violence like a virus?
Speaker 801:17:02
So one of the things that we actually did since I've been here, I definitely look at violence as a public health issue. And so the health department now falls under my portfolio. And with that ceasefire outreach has been shifted to the health department as well. And so within the health department we do have a budgeted position for epidemiologist, so absolutely. Okay. And then, since I'm talking I just want to add this back. As far as with our initiatives, our programs and the things that we're doing, want to ensure that we're also utilizing the course for you last 247 To get our information out. We utilize our public TV, we love our city of Detroit website, we really utilizing our grassroots media to which is oftentimes, we that we in the past we didn't connect to as well. And so we make it an intentional focus to really utilize them. So that Detroiters, you know, may not be following the city's algorithm per se, that I'm doing everything that our office administration is doing everything that we can reach out to meet people where they're at in so that we can get the information to them.
Speaker 301:18:13
You also provided a place where in terms of gang intervention where people can actually meet in a neutral site, because I was talking to someone from ceasefire, and they were telling me that the problem they have in terms of dealing with the gangs, there's nowhere where they can actually meet that's a neutral site or like Switzerland, where they where people feel comfortable, there will be consequences held against them. And so I just want to know, has that been designated in terms of your outreach in terms of, you know, violence, prevention in terms of actual places, coordinating with other departments, in terms of where they can actually meet to discuss those issues and have conflict management conflict resolution to a place where they can have conflict resolution situate? Solutions be implemented?
Speaker 801:18:54
So with that, definitely, that's an excellent question. And so when we get our proposals back with our shot stoppers, and we call the shot stoppers because they say listen, invest in prevention, we can do the prevention. Invest in us a shot stoppers. And so when those proposals come in, we put it up in their base budget so that they would be able to actually rent spaces, get spaces to be able to, to utilize that. And so I'm going to leave that to them, the experts, and stay tuned. All right. Thank
Unknown01:19:26
you. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Unknown01:19:27
I've done thank you remember Doha.
Speaker 201:19:30
Thank you, Madam President. This isn't related. I just had a motion that I neglected to mention. We spoke about it earlier. This is relative to the GSD budget. So I'd like to make a motion to put in Executive Session. An additional appropriation to create a program or sidelight maintenance for the Detroit Land Bank Authority.
President Sheffield01:19:49
motion has been made, Hearing no objections that action will be taken. Member Johnson.
Speaker 1801:19:56
Thank you, Madam President. Just want to note that in the information that was shared with us, by Mr. Corley, there was a correction that needed to be made it but then needs to be made, but I actually will make the motion to add it to Executive Session. I'd like to make a motion to add the acquisition of 200 air purifiers. For relevance within the still Lantus area
Unknown01:20:29
it was left off member Johnson.
Speaker 1801:20:31
It was it was indicated in executive session under member waters the member waters made the motion for AMC.
President Sheffield01:20:38
Okay, Okay, gotcha. Okay, motion has been made, Hearing no objections that will be added to our Executive Session. All right, that will conclude our hearing. Thank you all for being here. Y'all have a blessed day. Thank you so much. And we're gonna go to public comment how many hands
President Sheffield01:21:02
everyone might have a minute and a half. We have a five o'clock public hearing. This evening. In the auditorium, the shipping auditorium
President Sheffield01:21:21
right, Miss Honi can come up your first I think you've actually got the only car we have Cindy Daraa will follow behind. I just press your microphone there. You go.
