And the anyone, welcome, everyone. Progress in person and virtual, regular meeting scheduled for today, Monday, May 19, 2025, at 7pm
madam, Clerk, would you please call the roll
Councilman a Shockey here, Councilwoman Martin here, Councilwoman Manica here. Council Jim Robinson, present. Council President,
yeah. Thank you very much. Moving on to Item three, we have the approval of the agenda, city council. You've had your package for a couple of days. What's your pleasure on the agenda?
I moved to approve the agenda for Monday, May 19, 2025
city council meeting. Second,
we have a motion on the floor to approve tonight's agenda as it stands, made by Councilwoman Manica, supported by Councilwoman Martin, questions, concerns, comments, dissent, yes. Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll on item three?
Council member, yes. Councilwoman Martin, yes. Councilwoman Manica, yes. Council Robinson, yes,
yes. Council President Thomas
Yes. Motion carries, moving on to Item four a, that's the approval of the corrected proposed minutes of the virtual and in person workshop meeting held April 21 2025 city council. What's your pleasure on item four? A, I'll make a motion
to approve a
minutes, we have a motion. Second, we have a motion on the floor from Council approaching Robinson, seconded by Councilwoman Manica.
Are we on the workshops for the minutes? This is the
approved, corrected minutes for the virtual in person workshop held on April 21 what happened
to the workshop? I beg your pardon,
the workshop is first in my packet. I
only, I'm going by what's on the agenda. I don't know how to order the packet. Was done. Workshop, yes, it's a out of me.
Okay? It's not marked on mine. It's a okay.
Motion on the floor to approve made by approaching Robinson, supported by Councilman manic. Would you call the roll on item four a, Councilman
Shaki Yes. Councilwoman Martin Yes, yes. Councilwoman Manica, yes. Council Robinson, yes. Council President,
Yes. Motion carries, moving on to Item 4b approval of the corrected proposed minutes of the virtual in person, regular meeting held on April 21 2025 city council. What's your pleasure on item 4b
I moved to approve item 4b
corrected proposed minutes of virtual and in person. Regular meeting held April 21 2025 who
offered a second Miss Robinson. Miss
Robinson questions concerns, dissent. Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll on item 4b
Councilman a Shockey Yes. Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman manifest Yes. Council Robinson Yes. Council President
Thomas, Yes. Motion carries moving on to Item 4c approval of the proposed minutes of the virtual in person, regular meeting held on May 5, 2025 city council. What's your pleasure?
I move to approve item 4c proposed minutes of virtual in person, regular meeting held May 5. 2025 have a
motion on the floor from Councilman Manica to approve the proposed minutes the virtual in person, regular meeting held on May 5, 2025, we have support. Pro Tem. Offer support, questions, concerns, dissent. Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll on item 4c Councilman
a shop, yes. Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman Manica Yes. Robinson, yes. Council President cotton
Yes. Motion carries. This is the portion of our meeting that we set aside for the mayor to address the public and city council, Madam Mayor, I'll turn the floor over to you. Thank you.
Good evening, citizens. Good evening. Good evening. City council members. President, I want to thank everybody coming out tonight. And you know, this is a meeting for our budget, and so we want to make sure that we continue to move City Board and just keep going. But I want to share something. I went to a conference last week, and the conference is about water, so it was one of the great lakes in St Lawrence City's Initiative and the mayor's it's called mayor's initiative. So it's mayors from all over that can have borders to the Great Lakes, as well as the tribal areas that's on Indians that are on the St Lawrence and on the United States side, as well as cities from Quebec, Canada. And I truly learned a lot about water sanitation and the way that they process sewage and the way that they process our water. So in that I didn't know that the city of Highland Park is going to receive award, and this award is great Mason City's St Lawrence Cities initiative. In honor of presence, an honor to present the 2025 the Mayor Richard M day water equity community award to the city of Highland Park, Michigan, represented by Mayor Glenda McDonald, and this is for the work that we're doing with our water and the infrastructure. And so they're recognizing the work that's being done. So I just want to thank everybody who participated in making sure that we got funds and that they're doing the work and that we're continuing the process. Because from what I saw in Wisconsin, which is, of course, a very, very, very large city, we know that, but the processes is amazing. And some of the things that they're doing and turning how they are turning sewage into fertilizer and stuff that we use for, you know, all your vegetables and your plants and things like that, so they're recycling. They're not letting it go down the sewers, and so that savings your money. So I said all that to say we have a long way to go, but we have a process that we can be proud of and continue to move forward with and look into. And somewhere down the line, maybe we'll get to that point where we have our water plant back up and we can recycle and do what we need. They talked about the rain gardens. They talked about how you utilize what you have in the parks to gather storm water so that we're not allowing it to go into the drains. We're just cutting down on the pricing of the sewage. So those are things that we learned out there, and they had, we had a whole bunch of more going on. So I just wanted to share this award with everybody. Thank you all, getting
the money cat to swear,
and getting our stuff done, and everybody else who participated. Other than that, I just want to talk about two minutes, and there's a there's a letter circulating out here. In this letter, I want people to understand when you circulate letters that's from people who would not put their names on please find out who the originators are, because if you don't know default, there's some definitions of there's a default and a delinquent. The definition of default is that you have missed your payments. The definition of delinquent is that you are behind, but you can enter into an agreement. And so before you guys start talking about what somebody's doing, please make sure you know what's going on. Find out if they are delinquent. Find out if they are default. Find out if they have a payment plan, because if they have a payment plan, they're not in default. That's anybody you have a payment plan, so you know, and you venture into an agreement with the ports or with the water department or with tax people, whoever it is, you are not in default, because if you miss a payment, they can continue into the park. But if you have not missed a payment, and you want a payment plan, then you're just thank you.
Thank you, ma'am. So this is the portion of the program that we set aside for citizens to speak about items that are on the agenda. Let me pull up my timer here. I'm going to hold to two minutes this evening, so anyone who has something that they would like to say about the agenda and agenda items only you can, please make your way to the podium and please refer to the specific agenda item we have 12345, items on the agenda. City Clerk for the Juneteenth community outreach permit mayor's resolution to approve the proposed budget the fire department and resolution to accept the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity Grant Department of Public Works. A resolution to allow DPW to purchase heavy commercial zero turn lawnmower. Resolution to accept the 2025 FDC VT Grant and from the police department of resolution to issue RFP for vehicle towing, storage and cleanup services. Those are the items that we will entertain comments on right now. You want to state your name, sir, and I'll start the time.
Thank you, Mr. President. Greetings. HP, Highland Park, city council. My name is Mark price. I'm a city AC, migrant district, three precinct suits and my gender. Items is item five. I asked the Council to approve that application, because Juneteenth is very important to the black community, and I also asked that Council to approve item says the budget,
that's all. Thank you. Thank you, sir, thank you.
Hello. Carla Oliver, hey,
so it's in regards to Item eight, the the one heavy duty lawn mower and two replacement tires and a resolution so basically, looking at it, I want to know if there was actually any investigation done as far as utilization one, because replacing lawn mowers every every year for the next four years doesn't make sense if they maintain the integrity of the lawn mowers and check The lawn mowers. There's no need to do that. Also, we have more trying budget issues. One, if they don't have trailers on the back of the lawn mowers, that's sufficient. Then it doesn't matter what lawn mower they have. Two, if they don't have all operators that have driver's license to operate the trucks, to ride these lawn mowers long then we don't have then that makes no sense. In addition to that, the cost of these lawn mowers, I wonder if that was evaluated extensively, because this this quite pricey. In addition to that, the ball,
the structural,
basically dilapidated building. That's where money can go as well, because it's unsafe. I don't think right now the best thing is to get four new non laws, one new lawn mower every year for the next four years, if they're maintaining it, maintaining the ones that they have, but also the building that they work out of daily is much more of a concern. That's it. And then also, of course, they need trucks that's actually operable and not on the verge of breaking down. Thank you.
Oh. Good evening Council, good evening, Mayor. Bless you and to the citizens of this great city. I am Robert Lodge, president of the East Grand brush block club. My concern is item number six on last Council meeting, the mayor was graciously transparent in some of the items that the budget details and invited the citizens to go on the website and print them out. Well, I attempted to do that, and this is what I received. So I don't know if anyone else was able to go on the website and pull down the information, but as you and so, it's my desire and my hopes that we continue to walk in transparency and accountability, and I'm encouraging that this city go over and beyond what other cities are doing. The mayor shared with us the budget print out of other cities, and I'm hoping and praying, because I'm a man of prayer, that the city of Highland Park operates in the spirit of excellence, and that the citizens be able to see what's going on, so that we can understand how government is being ran. Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you. Excuse me. Thank you. Hello.