Speaker 1901:21:35
Yes. Thank you. Morning, everyone. Thank you for this opportunity. I'm the president of Missoni global we are a Navajo Nation corporation that owns some acreage in the city of Detroit which we call while we aren't anok I hear lots of discussions going on and I wish that the mayor's office was still around hearing about sustainability. I have questions into the Treaty of Detroit and what steps are being taken to contact the tribal nations of which the city acquired your land from and if we've been contacted or not. My organization we do sustainability. We do solar panels, we do natural gas generators. We have electric car charging port stations, which could be installed all over the city. And lots of opportunities where we could also then hire some of the native people of the land. Be sorry, I'm just trying to grab my notes because I heard quite a few things. That was one of my things, but I believe I'll meet with Madison here shortly about that. I did not hear and he's gone. I did not hear the man's name. Brad is all I heard in regards to the project that's being built on the water. We have many questions in regards to that and wondering what artifacts have been found so far. And if any bones have been found, anywhere having to do with that project whatsoever. There are rumors that we are hearing about things that have been found here while we want to knock and we just want to make sure that those things are getting addressed.
President Sheffield01:23:11
Thank you, that is your time. But you have questions from the mayor's office, we can make sure that we do get them over to them for a response. So we'll make sure we get those if you have in the writing force. Okay. Absolutely. Thank you. So much for your time. Thank you for coming down. Miss Daraa you have a minute and a half
Speaker 2001:23:33
the IT department has 17 vacancies that I hope you'll help them get filled and they shouldn't have more we ought to take the parking app away from the parking authority, find out how much money they're paying that app company and put that within our own IT department and develop an app that they could if you find them better, then maybe they could develop an app that would be good for all the different cities and the state even and then we can sell that app to them instead of buying an app from somebody else. That'd be entrepreneur, wouldn't it? I want to know if the shots this shot spotters. I want to see if we can spot all the police bullets that go as well as the ones out in neighborhood sustainability should be independent from the mayor's office. The mayor's brought us Atlantis and now we're gonna get air filters for the people. The former administrations brought us marathon. So I don't think that we need to have I think that should be an independent party just just like the library should be independent. You ought to fund the inspector general better, the Auditor General better. And the ombudsman's office because those are the ones you can control these other departments once once you give them the money I don't think you how much say over how they operate. I really don't except for public opinion and pressure. But this they also it's for example, when I went to the African American, you got dirty generators down at Park Plaza.
Unknown01:25:09
Thank you Mr. or
Speaker 2101:25:12
the purpose to the first online caller is William M. Davis.
Speaker 2201:25:18
All right, Mr. Bobby hurt. Yes. Okay. I'd like to start off by saying Mike is related to the mayor's office. I was hoping to hear something about the mayor's office doing something to cut the mortality rate of say Detroit pensioners. During his term. The number of city retirees that have died has jumped dramatically especially since 2018. It appears as if he does not care. So I think that more needs to be done as relates to keep them city retirees alive. But of course to many of us it appears as if his plan is to have as many of us as possible die, so you don't have to worry about pension cliffs or pension concerns. Also is some you may or may not know I used to manage the wastewater treatment plant. You know, I think Homeland Security you know, instead of talking about possible nuclear, you know, Fallout what have we should be looking at the fact that at one time we had I have FEMA incident commander training. We should be looking at the fact that lax on the Detroit River which is the International waterway we have a lot of chlorine tankers going into the treatment plants, you know, so we need to have some exercises to make sure that people know how to deal with that. That used to be a regular event. Back when we had a black mayor, thank you.
Unknown01:26:49
All right, thank you.
Unknown01:26:51
The next caller is Karen Winston.
Unknown01:26:57
We want to keep keep on Yes, go ahead, miss. Yes.