Good evening, everyone. I'm Chief King. I stayed off of third in Hamilton, off of Eveline. And I can tell you this, I know y'all talking about the tires and everything that needs to be done with the lawn mowers, but I'm going to tell you many of times I done seen these people joy riding up and down second on these lawn mowers. So maybe y'all might need to actually reconsider and think about that, because a lot of times the lawn mowers that y'all supposed to have cut down the city, because cut down like a certain areas off a third right there, off of Avalon the third. They don't just cut that. They Joy Ride, ride down a little place. Go look there. They even stopped at the little store on Glendale and Hamilton. Even stopped, did that came back right around so, you know, while y'all telling us, y'all want us to pay that, y'all also need to reconsider and think about all the joy riding that these people have been doing. And I also think that some of these people has been a little bit under influence as well, so y'all might need to actually do a better check with them. That's only thing I can say about that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I don't
see anybody else moving to the podium, so we will go ahead and move right into our agenda Under Item five, that is council president. I beg your pardon.
You see anybody online with their hands up?
There is no one online. Thank you very much. Moving on to Item five under the city clerk to parade permit application for the Juneteenth community outreach date, Thursday, June 19, 2025 from 10:30am to 3pm City Council. What is your pleasure on item five motion to approve. Have a motion to approve made by Councilman el Sharpie. The second was provided by Miss Robinson approach. Tim Robinson questions concerned and or dissent? No,
no, no. They did a great job last year and the year before. There was no problems, no headaches, no hiccups. I got no issues with
you. Calling a roll and I'm fine.
Councilman a Shockey, yes. Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman Manica,
yes. Council Robinson,
yes. Council President Thomas
Yes. Motion carries, moving on to item six under the mayor's office resolution to approve the proposed budget for the period of July 1, 2025, to june 30, 2026, as presented by Mayor McDonald, city council worship
pleasure, motion to approve with amendments. Motion to approve with say again, sir, motion to approve with amendments, motion
to approve with amendments. Do you have support? Support? What would those amendments be served?
Okay, so, so each, each council member, has been given a packet. We, we took our our our dear time and several days going over this budget and cutting any waste that we saw what was was necessary. Uh, we didn't get any answers to the questions that we had, which left us no choice but to try to figure this matter out for ourselves. But if you look at the package that we're giving you, we managed to cut, I believe, close to about about $3 million out of the
budget. Okay, hold on, just a second, so that typically so you gave us a packet. Let me just make sure I have this under the proper context. You made a motion to approve Item six with the amendments here in that I'm receiving for the first time. I believe all of us are receiving this for the first time. Okay, so at this point it is with amendments. Then now that we're on the floor, we need to go through and somebody needs to clarify where this document, what this document actually is, where it came from, yeah, uh, none of us the document came from. So I just, I'm asking, basically, okay, okay, what the document is,
okay, where it came from, okay, the document came from. The document the clerk does
not have a copy. Oh, the clerk
does not have a copy. She does not. Can we get a copy for the court please?
Would you be kind enough sir to tell me the the Where did the authorship of this document, which is provided by you a third party. This
document is provided by me, Council, pro temp Robinson, with the assistance of Madam, madam treasurer, Lisa large ski, and we sat down and went through this budget thoroughly, and where we found waste we cut
and you cut that based on mind you, this budget was prepared for us by a person with a master's degree in finance. It was prepared for us by our friend Carl, okay, lifetime of just, let me just make sure that was prepared by someone who actually an actual background in finance. We were audited. We had a professional auditor coming here. This is a person that owned a firm that's handling multi million dollar cities like this. We were audited by those people, at least, at least two lawyers here, not to mention the lawyers at these firms. And you're saying to me that yourself, Madam Pro Tem and Mr. Larsky, none of you have a degree of finance at all, gave us this amended document. Okay, so I'm just asking a
question. No, no, no, no, no. So I'm asking yes or no question. So please allow me to retort, yes, sir. Okay, so you say what you had to say. Allow me to ask. Okay, so we've been asking for months for a clear and precise breakdown of what this budget was. It reads like stereo instructors. First of all, I didn't interrupt you a Council President, I would appreciate if you didn't interrupt right here. Okay, so when we went through this budget, we had to go through this budget by ourselves. The administration answered No questions. Nobody gave us any answers whatsoever. It doesn't matter how much we asked. Nobody said anything to us. We found monies sitting in various departments, in various accounts that have been sitting there and haven't been used for three years, but yet you're allocating it every year to sit there and do nothing. That's a waste. Then we found money under contractual services that nobody seems to want to explain to us what contractual services mean. Nobody's telling us anything. But you want us to approve a budget that you've done, that your two lawyers did that, the that, the that the finance director did, nobody's here to answer anything. So we went through this budget on our own and with the help of somebody who does have some financial background, which is madam treasurer. We went through this budget and we found glaring contradictions to what you're telling me. A case in point, the mayor's budget went from one, went from 137
to 149 that's $150,000
more. Now how is she going to increase her salary without going through the Compensation Commission? And we found this throughout the entire budget, budgets have just shot up. People are asking for more and more money, more money than what they had last year. They operated last year on the same funds with no problems. So why can't they operate again this year on those same amount of funds? What's up with the increase
you said? We went from 149,000 from 137,000
to 149,000 that's the difference of Okay, so on page, that's the difference. Okay, hold on a second. On page, we can go through it. So on page, I do have some questions. Okay, so hold on a second. Hold on a second man. So right here, right here on page, three in 2023
the mayor's salary was $137,174.29
that's not the man's salary.
Excuse me, I'm looking right at that's the budget, okay? It jumped. It jumped from 149
it went up $12,000 in a year.
The same four people was here in 2023
under this particular salary. Now we're looking at the increase. So they made $10 again, again. I asked the question, why wasn't this explained to us? All of this could have been that time it was four people, okay. All of this could have been avoid okay. If the administration had to talk to us and gave us some information to go on, we would have been at this point.
She said, so I have a question. Now, hold one second. Miss Martin,
okay. And then there's money missing at a protein matter. Hannah, okay. And then there's money missing from my CDAC, and I want to know where that money went, because I didn't authorize it. Not one bit. I don't care what anybody says. There's over there's over $1,600 missing from my CDAC, and I did not authorize that.
Okay, so, so, hold on hold on hold on Madam Mayor. Hold on hold on Madam Mayor. No,
no, no, man. The only 16 point of order, point of order, the only 1600 I spent was on the parade in 2023 I didn't spend nothing this year. Okay? I don't authorize anything.
Signing up. The pause for a second so we can hear from Adam pro tem. She's she's been very patient, okay? And I'll allow you to go back to that. She's been waiting. And I want to make sure she has an opportunity to interject.
We have a council meeting the first and the third Monday of every month, I've emailed our president, from that time our May the fifth, to the present, asking for him to call meetings so that your answers, questions could get answered and our questions could get answered. I never got a response. And I also text Councilwoman Banneker to ask her to ask the President, and I didn't get a response for that. So this is where we are with this. And just like Council councilman, because she said, No one has sat down to talk to us about anything.
Okay, Miss Martin, if you had a comment, yes, I did.
Didn't I did. Um, so I, I had a question, actually, about this. So this is the courts, right. This is the court on page eight.
Is that three?
Court on page three? Yes, ma'am. I think. Oh. Okay.
Okay, so let me get this right to
in the court. We're talking about salaries. We're talking about a difference of 35 Well, let's, let's, let's round it, $35,000 My question is, where is that justified, that we can cut $35,000 in that salary, okay, salary and then the longevity of
what are we talking about? Because it's an increase. It's, it's, it's an increase from the previous year. The court is currently bringing in $400,000 in revenue. Their salary is 500,000 that's what they proposed. That puts us at $100,000 in the hole, just off the court salary alone. Then their operating expenses is another $862,600
okay, so that, so that brings us to $962,600 in the hole every year on a court that's barely doing anything. Why is that operating expense so so excessive? Why is that operating expense close to a million dollars? It's on your budget, right here. Okay, so maybe, maybe if the public was allowed to print this out and it didn't come out encrypted. Oh, okay, okay, okay. So, so we're dealing with a lot of seniors. I'm, I'm going to ask the seniors, do any of you know what a PDF is, I'm curious.
I'm curious. If you don't know what PDF is,
I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry. Okay,
so all I'm simply saying is, I'm seeing increases across the board. The court budget is out of control. It's over. It's almost a million dollars in loss every year. I don't, I don't, honestly believe that they need that much to operate this little ass court. They're
not a million dollars in the hole. They're not a million dollars in the hole. You're reading that wrong.