Speaker 2301:27:03
Okay, yeah. We're finally paying attention to some of this zero waste even though he said zero emissions. Zero Waste. It's not a new Office of Sustainability is nothing new. It's been around since Oh, back in early 2000s. So it's, you know, it's unacceptable that we're just now starting to plan how to do things that we should have been doing long time ago. Um, as it relates to freeway claiming No, no, no, no. That is strictly County's responsibility. to document it it had. The county has funds, the city has no funds to clean the freeways. That's why the county gets funded to clean up freeways. It's in their budget, not ours, not the city's budget. So you can't just add votes and say are we gonna pay them? Heck no, that's absolutely not. Oh, the county is also responsible for the state roads. So what that means is it's in the state pays the county nobody pays the city to clean the freeways. No, we don't like it and no, we're not going to pay for it. Mr. Do with it. The other thing is there is we used to have the Wayne County have the crews that, you know instead of locking these young guys up, let them come up and clean the freeways. That's what they used to do. And all they had to do, and then they would work their time through cleaning the freeways. Excellent. Excellent idea, I think. Yeah, City's not going to do it. And we're not gonna you know we're not going to pay for it. We're paying for it enough that we shouldn't be paying for it and we'll never get our money back.
Unknown01:28:37
Thank you, Miss Wednesday.
Speaker 2101:28:38
The next caller is Betty a Varner.
Speaker 2401:28:44
Good afternoon to all my name is Hi my name is Betty a burner. First of all, I just want to say thank you to all of you for listening to me day after day. They in the same thing and we got to the health that seniors and people with physical disabilities needing help making their homes handicap accessible. I appreciate it. And I'm quite sure other seniors and people with physical disabilities appreciate it. So our thankful that I'm hoping y'all will come together and support given us monies out of the budget, to be able to help us with these challenges. I want to give a kudos to my council member, Dr. Hall. Last week, he threw out some numbers so either he or his staff have done some research and regard to monies that would be needed for those challenges. And also thank him for adding it to your Executive Session. I appreciate all of y'all and I'm just hoping that the other council members I know some who are some haven't spoke out, but I'm hoping that it would be a positive conversation and be supportive of monies to help us be able to stay in our homes and our community. Thank you.
Unknown01:30:18
Thank you so much Miss Varner.
Speaker 2101:30:20
The next caller ends in 124
Unknown01:30:27
Good afternoon. Caller 124. Yes. Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 2501:30:36
Well, I 1,000% agree with Sandy Dara. That in offices thing, sustainability should be separate from the mayor's office. I don't believe there's one called for a new charter. So it'd be one of these ad hoc things that does not have to be in the mayor's office. I've heard residents come down and complained for years about the fumes coming out of the soil and his plants. I've been by the nearby horrors of the marathon plant. I have seen no concern from the mayor about that little if any. So therefore, it needs to be independent to do the job that is there to do, which is to serve people and it should be independent of any interest of the industry because we need to seriously evaluate is it worth it? Is it worth the risk? And many people have suffered while other people haven't. So that really needs to be independent. Neither French and Spanish speaker I'd be happy to help out with the paycheck. And also I have a problem with the land bank, the planning department housing and revitalization, not being super duper transparent. Why can't we just plan together? housing costs are skyrocketing inflation, food, everything else and then we wonder why we have a mental health problem. We've really got to take care of people first. And not just developers we can get development.
Unknown01:32:11
Thank you Miss. All right,
Unknown01:32:12
the next caller IDs in 711
President Sheffield01:32:19
Good afternoon caller 711.
Speaker 2601:32:24
Good afternoon Malik Shelton. Pursuant to the city charter section two 113 the image company or Olympia development company defaulted on the contract with the city of Detroit because it failed to begin work on projects in accordance with the terms of the agreement with the city that unnecessarily unreasonably and willfully delay the performance and completion of agreed upon works with the city as well as services. The English company has not compiled, excuse me has not completed the project within the time frame it agreed to and the failure is attributable to conditions within his company's control. And lastly, the elite company without just cause or valid reason failed by being unable or unwilling to complete the project. The projects that you had agreed to and so, if the English company is in default of the city, according to your Detroit city charter, section two dash 113
Unknown01:33:43
The city of Detroit cannot do any more contracting with that entity. I would suggest that you have the law department. look into this matter. Thank you.
Unknown01:33:59
Thank you, Mr. Shelton.
Unknown01:34:01
The next caller is SB
Speaker 2701:34:09
Good afternoon. City Council. This is charity Dean. I'm the president CEO of the metro Detroit Black Business Alliance and former Creel director for the city of Detroit. So first, I want to say that I think, council president we could ask staff to stay for public comment. I don't think that's too much to ask for directors when I was the director of Creel. I always say for public comment because it gave me insight to do my job. So I'm gonna say that. Secondly, I think the way that Trish Stein so eloquently described the mayor's strategy on climate is perfect and it's needed. And in that same way, we need that same strategy for small business. The way she described it is that it's so important to the administration that there is a full on strategy, that there is Mayor's Office accountability and that every single department is responsible. Do you have staff that is responsible for the climate strategy, we need a small business strategy in the mayor's office 50% of Detroit errs are employed by small businesses. It needs to have the same level of attention. I was disappointed to see the additional staff in the mayor's office and not one person committed to small businesses that employ 50% of Detroiters. And lastly, my asked to the city council and to the mayor, is that we consider having Juneteenth as an official city holiday is a federal holiday. It is a state holiday, and with 80% of the traders being black, we need to recognize Juneteenth as an official city holiday. Thank you very much.
President Sheffield01:35:35
All right, thank you. Charity we we have established that are ready I think we set the public hearing for April. So that's forthcoming and we appreciate you and the Office of Small Business Affairs was added to our executive session as well. All right,
Unknown01:35:52
the next caller is Steven hollering
Speaker 2801:35:58
I'd be her as you can. Okay. The last caller, I am shot there that June 13 is in our national follow up city holiday. I mean that makes no sense at all. But I mean that should be probably one of the top priorities after budget season. But I do want to say I am really disappointed. There's not any small business or entrepreneurship department. I remember way back in the day and around the time I first moved here and started my business where there was a really good option and they were department run by Joe Ford, but it seems like it just disappeared as soon as she left to get the job with Toyota. Does the council know anything about that if they'll ever be like an auction, a new worship or small business office because I think it really needs to be through the city, that ECG there. Well, I'm not even going to say my experience with that but I think the city really needs to invest more in a small business apart, man. I mean, I think it's just credit ball. Specially for minority of business because a lot of contracts are going to businesses outside of Detroit. I mean businesses in Bloomfield they get a co working membership. So they can say their Detroit babies. We need to do better.
Unknown01:37:34
All right, thank you
Unknown01:37:39
the next caller is black Moses
Unknown01:37:48
that afternoon, black Moses
Unknown01:37:55
Madam President, I do show black got
Unknown01:37:58
muted. Not anymore. Not muted.
President Sheffield01:38:05
Yep, we can you're going a little bit out a little bit but we can't hear you. Try try to speak now is called just dries disconnected.
Speaker 2101:38:11
We can go to the next caller. In the meantime, Detroit affordable housing and homelessness Task Force
Speaker 2901:38:22
Good afternoon. Thank you. The presentation by the administration's person point person is a Caucasian woman the other woman with her was a Caucasian woman, and they spoke about mental illness, mental illness among Black people in Detroit and direct cause of racism. We've been looted out of $600 million and also 1000s of legacy homes. Mental illness occurs when you have nowhere to live, and when you were illegally evicted from your home. So we need the right to counsel establishing more money for them. We need to know about the mayor's wife's charity attend aggressively dealing with infant mortality. We'd like a report from him and his wife on that. We are also grappling with the fact that we still do not get help with our homes getting homes repaired. There are wraparound services but where are they? And they haven't materialized for at least 13 years since he's been mayor. So we like for him to tell us how and give us some specifics on how he's going to attack that that situation and that problem and the problem of homelessness as a result of illegal foreclosures. We want him to give us a point by point how it's going to happen when it's going to happen. Give us a timeline and how much money he's going to use toward it. Thank you.
Unknown01:39:56
Thank you.
Unknown01:39:59
Lastly, Madam President, we'll go back to black Moses.