Okay,
it's okay. It's okay. That's what I'm saying. That's why I asked the question initially, we had a room full of we had a room full of finance. Okay? Nationals
veto the entire budget with
a master's degree. Try to go do what you're doing because,
okay, well, just certain I would
do okay, because I'm not so, because I'm not a finance questions answered. Then if
you're telling me I'm reading it wrong, then explain it. No, no,
that's not my job to do. We all received it. I see you, Miss manic, so, so I want to say this, listen, I'm gonna, I'm gonna conduct the meeting. I'm gonna conduct the meeting. We all receive, ladies and gentlemen, the audience, we all received this document at the same time. We received this document a month and a half ago. Okay? High School marketing, you should be able to read a budget. It is what you plan to spend based on what you have allocated. None of this is hocus pocus. This is our third time doing this. It's all Hocus. This is our third time doing this. It's just like when you plan for Christmas, you know what you got to spend? You lay the budget out, food, presents, people coming in town. That's your budget. If you exceed your budget, you can't do it. You want to be under budget. That's exactly the same thing that was presented here. The city does not we take in the same flat revenues. We don't have a lot of new people moving here. Most of our budget is salaries for the people who work here. We made a motion just make, I'm going to turn the floor back over to council, but I'm going to say this, okay, I don't want it to be characterized as if members of Council were denied information. Oh yes, we were provided the information early due to the limits placed on city council. I don't get special access. Miss Manica doesn't get special access. Miss Martin. Miss Al Shafi. Man approach him because of the way that we have conducted ourselves as a body. I can talk individually, but whatever one of us do, all of us do, we have been barred from the access that was afforded to us when we first got here. You can't burst into somebody's office and custom out and demand that they do something for you. That's why they only talk to us via email. Now. No, no, I'm saying if I want the people in the audience to know, we have not been denied any information. We haven't it's not that's not access to her office. Okay, we did at first to her office and customer, we did at first. I can't, not at first. My No, my key five no longer works on that side as of 30 days after us taking office. So let's, I'm going to turn it back over to you. Mr. Sharpie, you were asking questions. This is an opportunity. I'm sorry, Miss Monica, and then mister shabby, he was asking questions. I want you to ask your questions. You have the right to do so, but we have to be honest and transparent. We were given this information six weeks ago.
Where's the finance director? I tell you. We've had two workshops. We've asked about these, and in each workshop, we've asked these questions and have yet to receive an answer the document. Nobody's ever answered anything. Every time we've asked a question, they said we were looking to it. And we'll get back to you, miss,
go ahead and make the statement, and imma turn the floor back over to mister el sharp. Go ahead. Anybody? Okay, so all I'm saying is go ahead, Miss Monica, and imma turn the floor back over to you, mister. Mr. Shaw, Miss Manica has been waiting patient. Go ahead, ma'am.
First and foremost, I'm sorry if you can hear that. First and foremost, I think that. I don't want to call it instructions, but it was whatever you need from administration. Please just email it to the president so that he can disperse it. We've done that. So that's I'm not questioning what you've done, and I did not interrupt you. Oh, yeah,
okay, okay.
And so I know that there's been some things that I've emailed and I had to take that same process because I did the same thing that you guys did. I just decided to call and ask, or either I just spoke and I was told the exact same thing. So that's what I've been doing, going through the president of the Council, which is actually the procedure now, looking at a budget that we're supposed to approve tonight, my question would be, is there any space between approving this budget tonight and July 1? When is the budget supposed to be approved? I thought it was June.
We already a day late.
I'm sorry, the charter says that the budget is supposed to
be approved. The Friday
after the first
Monday, right? Okay, so here we are today, and
the treasurer
brought this new budget. So if you have this budget out there, this is not the budget that you are seeking off the website, just so that you are clear, this budget is not the one that's on the website. That's the first thing. Secondly, I'm not sure how we can approve something new, and we just was given it today. Nor I would also like to point out and ask, is there a key to this budget? Because I have all kind of color codes here. What's blue, what's green, what's red, what's dark blue, What's black. I have no key, so I'm not sure it what everything's me, and I'm not asking that question to anybody sitting in the audience. What I am asking and saying is, is that we have to do better as well on what we say when we're going out here and producing it
or giving it to the public,
because if you say it incorrectly, it's guaranteed that they're going to keep some people are going to keep the incorrect part and not get the corrected part. All they heard was salaries, or, I'm sorry, the mayor's salary. It has been corrected that that spot is actually more than just her salary. So then, therefore, whoever did this should have broke that down as well. So what we know in a in the budget, you can approve a budget, and then you can also come back and amend a budget during the year, because there are some things that change that maybe you don't need this money in this space. And council can come and ask and say, Hey, can we take, I'm just going to give an arbitrary number 2000 out of here so we can assist this area and what they need to do. So it's not like the budget can't be amended throughout the year, but to try to amend it and hand all five of us something right now this instant
does not make sense to me. Okay. Now,
Miss Matt, yes, yes, sir, you just said something very interesting. Yes, sir. You said that we should have took our amendments and broke it down. How many times have we asked the administration and the finance department to take their budget and break it down so we have a better understanding now?
So I mean answer that.
No, hold on a second. I'm just I'm pointing out. I'm pointing out the hypocrisy of what was just saying. It sounding hypocritical. You're asking me to break down what we've done, but the administration couldn't do the same thing for us. You want me to dummy down what I just put in here, but you couldn't dumb me down
what you put here, so let me adjust that for you. I didn't say I couldn't dummy it down.
I pointed out. I pointed out chair will be acknowledged after this discussion. I pointed out hypocrisy of it. Miss vaneka, I pointed out the hypocrisy you said we should break down ours to be more transparent and more clear. No, you're saying no, no, that's just what you just said out your mouth. You said that we should have broke this down to be more clear and more transparent, but you failed to realize that that's exactly what we asked them to do.
Motion on the floor is approval of the budget. Let us circle back. Let's circle back. Let's circle back. But I still have my Yes, Ma'am, you do let's circle back. Chair will address after Miss manic and Miss Martin. You can go next. Let's circle. Let's make sure we stay on the agenda.
Come on. Go ahead. In regards to what I stated, you made a very valid point too. All I'm saying is, and please do not paraphrase what I said, I'm
not paraphrasing,
but what I'm saying is, if we're going to state something to the public, thank you, you need to state it as correct as possible. And that was just my example of it not being because if I hear the mayor's salary, is that, I'm going to wonder how her salary is that and mine is not, because I know what my salary look like, and it's not necessarily helping me on that matter that you saying, because when you said it,
I don't have to look over there and say you Make 149
whatever it was. But indeed, she does not. So when you say that, you need to say that that's the salary for the mayor and whoever else is on on that payroll. I'm not sure who it is right now. I'm not trying to name them, but I'm just saying when we stake things to the public, we have to try to be as accurate as possible, because it's going to come back. It's going to come back. And again, you could have sent this to us a day ago, two days ago, but I know it just got
printed. Okay, so I'm going to interject, Miss Martin, you will be next up to speak. I'm going to interject, okay, and support the statement that Miss Monica made. We will not sit up here and lie. We will not sit up here and speak things that are untrue. We will not do that. We will not do it. We get up in here lying. I'll shut this meeting down. I will absolutely adjourn the meeting. We will not do we cannot make false statements right now. The city is being sued. We're in litigation because it's false statements that were made in this room. It's my obligation as the chairman of this committee to not allow things that are patently false to be stated on the record. I don't have a dog in the fight. How you feel about it? You can't sit here and you can't lie. Miss Martin, go ahead,
please. Okay, so real quick, I'm going to assume, even though there's no colored panels, I'm assuming, that the blue is Council's discussions. Black is what the mayor proposed, green is what is added, and red is the savings. Is that safe to assume that? Okay, that's about right. Okay, so I do have a couple of questions. My first question is, in this matter, I know there's part of this I agree with, but I don't agree with all of this. I'm just going to put that out there. Number two, it talked about the equipment, because I wish Lisa and I had had a conversation, because I did have a question about the equipment rental. What are we renting in the Treasury Department for $3,000 what is that that was never explained either? I'm curious on what that is, and then what does the audit of department controls look like? That's 50,000 that we're talking about adding so we're also, you're talking about trimming the fat. But there's also things were added to this, this budget, like I said, I agree with some of it. There's some things that I do agree that need to be cut. I just don't agree with this. One 100% we
also added Miss Martin. We also added something that we voted on at this council in 2023 and that was to have forensic financial audit of the city's expenses, which was never done by the administration. So we added money in to do that so that the council would have the authority to do that themselves. Okay, since the administration is refusing to audit the city's Friday. Okay.
Okay, so this is my next question to you. If the council's discussion is in blue, I see nothing in this section in blue. I only see green, which is added. You're right. So my next question is, then, where did the 550 $1,000 come from to add that
from the cuts that we made in this particular budget, we saved roughly about $3 million so you took from one department to another, tell you some departments made no sense. Okay, if you read this budget, some departments made no sense. You know, I give a I give a case in point. I'll give a case in point for you. So we got here under under accounting. Well, let's just start from page one, Imma. Imma tell you how many times contractual services pops up. Here we got again. Here we got in. Here. We got in the What is this?
We're at 42 minutes. In the next three minutes, I'm calling for the vote. Okay,
I tell you. We got in in in Council's budget, contractual services to the tune of $15,000 Who is this council contractual servicing to
let's get a liaison.
Well, we haven't approved anything like that.
We we're not going to hire a liaison. More than all of us design that makes absolutely no sense. Okay, then we got, no, I'm just saying, like the idea of getting
Okay, okay. Then we got, go ahead. Go
ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Go ahead. Right, right, right, absolutely. You actually, we that that Muni code money, okay, that that's already there, that funding is actually there for municipal code, yeah, okay, let me let you do your thing. Okay, let me let you do your thing. Okay, okay, do your thing. I will wait.
Then we got Thank you. Tell you we got in the the general fund, $95,127
miscellaneous in 2023
and then 20,000 that the mayor is proposing in miscellaneous this year. What in the hell is Miscellaneous? Where are you? Where are you at? Where you at? I'm on page two. Okay, I'm just on page two, I tell you. Then we go down here, then we move down here to to the district court. We got contractual services to the tune of $12,000 and we got nobody that's explained that was there. We got, we got overtime for the mayor to the tune of $1,000 don't nobody. Nobody in this city walks after five o'clock. So I don't know what overtime they're doing. Hold up a second. Hold on a second. I agree with that. Okay. Okay. Then under her budget as well, we have contractual services under her budget to the tune of $3,000 that nobody explains to me, her professional dudes and members is over $14,800 what is she assigned to that cost that much money? Okay, I didn't ask them from the mayor. Then we got here under city assessor, we got contractual services to the tune of $6,000 then again, under under a firefighters, we got contractual services to the tune of $15,000 then we got under uh, under under treasurer, we got, we got miscellaneous to the tune of 800 and some odd dollars. Then we got again, what is long now? Okay, don't even worry about it, because I'm not going to get the answer for that, as we keep going contractual services again, under, under, under, under the fire department to the tune of $321,020
increase to $365,000
okay, okay, okay, I need to know what contractual services I need to answer
his answer. Okay, so ladies and gentlemen, I am about to share. No, hold on a second. We going to stop right here, because I'm about to call for the vote. That's the
ambulances. Is it the ambulance? Yes, okay, then that should have been clarified
too. Okay, so, ladies Okay, gentlemen, I'm just asking questions. Um, please for the people who I'm asking questions, for the people who are at home and for the people who are in council chambers on the screen. Procedure,
if you, if you take money from one department to put in
the other, this is ladies and gentlemen, the Chair
will intervene. Is April 21
2025 Today is May 19. April 20, we had a
workshop on
the budget, and we also had, on April 7 an audit presentation and a budget presentation. That is April 7 and April 21 we also had, in this chamber a public hearing. For on May 5, we had a public hearing on the budget. We also had a a public hearing on the water rates. We had discussion from Council in those in those discussion for council, don't forget that there was no discussion in those meetings, we just heard the public. In those meetings, we had presentations that were made for you, that were lengthy, that were made by seasoned professionals plant Marines, got no answers and every additional framework for questions that was already in the budget. It had a key on it. It had instructions if we had questions. There had, had not been a instance that I'm aware of where, if asked the mayor herself was willing to sit down with people to go through the budget. They are seasoned professionals July, where this is their craft. That's a lie. We have. This is our third time for doing this, our third time, and I will assure you
that she personally said that. I will assure you that we were given
so the motion that is on the floor made by Councilman el Sharpie, this is a this is the current motion that's on the floor to approve the budget with these amendments. So I would ask Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll made by Councilman l sharp, as we relate to item six, this is the resolution to approve the proposed budget for the period of July 1, 2025, to june 30, 2026, made by Councilman al Sharpie, supported by council pro tem. That was the approval of the budget with the amendment supplied to us today. Would you please take the role on that? Madam Clerk,
Councilman shopee Yes, Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman Manica No. Council Robinson Yes. Council President Trump
no. Motion carries. Moving on,
all right, moving on to item seven under the fire department resolution to accept the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity Grant for firefighter turnout gear motion to approve. We have a motion on the floor from Councilman el Shafi. We question second motion with the second was made by Miss Manica, Mister Sharpie. Go ahead with your questions.
Okay, so So for the fourth, the fire department, I'm a little concerned the the fourth, whereas says the city will be reimbursed 100% of the funds through this grant. Once the invoice for gear
is
paid, are you telling me that they're holding on to the grant money and they're going to disperse it that way? That's how it always happens. It's called, okay, yeah. Is that how it's happening? It always happens that way. Okay, alright, then I'm fine with
it. Would you call the roll for item seven, please? Councilman
a shocking yes for the fire department always.
Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman Manica Yes. Council Robinson Yes. Council President Thomas,
Yes. Motion carries, moving on to Item eight, Department of Public Works. Item eight A is a resolution to allow DPW to purchase one heavy duty commercial zero turn lawnmower and two replacement tires. City council What's your pleasure on item eight a
motion to approve with questions. Second
motion made by Councilman el Shafi, seconded by Councilwoman Manica, glad with your question, sir, okay, okay,
so I'm
in agreeance with the young lady that stood up earlier and spoke about qualified people riding these mowers. Is everybody properly trained on how to ride this zero term, a thing that they got here.
Imma follow you. Mr. Shaffer,
yeah, did you ask somebody? Did he get his question answered? Where is public works? We have somebody. Mr. Burgess, are you on the phone public works? Mister Reese, does somebody Yes. Question was, are the people who are going to be operating this equipment? Are they properly trained?
No, not all, though, not all of them.
So man, Mister to his question, too. Um, these are zero turn laws that you can buy from any big box hardware store, right? So in your experience, Mister Burgess, what type of training do you need to run a lawnmower?
Well, the zero turn has a lot of
a computer aided Okay.
Council President, yes, sir. Is there a way that we can figure out something to properly trade in as to how to use this equipment. So
here's the problem that we run into the the we're we are responsible for approving, we are the board of directors, and we are responsible for approving the purchases of the corporation. Once those purchases are made, they go in the hands of the employees of the administration. We so, so there are standards that should exist within that framework. Okay, Council. Council, before I said I was going to make a comment before that, Council, I recognize you. I've lived here for 25 years. I use Hamilton every day. It don't matter what time of year it is. I have never seen anybody joy riding on a lawn mower down Hamilton. I don't know where you would in Highland Park on Hamilton. You could get killed on a bike. I'm just saying I have personally never seen it. It's not even safe in the bike lanes on Hamilton. It's not safe probably people walking to joy. I just have not personally seen it. I'm just I'm just saying I haven't, I haven't, I've seen a lot. I saw Goldman and I saw a man ride a horse in Highland Park, but I just have not seen anybody joy riding the lawn mowers on down Hamilton? Madam Protem, go right ahead.
The resolution says that we already have four lawn mowers. What's wrong with those?
Not enough? I imagine we don't have enough
state of repairs. We have had the a couple of them for about five or six years, and we've had one, I think, in that we purchased two years ago. And I think that's about the extent of lawn mowers that we have at this point. However, if we well, everyone recognize, I think, that we don't have equipment in DPW, and we need to start making that investment. And maybe we won't need one once a year, but we will need them as maybe once every two years we can make that decision. Other equipment that we're trying to get Are you hopefully will approve the grant for the Fs, I mean, for the vehicles, we will be shopping around in the coming weeks To find equipment for that, we agree that they saw a shelter is tumbling down, and we need to fix that, and that the bricks that facing the Dequindre need to be rebuilt. We're trying to do all of those things and circle
you back on this, because we're going to stick to the imma circle you back. We're gonna have, I have, I have comments from coming from Adam pro tem, and I don't know, Miss Martin, you want to speak? Let's get the vote on this. Lose. Miss Manning, yeah. Let's get the vote on this and get get going. Mr. Martin,
yes. How are they getting can we put us to the lawn to cut? Yes, ma'am. Do you have vehicles to transport these
we have one trailer. We hope there will be we hope there will be sufficient funds in the grant that we'll get to buy a trailer. We already have a quote on it. It's something like $1,000 and we're trying to have then two trailers that we can transport these lines, mores and other equipment.
So how about doing a resolution to purchase the trailer? Because you're putting your cart before yours?
No we could use the trailer today, even if you reject the resolution for lawn mowers. We still need the trailer, but we don't have but we're trying to fix it so that our funds that we are getting is coming to us, we would be able to pay for them out of that fund. May not be able to a particular sense the price of vehicles are going up, but it was our original plan to buy the vehicles and the trailer out of the money that we're getting from the fdcv grant. Okay, okay,
so we're going to go ahead and call for the roll on item eight a res. I'm sorry miss medical. Go right ahead.
We have how many working lawn mowers? Uh,
from day to day, it's either one or four,
grass waste time already.
Additional questions, ma'am, yes,
there is. I was just thinking, because Mrs. Mr. Burgess is answering also, I noticed that we have two choices here, and so we've made a decision on which one is that correct? Because at the end, it looks like we've made a decision already on which company to go with, yes.
So the bid was put out for both of these
went up. We didn't do a bid. We went out for quotes.
Think that a bid. I'm not sure if somebody can correct me it's necessary, but I was just wondering, because there is another lawn mower company, and do we need four of the same kind of lawn mowers?
We we only tried to buy one this year. We will make that decision as the your
funds are available.