Speaker 3001:40:08
I hope everyone can hear me clearly you can start the clock is a matter issue of grave concern to residents here in the city of Detroit and as our voting rights or voting rights have been infringed upon you serve and totally disregarded and disrespected by the City Council President Mary Sheffield as it relates to authorities and contracts. Contracts with authorities, according to Miskin law, dictate that you have two options upon the passing of the authorization to enter into a contract. So before you enter into a contract, you have to do two things. One of two things. One is to place it on the ballot. The other matter is to call for referendum publish a notice in the newspapers. No less than a quarter of a page widely circulated newspaper here in Detroit city city I love you ain't been doing it Mary Sheffield. And to be frank with you Kenisha Coleman did not shoot herself you notice. You've probably had two people look into it. Everybody heard me say this for a long time. Mary, you gotta come in accordance with the law, or the contracts with the authorities is invalid until such time that measures have been respected according to MCL loss.
President Sheffield01:41:42
Thank you, black Moses. Is that the last caller? All right. That will conclude our public comment. I did want to add right to counsel to our executive session as well. Is there a motion just to add that as well? Please? All right, Hearing no objections that will be added to Executive Session. Yes, member
Speaker 1301:41:58
waters. Thank you, Madam President. I just want to add the tennis Rights Commission stipend to close the resolution. I haven't worked out the details with LPD and others as yet, but I'm okay to add that. Thank you. That's my motion.
President Sheffield01:42:14
All right. That will be added to the closing resolution. Here Hearing no objections that actually will be taken. All right. Yes. Mr. Connolly.
Speaker 1701:42:25
Thank you, Madam President. Just real quick. So if counsel agrees, can add about $20 to BCA to increase the board member stipend by 20 $50 per day to $200. And to add two new PTA board members so that
Unknown01:42:46
we didn't add that Mr. Quarterly.
Speaker 1701:42:48
So, so the concept was added but the dollars were not okay. So consequently agreed to enter dollars.
Unknown01:42:55
Okay. Okay, then. So moved.
President Sheffield01:42:58
Okay. Motion has been made to add the dollar amount to the request. Hearing no objections, that action will be taken. Thank you. Any additional options? I'm sorry. Yes, Mr. Corley, go ahead. I'm
Speaker 1701:43:09
sorry. Got about three more Are you fine. Thank you so much. Um, if Council could agree to put into Executive Session, the creation of an EOP. Well, the transfer of the legacy calls to the debt service department. But that was a major shift from non departmental to debt service. Council can agree that
President Sheffield01:43:33
well, what is the ERP, executive organizational plan is that what
Speaker 1701:43:38
Yes, that's to make sure they do that they technically does not need to be to regular session but just to make sure that they address it
President Sheffield01:43:45
right. Because we did do a resolution but you want to add this as a in the closer resolution to urge them to do so.
Unknown01:43:53
That's what is a good session. If you agree for now, we'll make an address make
President Sheffield01:43:56
sure that they address it. Okay. Is there a motion? So, all right motion has been made. We will add that to our executive session. And Mr. Corley,
Speaker 1701:44:04
you want to see an email from me to Mr. Watson on the status of a budget amendment shifting ARPA dollars to various programs that was you know, promises city council. So you'll see email from me on that. And with respect to Executive Session, so again, it'd be wonderful if council members can provide numbers, more numbers to items, even though you might need to vote to add those numbers to those items. You know, when we come together tomorrow, starting tomorrow, but the more I can receive between now and say one o'clock tomorrow, we can add those to the second session list, because the quicker you can see what the impact of your changes to the budget the better. Obviously, it's going to be easier to find one time dollars to have recurring dollars. However, you know, still difficult to do that. And not to not to pigeonhole the council. But last year Council's total changes to the budget was about 1% One and a half percent. It's about 10 million by $12 million. Going beyond 20,000,020 4 million that's 2% probably really be a stretch. So just kind of please keep that in mind as you add your numbers to the budget. That going beyond 2% particularly be a strict budget is tight, although it is a wiggle room, and we're going to make suggestions to that. But it's time to be honest about that. And um, yeah, that's it for now. So thank you so much.