Okay, I do understand that my I'm not questioning because I'm one of the persons that believe that we need new equipment. Because at the rate, we have repaired the equipment we could have purchased one. I think we discussed that before,
but I'm just wondering,
and we should all agree that this is very difficult work. These lawn mowers are riding over Highland Park streets. They cut in Highland Park grass. It's extra special. Our curves and sidewalks are very
mister Thomas,
I hear you. We we definitely need new equipment.
Here's the question is that,
I think the question earlier was asked about training. I think I'm not sure Mr. Shafi wanted you to ask, could we get them training? Yes, ma'am, does anybody know how much that would cost? I
guess that's something that we would have to put that up to the administration, because they're unless we're going, unless Council is going to fund it, those are administration employees, and that would that will fall upon public works, that would also fall upon the city's administrative body. It wouldn't necessarily fall upon us. We can make a recommendation, but we don't have the authority to institute it and we don't or fund it. I was
just thinking about money. We know how to write these things.
So on Item AA, resolution to allow the DPW to purchase one heavy duty commercial zero. Turn. Do we still have questions, concerns, comments, dissent, yeah, yes. Ma'am, go ahead.
Real quick, Mr. Burgess, how often are we repairing the current,
the current lawn mowers that we have,
the the two old ones, oh, one, mean five or six years or so, we got them repaired through the winter for the season that we're using them to do the lawns. Now, something happens very frequently with the riding all over the city, you know, on the lots where people have thrown things. So the repair bills are tremendous on them.
So how often I
don't I don't have a date that I can give you.
So no, no. So are we repairing them like once every six months, once a month, twice a month.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't have a I can't truthfully answer that. Okay,
I did have one more thing, please,
yep, and after that, I'm calling for the boat. Okay, great,
great.
I would ask that administration, or whoever is over DPW, to make sure that they have some type of something protocol in order for whoever uses the machine, whatever machine it is, because there is no way that in five years, that we just continue to break the same machine, that we continue to do the same thing over and over and over again. So therefore, somebody needs to be accountable for breaking the machine. Either you can ride it and you know how, and even if you make a mistake once, I can't see you making the same mistake three times, four times. So there has to be an accountability in place. So I would just definitely ask that some type of accountability be put in place for using the machine when it's being used, etcetera, whatever that protocol needs to be if we have to sit down and figure that out,
cuz we cannot continue in this manner.
Okay, so I'm going to make my comment and I'm going to call for the vote. Please put your attention on the screen. Citizens at home, members of city council, the Treasurer of Highland Park owns 1458 parcels of land in the city of Highland Park. The Highland Park Housing Commission owns 42 so that takes us somewhere to around 1500 parcels of land that every month, from May to November, have to be cut. I have three lawn mowers at my house. I live up the street. I got one that's broken, one that's in good shape, and a new one. I got three lawn mowers. This city has 1500 divide that. Divide that by, let's just say it's 1000 there's 250 vacant lots a week that need to be cut in the city of Highland Park, and they're using a riding lawn mower. And as Mister Burgess said, they dump tires, trash, bricks, metals for Forgive me, Lord, people end up in these fields. So I want us to take into consideration what's being asked. We have four lawn mowers that are typically doing around 200 cuts per week at seven.
I'm sorry, no, no,
so some members of council, I'm going to ask for a vote to be called. I want us to consider what we're being asked to do. We're being asked to supply the city with the tools that they need to manage around 1000 lots don't even have enough people to ride. We don't we exactly. So we definitely need good equipment. I support what you said. So if you call the roll on item eight, a Madam Clerk, resolution to allow DPW to purchase one heavy duty commercial zero turn lawn mower and two replacement tires, if you would, ma'am. Councilman
a Shafi, grass has got to be cut. Imma say, yes.
Councilwoman Martin No.
Councilwoman manager,
yes. Council
President Robinson, no. Council President,
Yes. Motion carries. Thank you very much. Moving on to Item A B, resolution to accept the 2025, fdcvt Grant. That is the financially distressed cities, villages and township grant motion to approve. We have a motion on the floor, but Councilman shop seconded by who call that? Miss Martin. Miss Martin, if there are no questions, concerns or dissent, I will call for the role. Would you call the roll on item? AB,
Council Member Shafi Yes. Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman Anika Yes. Council Robinson Yes. Council
President, Yes. Motion carries Okay, moving on to Item nine under the police department of resolution to issue a RFP for vehicle towing, storage and cleanup services, motion to approve. You have a motion to approve. Second motion to approve the measure, seconded by made by Councilman a shopee, seconded by Councilwoman, Manica, ma'am. You had questions.
I did call you correct. It was you right, Miss man,
it was, it was, I just wanted to give the opportunity to explain or to go through the storage and a cleanup service for what's the cleanup service? I'm sorry,
I don't know. So during like collisions on the roadway, the tow companies are required to sweep up and remove any debris or chemicals, fluids and things like that. Yeah,
that's it all right. Okay. Would you call the roll for item 8b Please? I'm sorry for Item nine.
Councilman Shafi Yes. Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman America Yes. Council Robinson Yes. Council President,
Yes. Motion carries. Okay. So we have finished our agenda. There are only two things left as citizens, participation, I'm gonna go to two minutes and 15 seconds. Okay? Miss King, again. Hold on a second. Miss King, I'm not set up. If you be patient,
I'll get you straight.
You all right, Miss King, just give me one second. Oh, no. All right. Let me have
it. All right. Miss King, okay, I'll put it like this. By the time you was actually getting into our city, I was actually in the high school here, and I'm telling you like this. I've been born and raised here. My family has they house here since 1962 my family had another house from Colorado in 1983 I'm just saying I've been here, born and raised 42 years. And Imma tell you this from the time that I've been in high school, and from the time I had my kids. And my kids are 21 and 18. Well, 22 and 18. And compared to what it is now, it's went to Google. It's very horrible. There's no street lights. We barely could go anywhere. I don't want to let my kids out because there's no lights. The lights are gone. I don't understand why we don't have street light. Y'all want to put stuff on other stuff, which I'm not basing it on anything else. Maybe some of the reason why we wouldn't have so many lots out here if y'all actually let us buy these lots, lot of times. Y'all allow us to buy these life, and we've been asking y'all, y'all might not have so many parcels of land that have to cut, just being honest, because I've been actually asking and y'all been denying people to get these parcels. So if y'all actually allow people to get these parcels, that'd be less parcels for y'all and more things to be put on us, and then y'all can actually ticket us for having this stuff and having different work. But when it says, want to put it on a put it on y'all put on it back, on your back, and then want to blame other things instead of actually nipping certain things in the bud. I'm just saying certain stuff needs to be nips. I'm just saying we need schooling back. I'm just being honest that last little parade was horrible, cuz back in the day, we had schools with bands. Where is our schools at? We need schools. That's reason why we don't have funding. We don't have schools and we don't have no funding, no kids in here. That's why it looks the way it looks. We don't have no people in the buildings. We need that back. I'm just being honest. We need that back. Y'all took all that away. And where do we have we have nothing. It looks garbage on woodwork. All they used to have funding. All people used to bring the kids to their school. The schools used to be open. Now we got three school that's charter. We used to have a high school. We have nothing but a lot. What are y'all doing to make it change, instead of y'all talking about the other stuff, put stuff really on the ballot that needs to be there. Why do my kid have to go to an online school and she stay in Highland Park? Where's the high school? You talking about a high school education, high school thing? How we going to get that? There's no high school here.
Tell me that. Okay,
thank you, man. How we gonna have that? Are you telling us to learn something from a high school education? And there's no high school here, there's no career academy, there's no nothing. We're
sitting Council. We're not the school board. It doesn't matter. Y'all need to add that.
I want to make it clear we, the city council, is only responsible for voting on items brought to us by the administration, not just this city council, all city council, every city council before us, we get an agenda. This is what we do. This is what we do. We're part time employees. Everybody else works someplace else. So this, this is what we do. This is our job, this agenda. And I agree with you. So go right ahead. Ma'am, would you state your name? Go right ahead. Hi.
My name is Renee Ford. I live at 191 West Bucha Vista. I agree with the young lady. I have seen our dBW people ride in the streets with the lawn mower, and I have three lots across the street from me, and not one time have I seen them get out there and pick up the trash or the bottles before they cut the grass. So the young lady is correct. My next question is, how is the treasurer able to come in here and give y'all a budget on the day that she wants you to vote for? But my thing is, and this is personal to me. You're going to pass out a budget to certain people in the audience. If you're going to give them to certain people, give them to everybody. That's my opinion. The next thing is for my city. Here you
go. Miss Renee,
no, I don't want it now. It's too late. No. But if she's gonna give it to somebody, give it to everybody in the audience.
I'm here at every meeting.
Let me do this. And
I'm passionate about this city. She picked the Jews who she gives shit to. If you gonna give it, give it.
Calm down, bring it
in. Excuse me, but
it's funny how things go to certain people in this industry. I'm here at every meeting. I don't miss a meeting because I don't get stuff that she give her friends and her buddy. I think that's unfair. So my next question, I know I only got a few minutes in from our district three. Council person,
council man, not
yours. Come on, Miss C, that's, that's the I'm talking about. He's like, he's supposed to be representing me, but then he says on camera and on on video that he's not my 1000 person. That is very disrespectful. So you know what you can do, and I'm ready for y'all.
It did not vote for me. Don't let anybody take anybody this is ridiculous. I got Okay,
that is your time.
Okay? Next citizen, please. Thank
you. Hold
on, excuse me,
I want to resend my motion on the budget.
I want to rescind my motion on the budget. I my vote, I want to reset my vote on the budget, on this budget so ladies, as
it relates to item six,
there was a vote of three to two
where this budget was approved with these amendments made and offered to this council on today,
we are citizens participation. Council President, she's got to wait to council affairs. Okay?
I don't got no space for negative I don't have any space in me for negative energy. Go ahead. Go ahead, Madam Mayor, Imma give you a two minutes or 30 seconds. Go for it.
Excuse me. I'm sorry.
Miss Martin, we'll get to that in council affairs. Okay, I'm sorry. Okay, go ahead, man. So
under this amend first, let's talk about the rules the charter speaks to who prepares a budget, speaks to who presents a
budget. Thank you, Jesus.
The Treasurer is not on that list, neither is the council. You cannot bring forth a budget and say, we switching this out for this. That's not first of all, when you're looking in here, you got things like the lien that you're taking out, the lien for the police that tells who has warrants in this thing that says who's supposed to be able to they're supposed to be able to look up and find these people.
You moved it.
You removed it, you removed the ambulance service. So you can't get an ambulance, please refer to the treasurer and the clubs and the two people who brought it, please, because the city treasurer and the city council is not the people who bring forth a budget and bring their own budget now, they can go back through the budget that I presented and make recommendations,
but they can't.
But you cannot bring forth a budget. It is a violation of the charter, and I will be following charter violations against all three second,
second. Can we bring forth the budget? What we amended
it? Excuse me, it's my turn. It's my turn.
Mr. Sharpie, please. I'm not like
anybody
else, Madam Mayor. I will remind you, this is a city council meeting of which I'm the chair, and I will shut the meeting down
because a lot of your services are being cut,
and they claim they're doing it and
to to save money.
Do you know we have what everybody here makes less than most people? We have a human resource person that only makes money, enough money to barely feed her family. She has three children,
can't provide for her family.
These are the things that they're cutting and going through without even talking. You didn't ask the chief about liens. What is the lien? What is the lien? What is the lien? The courts use the lien also to be able to do their court case. The prosecutor have to have all the information. That's what a thing does. It provides them with the information for their cases. So when you're going through and bringing forms up and not knowing what you're talking about, you really need to make sure that you do
okay, because without an ambulance, you
can't get picked up. Thank you, Madam Mayor, I'm at the limit you as a citizen to your to your time. I do appreciate it. Act like everybody else do, and I do. Thank you for pointing out the charter so that I didn't have to. Thank you very much.
Take that off my take that off my my plate.
First of all, I want to say, God, be with us all. Listen. Thank you. I've been here since I was 17. I came here in Highland Park from River Rouge. I grew up there small city like Holland Park. And I have seen a lot of down, down, down, down, that people came in, got what they want, people going out. People came in, gone out. But what I learned today doing that I'm going through this stroke. I thank God for being here, because I want to say this. I know all of us have a job to do called care where you stay, care where you live at because I have a neighbor, and I give him a couple of dollars that put gas in that lawn mower help cut out in our area. And I also have a husband that he's not going to do it because he feel he pay enough tax, and we on the borderline of Highland Park, Detroit, and we paying enough tax. He feel he don't want to do it, but he does make sure our yard is nicely, well taken care of. I talked to all mister Gerald. He come, he saw what I was talking about. We need trash cans on side street. I'm on Geneva behind Liberty school, and it's a sore eye for me to see Liberty school, because I started off and need middle schools, all the way to the high school I did 20 years there. Loved it, and I tell you once about time it was called family. Now is all we all divorced. Now everybody divorced. So everybody doing what they want to do, when they want to do it. And we got inside, outsiders coming in, trashing the neighborhood because I didn't seen it. I was staying on the corner watch kids going to school, and I was seeing them come from eight mile, throwing bags of trash out to the beautiful cars I seen beautiful cars roll the window down, throwing trash out. I said, Well, I wrote to the news people one time and asked them, where's the trash cans? Because it once about a time it was trash cans everywhere. So now we got these big, old, large trash cans that I have to pay for. And they got these 32 we got 30, I think, a 40 ounce can, you know, because, like I said, I wanted the big can, and I don't have no problem paying for it, because I got a lot of people working on their card or something that throwing trash I want. They trash if I gotta put in my trash can, it's in there. Alright, can
I have your name? Please call
Thank you. All right, I'm gonna be strict with my time here, ma'am, I'll wait for you to state your name and I'll start.
Hi, I'm Lisa stolow. I'm the treasurer of Highland Park, and I live on moss street. So Charmaine, before I begin, will you set the timer for two minutes for me on your phone? It's
running. Oh, that's not the time. I'm the Chairman.
Okay, so we'll go from there. I don't know if you know the difference between the chairman and the pro tem. I
asked my friend Charmaine,
okay, so when this time, three times. Okay,
I'm gonna count. Okay, she already started when she stated her name. She's got a minute and 26 seconds to go.
I'll be done. You are talking while it's my turn. It's my turn to talk.
Oh, go ahead, Lisa, so
are you talking? I'm talking as a citizen, and I'm explaining to you as a treasurer first. Okay, I don't know what I'm telling you this as, but I will tell you
this. Okay, we'll start with all right, that you guys
are interrupting me so that I don't actually get to say what I want to say, which is what happens every time I get up to speak, and I'm really tired of it, so knock it off.
You don't come to the chairman of any committee and tell them to wrap up. Please remove this lady. No, I
wanted to say that the reason I didn't make more copies is because I ran out of time. She
didn't do anything wrong. She's not she's not doing anything looted. She didn't
do anything wrong, anything wrong, Miss. Miss Delores, I want to tell Miss Ford I'm happy. I'm going to start
this timer. I'm not going to say anything. Okay, I'm going to say what you're going to say, and you're going to finish.
Thank you. Hi. I want to let Miss Ford know that I only made a few extra copies because I ran out of time today. We didn't have very long to work on it, because I have been out of town a lot this past spring with people in my family who live out of state having illnesses and and dying and so I only had a few days to work on this before today with Charmaine and cushy who asked me if I would interpret through Excel what they would like to cut in the budget, mainly because they haven't been able To get answers out of the administration about the questions that they have had, and that's all I want to say. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
All right. How are you, sir? I'm good state. Your name.
My name is Jerome Dre Thank you through the Chair. Good evening. Just a couple quick questions. First, on the budget, is it possible to have the salaries broken out? Doesn't have to be by name, just for instance, number of of salary individuals in the council chains. We've asked that question for sure. Okay, yes. Since 2023
Yes. Alright, thanks. That
question. I mean, just so
is it possible to have different descriptions broken out in the budget? Okay, for instance, you mentioned the administrator, not the administration, but the mayor's office, and that salary. But there apparently are four or five individuals that are in there. Could that be broken out? Doesn't have to be by the name of person, just what that salary, yep, entails you talk
about your title. Don't even
have to be tied, just just that in itself. The second, the second thing is and, and the young lady had mentioned it as it relates to the the resolution for additional equipment for public works. And so, you know, if it's if it's one, or if it's four, or if it's seven, whatever that is. And as as the as the chair had indicated, with that number of lots to be cut, and I, and I am sort of dating myself from being in the military, we used to have to get up and do a policing every morning. That means a number of individuals spread out. They go completely across a parcel, and they pick up everything that's there. Thank you. Alright, and so with the with the Public Works Department, that equipment is being broken, because I can attest, I used to be the ombudsman here, and as the Chair said, any and everything you can think of is in those lots, if one of those tractable, one of those uh, lawn mowers, hit some of that equipment, it's broken. And in a number of cases, if it hit a brick or something like that, that's a major, uh, repair. That may be easier to get a new piece of equipment. Okay, my last my last point chair. And this pertains to
our treasury, and I don't want to rush you, Mr. Drain, but I do want you to be expeditious. Okay, I will.
And so I've received a number of notices of assessment from our Income Tax department, so I finally responded to them, because they were indicating that I owed the city money, yet the city owes me money, so I didn't, I didn't even send it in, because I'm thinking, I'm doing a good thing and not even receiving the money from the city. At the city owes me for my income tax. Okay, so I, I sent all of men, and so they owe me over 500 $600 but my point is just I called, I called the city, the Income Tax department in Eaton Rapids, Eden rapids and I spoke with someone there. Number one, whoever I spoke with was rude as could be. Number two, she indicated that I was I would have been at fault, which was wrong. And so I would just like for the Income Tax Department to speak to whoever that person is, and get it right.