President Sheffield01:46:00
All right. Thank you, Mr. Corley. Yes, member Callaway, thank
Speaker 1201:46:02
you Madam Chair. How much wiggle room so we'll know what we're working with 20 million Yeah.
President Sheffield01:46:10
You said last year was overrun. dollars. So kind of staying where we were between that from last year. Right. Okay. All right. Thank you in the cowboy Yes. Member Durga.
Speaker 201:46:22
Madam President, thank you and this 232 LPD. I've neglected to mention on the motion that I made for the program for seniors and disabled residents to also attach member waters to that because we're working on that collaboratively. Thank you, Madam Prez. Is that a motion? Well, I would assume I have do I have to make another motion for that? Since we voted on it for you to attach them into executive session? Mr. Corley?
Speaker 1701:46:54
I don't think so. Word is added to the list. Thank you.
Speaker 3101:46:57
Thank you. The motion. You want a motion member water. Okay.
Speaker 201:47:04
So I'd like to make a motion to add $2 million to create a program to fund upgrade and fund and upgrade I'm sorry. Homes for disabled and senior resident
President Sheffield01:47:24
All right Hearing no objections that will be added to the executive session
Speaker 201:47:28
Madam President and then also moved to reconsider my previous motion which was was What did not include member waters
Unknown01:47:36
Okay, so now with with member waters okay.
Speaker 201:47:40
And noting if Dr. Powers is on par me through you, Madam President. I know that I think that motion has the failed as well.
Unknown01:47:48
Dr. Powers?
Speaker 3201:47:50
Yes, ma'am. I was a little unclear what, what was happening because I couldn't hear member waters. Um, if Mr. Hall was was making basically a new motion. That was fine, but I'm not quite sure why he wants to reconsider his previous motion.
President Sheffield01:48:11
I think it didn't have member waters joined with the motion. So he wants to on behalf of both of them.
Speaker 3201:48:18
I see. Oh, okay. If that's what the body wants, okay.
President Sheffield01:48:26
All right. So we're good to go member Doha with member waters in Doha request. And then lastly, can we add there was a memo submitted on behalf of the reparations task force with the dollar amount. We can discuss this more in detail at the executive session, but there is a $350,000 request for the reparations task force so that you can have a figure to that Mr. Coralie their motion to add that to the Executive Session. All right, Hearing no objections that will be added to the reparations Task Force. All right. There's nothing else to come. Yes, member Yang.
Speaker 301:49:01
Thank you, Madam President. I just wanted to ask this question to Mr. Davis. I just want to know, William in Davis. I just want to know where were you getting your numbers from? In terms of the number of retirees that are dying? If you have a document or if you have a website or some paper? Please send it to me because I really like to know that I'm more interested in getting in and getting more information about that. You can send that to me at Coleman dot young at Detroit mi.gov. That's Coleman dot young at Detroit. mi.gov.
President Sheffield01:49:30
All right. Thank you. All right. If there's nothing else to come before us, we have a 5pm public hearing. And then we will resume our executive session tomorrow at 2pm. So this meeting, yes, we are in the auditorium. We will be in the auditorium for the public hearing today at five o'clock this meeting boosting Ma'am,
Speaker 3201:49:49
ma'am. You're not resuming an Executive Session. It's just starting. You're you're closing out this budget hearing.
President Sheffield01:49:57
Yes, ma'am. I was just letting the public know that we will start our executive sessions tomorrow. So thank you so much that we'll adjourn this meeting. And start a brand new fresh tomorrow with our first executive session at 2pm. All right, so this meeting will stand adjourned and we will have our 5pm public hearing this evening. This meeting is adjourned.
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