Okay? And I will say this to Mr. Dre I don't see you that often, so I went, I let you go over. It's been a while since I'll tell you, but typically two minutes and 30 seconds. I run this clock at two minutes, all right, I appreciate that, and it won't happen again. Okay? And Miss King, you already spoke. So we don't do we don't do repeats during you get one opportunity to speak. Yes, ma'am, everybody does, no, ma'am, no, no,
I don't intend to be. I just want
to make sure that get the framework. Us
in the city of Detroit, they would drag you out of the room. Jesus, please, please.
Okay, so
fantastic. Come on up parking lot. Come on up. Please,
please, ma'am, please, please, please, ladies and gentlemen, before I let you go, sir, before
I let you go, just pause.
What I should do in this chair. We don't have a problem this year. What I should do is have people removed from the room, like they do in the city of Detroit. I don't want to do that. I don't it's we. It's a little small town, but we are doing things disrespectfully in the city of Highland Park that we wouldn't do any place else ever. You would never do this in Detroit city council chamber. None of you. So please, I'm not trying to be the bad guy. You have a right to speak, but I'm saying don't do that. I'm sorry, sir, when you're ready,
go right ahead again. Robert Lodge, I want to stand here and make it clear that I am not against the mayor, I am not against this council. I'm against the culture that has been cultivated in the way communication is being conducted. It's ridiculous. It's disrespectful, and the citizens of this city deserve better. It's ridiculous. Um, I do want to say this
on On May, the fifth
president, Council, Council, President Thomas informed us that the city is ran by a cartel, and he shared that it's
not what I said, Sir, I said that water department is a cartel. You're misquoting me. Okay, okay,
so let me allow let me allow me to set the record straight, because you also misquoted me when you said I was offended by the word cartel. You stated that word. I did not state that. Let me set the record state straight. But what I am offended by is the language, the foul language that's being used, especially when we use the Lord's name and name. That's what I said I was offended by but let me continue. Please. Let me continue. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Thank you, sir. Since we understand that the water department is a cartel, I looked up the Oxford definition water and the definition definition, because you shared with us, and I appreciate that you shared the word cartel in a positive connotation, but most of us understand the word cartel in a negative connotation, and so the Oxford definition says an association of manufacturers or suppliers with the purpose of maintaining prices at a high level and restricting competition, sounds like parts price gouging to me. Well, that's, that's, that's, sounds like a drug cartel which our government is trying to push out of our country. Now this is what I find interesting, because the word cartel. The origin of cartel is a political statement, and this is what it means political parties that joins forces to put to promote a common cause, such as limiting a supply of a product to force prices to remain high. So since you just stated that the water department is a cocktail Great Lakes water, it sounds like price gouging to me. I agree. And so my question, can I ask your question quickly so we can move on? Yeah, my question was, who was the cartel you just answered it? The water department, yes, sir. And my question has been, why, when the citizens ask questions, there's never time allowed for those questions to be answered, and this is why you get all this conflict. Okay, now, thank you. You interrupted me. I do want to say one last thing. We had almost three minutes. Okay, this, Jews, this, this council has frequently has the right to look at this cartel and consider this to be anti competitive behavior, and most jurisdictions will outlaw those type of practice after
you right there, and I will welcome you back. I'll see you at the next meeting, sir, thank you so much.
Thank you, sir. Thank you for the invitation. All right, I will be back.
So hold on. I'm going to two minutes and 30 seconds. I
already know, already know. Can I please not be interrupted?
No, I'm giving you extra 30 seconds. Thank you.
Carla Oliver, so I've been here for a while, but I'm also very much a voice for the city. Working for this city, I got to meet a lot of great residents in that process, I've been very vocal about what I say and what I stand up for, for y'all, not me, but for y'all in that process, I have been treated the most nasty from AKA,
in addition to being a lot of people being allowed
to harass him,
this is unacceptable, because I speak for y'all,
ma'am, you supposed to be addressing us. Hey, you supposed to be addressing we
need to stop the favoritism, the bias, and let everybody have a point of view. But what's not going to happen is to be used the police being asked about me, asking around about me, asking for my phone number. The police will not be used by the mayor to intimidate me or any other department in the city, because I speak my mind or speak my voice for these residents, everything that I say, like everything I said Last week, is all data that should be good enough. But what doesn't need is the nastiness from her. I have been harassed as a senior employee from other people in the departments, and now that I'm no longer there, I can say whatever I want to say, and I'm going to do that, but what's not going to happen is any form of intimidation from anybody that works for the city of Highland Park because of her, The nastiness that happened last week when I'm minding my business to try to come up here and speak. There was no need for it, and a response is what they got from the for the nastiness. But what shouldn't have happened is called upon because of the nastiness that the police is caught up to intimidate. That's unacceptable, and I'm putting that on record today. Okay, thank you.
Good evening. Let's all take a collective whoops moment here, right? Yes, it is alright. Let's get started, because I follow up right behind Miss Ford. I just need that little break. Good evening. Thank you. Yolanda Roland muse, district three, and I have a couple of questions. I'm trying to understand the the treasurer's role, right? And so just during this meeting, AI is amazing. In case any of you have never used it, it will break it all the way down. And when it comes to a budget, the Treasurer is never involved in that, I find that interesting, that not only is she not involved, but she brought her own budget and gave it to her friends, and then that those friends began to try to hijack the real meeting. That's unacceptable. That is unacceptable. I could have stayed home and cussed y'all out on the TV instead of coming in here in this sweat you all didn't achieve what we came for right then, I also have a question regarding Lisa, because here we are. How many months outside of the election is she bonded? Did we get that bond? So she's an elected treasurer, but not an appointed one, right or not a duly sworn in one? Right? Because she can't, she can't, she can't do the functions, right? Lisa, okay, and so then, why does she have access to the budget with any of our city council meeting people? Jamal, you ain't calling me and tell me we was having a meeting about the budget. How did they get that? I don't understand, and I'm just picking with Jamal. I rarely talk to him. Then we talked about the court budget. What are you comparing it to? What you just come in here talking you have no points, no data to support it. You called it a no nothing court, and I'm talking to you. Kashif, do you think we should still have it? If it's no nothing, then let's close it. But we know it's not no nothing, don't we? And then finally, I didn't hear if you all accepted the budget or not, because there's a lot of fooling going on, and probably with me, causing the foolery. But I don't know what was said. Did we accept the budget? It was a
I didn't hear. So it was a three, two vote in council affairs that may change. Okay,
okay, alright. Cuz I just, I just, I just don't understand how we are here every year under this group of people in this same place, every year. I'm embarrassed. You talk about citizens coming in, I'm embarrassed. I can't even tell them to look at us on YouTube, right? I can't. You got people talking about who moved in, moving back out, because it is foolery, and yet we want to cry and point fingers because the mayor's office ain't broke down by by line. That's me. I'm good. Y'all have a good night.
Thank you. I have to do this.
I have to apologize, because that's really not me, and I do want to apologize, but I'm passionate about what I said. But I came up here to say was about district three. We wanted to know I am on the CDAC, and we wanted to know about the budget,
because it was a sport. I just told Miss Kim, she don't get a second trip. Okay,
okay, but I do want to, if you don't hear nothing else, I do want to legally apologize.
Good evening, everyone. I have not intended to come here and speak, but on the behalf of Miss Ford, we had, I'm sorry. Come on. Miss surprise, we had our monthly CDA C meeting, and there was some question asked, and we voted. And Miss for was agreed to come before the council to ask questions. So as of 2020, 20, we all know that the charter was created and do that the CDAC was created, and I was appointed and was made president of District Three. Continuously in the process of that time, we had our regular meeting, and we did put an order in and gave it to our council for what we want to spend the money for, and that's excuse me, as CDAC president, continue ongoing from the beginning to now, we never put in order for any money To be spent other than what we gave to council because she had i As president, just found out that the money was spent. No disrespect. I never knew that. Mr. Powell and Mr. Miller, he works for the city, we had a regular meeting, and that no one have asked us. And so as I apologize for Miss for she intend to bring some dark questions and information, but as of now, I have no knowledge of any money that has been spent in a vote, by the way, of the vote for the cvac ever. And once again, I did submit some to council, because she at length and what we wanted to purchase, and I can share that with you, you may not agree. So we voted that we should help light up our community. So we put in an order that was, I guess, a year ago too, that we would buy dust to Dawn lights and the one that reflect the bugs. And then we also for the homes that did not hide light switches. Who was going to purchase solar, solar lighting for them. And so we put that in. I did give that to our council, council person, but as a whole, never has me as a body, ever authorized any spending, or did any spending. Thank you. I'm only speaking because Miss port, it was her duty to do so. Thank you for allowing us to listen. This is our treasurer. Thank you and thank you.
Alright, moving up with your ma'am, and then we'll move into Council affairs. We didn't beat the sun tonight.
Good evening, everyone.
My name is Madeline Harrell. I'm a lifelong resident of Highland Park, lifelong I live at the bishop Moore apartments on Manchester and second,
about six weeks ago, maybe two months
I looked out my balcony window and there was a traffic sign that was not where it's supposed to be. It was laying across the sidewalk, the one where it's walk at the top and stop at the bottom. I called and left a message for you. I called No I called Mrs. Robinson and we talked, but there's nothing that has been done in all this time. So I wanted to just say what was on my mind. It's a danger. There are exposed wires. The machinery is just laying across the lawn. It's on the southwest corner of Manchester, and second, someone please come and see about it and repair it. That box, yes, it's just laying there. And the sidewalks have been redone. The grass is being replanted, and that machinery is still just laying there. Please someone, whatever department will take care
of it. Remind us again What corner that it's on the
southwest corner of Manchester and second.
Thank you. Thank you too.
Hold the gallery. I have a caller online that would like to speak. I'm gonna allow the chief to speak first, and then we have one caller online that is seven. You're gonna have to identify yourself when the time comes, I'll ask you to unmute as well as Anthony, we're gonna hear from the chief right now. Go ahead, Chief.
Good evening, everyone. I intended on taking my time to speak on some budget concerns. So rather than go through that line by line, I'm just going to say I believe that the proposed budget would have serious public safety ramifications for not only the police, but as well as the fire moving on in terms of the light. It's the lighting department, and we contacted the lighting department on numerous occasions to get the light moved. The problem with moving us moving the light is we become liable. If we move it and the the wire tears and sparks, it could shut down the light, the city would become liable. So we do have an order in to repair the light. It's my understanding, they plan on pouring a concrete pedestal to put that back on. So I think it's part of the process for construction. So more importantly, there's been some serious allegations made, in my opinion, against the police department that the mayor has solicited the police department to harass a member of this community. That could not be further from the truth. In fact, it should be noted that for a significant, pretty significant amount of time, Miss aller has had Miss Oliver has had a pending warrant that was issued by the 30th District Court. The number the the attempt to get her phone number was a courtesy to call her rather than arresting her and bringing her to the police department. Most recently, I solicited the court and asked them to mail her a court date, as opposed to have an outstanding warrant. I don't know what the status of that is yet. However, at the time we were trying to make contact with her. It was out of a courtesy to not bring her to our jail and treat her, you know, out of you with any disrespect. So the the the allegations that she made again, could not be further from the truth. We that is not the business we're in. The mayor has never asked me to harass anybody or do anything on her behalf. The mayor does not control this police department, simple as that, and I can't make that any clear. She cannot make me do something illegal, and nor has she ever asked matter of fact, she's she does not get involved in police department business. So when I hear this constantly, it this misinformation or disinformation. In my opinion, it it really irritates me. So if anyone has a question regarding anything that goes on with the police department, as I always say, you're more than welcome to come ask
it's public information. So I have
two people online, please. No, ma'am, let's don't so we're going to go to seven that's online. I'm going to ask you to unmute. Thank you so much for those folks in the gallery. We're going to start with you seven. Would you please identify yourself? Your time starts when you give us your name, sir. Oh, ma'am, good evening.
Lovely. Beautiful People of Highland Park. My name is Robert Shannon. I'm also known as seven, like the number. First, I want to thank everybody for this opportunity, you know, to speak with you. I'm going to be as brief as possible. I'm in California until the 23rd then I look forward to seeing people in person. So I'm here because I would like to put something on the table that I believe, you know, should have been on the corner a long time ago, at least 30 years ago. I am 47 years old. I'm I'm a blessed actor in the industry. I've been fortunate enough to work on Bucha, the black Messiah Detroiters, My people have seen me. I give all glory and praise to the most high but I've recently been deemed to portray Donald Goins, so I'm producing the biopic for Donald Goins, the legendary author, the godfather of urban literature and your favorite rappers, favorite writer. I am here because I would like to propose getting Donnie his street. I think Donnie should have a street named after him. I think it should be in Highland Park. Um, you know where his people are, the people that he spoke of, the streets that he spoke of he's made legendary. Um, at some point I'm going to get a little emotional too, but it's something dear to my heart. Um,
mural that you sent me on the wall, this young man sent this email earlier said he was that's a mural of Donald goings going in over at, uh, Parker village. So you're right, yeah, thank
you. Thank you for showing that. Because I was actually going to let everyone know until I get back, if they would like, they can go over to Parker village, check it out with Juan, the amazing artist syntex, was more than happy to do it. He was trying to get it done, you know, before so and it's not completed, we're going to put the titles of his books up there, and we have something from his family as well. I just heard about this meeting, you know, so I was able to jump in, but given time or whatnot, you know, we weren't in connection with the family and everything. So, you know, I just like to bring Donnie home.
I appreciate that too, and then that will be your time when you come back to the city. Would you be kind enough to come and talk to members of council? I did receive the email. Now that I've talked to you, I'll forward that email to the other members of council. I wanted to wait and give you an opportunity to speak to them first, just members. I heard about this young man trying to put this mural up to honor Donald Goins and his legacy in the city of Highland Park. I thought it was real cool. I suggested he forwarded to the mayor, and then before I even forward it to the rest of the council members, I wanted him to be able to come and speak on it himself. I'll forward the email to you tonight. I thought it was interesting concept. I don't want to steal this young man's thunder, and I wish you the best of luck. So I look forward to seeing you back in the city that other person who had their hand up, has lowered their hand. And so now we're going to move into Council affairs. So what I want to do just one quick thing before we move into Council affairs, I'm going to ask, I'm going to literally beg my council members, we are in litigation right now because of things that were said in council affairs. So please. So please, let's keep the discussion on affairs of Council, I am not interested in seeing individuals personal business. I've said that for my first day in city council, your personal business is your personal business. Please, let's not bring that into Council affairs. It is none of my business. Okay? After my daughter died, I didn't come to City Council for two months because I was none of y'all business what I was going through. I kept that at home. So whatever is going on in your personal lives, members of council, I am begging you. We are in court right now, facing nearly a million dollars in litigation because of something that was said during Council affairs. Let's stick to city council affairs. Let's answer these people's questions. Deal with City Council issues, and let's keep our personal business personal, if we can. So we going to start with the councilman from the third district. It's your time, Mr. Shockley, I'm Oh. The last thing is, do the Roberts rule? The chair can put a cap on
council affairs. We
going to make that. We got them going three minutes. We going to hold us to five from now on, because we've gone 25 minutes in these chairs, these people want to go home, so we they gotta do it in three. We can do it in five. Robert's rules says 10. Robert's rule says how much okay you want to show me? Because I don't mind being wrong. I don't mind at all Google it. I'm okay. We thank
you.
Thank you. I run the meeting. We have five minutes, so go for it, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna set
the timer. Mr. Sharpie, the floor is yours.
Um, my question is exclusively from this deposit? Uh, I'm I'm looking at this ordinance. I'm getting a lot of calls about this, this rental ordinance, from from a lot of residents and investors in the city who feel like they're being being taken advantage of
ordinance. Um,
one, 50.080
is this at my desk? Yeah. Okay, yeah.
So, um, so I've had had residents to call me and tell me that they're being forced to turn their other pieces of property even though they don't have anybody in them, or if they do have somebody in them, it's a family member that's not paying rent. It's not a rental, but they're being forced to make it a rental, and then they're being forced to pay the rental fees that are associated with that rental. I think that's unfair. I think that's unfair because there are a lot of residents out here who have family members who they bought houses for that's filling their names that they live in, and for them to be forced to turn it into a rental. They're not making any money off of it, but they're being forced to turn into a rental bottom within a group, and they're being forced to pay these fees every year, $100 here, $250 here for the inspection, fines and penalties if they don't meet the requirements they gave. They gave one lady she was here at the last Council meeting, and she said they forced her to turn her daughter's house into a rental, even though her daughter don't pay rent. So they forced her, and then they gave her a 30 day notice and she didn't bring the property up to, up to Section Eight code, which everybody knows, Section Eight code is expensive, okay? You're talking about new windows, new gutters, new door paint down, smoke detectors that can get kind of right for people who don't have a lot of money, okay? And for her to be forced to do that, I think it's unfair. I think we need to re look at this ordinance and reconsider what's being done here.
Alright, so you want me to discuss with McKenna the standards they use and determine whether they enforce
it on ordinance. I think, I think, I think what needs to happen until we get an opportunity to sit down as a collective and look over this ordinance, maybe they can appraise or put a moratorium on their activities until Council has a chance to thoroughly vet this
whole I'll contact McKenna tomorrow and see if I can get some information for the next council meeting.
Okay, I appreciate that. Yield back Council, President,
all right, and I'll be interested in hosting a workshop to that in because we can't change that ordinance. We have the authority to change it, yeah, so once they get us together. Okay, so Miss Martin,
yes, thank you, Mister President. Um, okay, so couple of things I would like to do today. Man, I'm tired. That's been a lot today. Um, first question I have is, how do we go about making changes to the budget? What would be the process? Because, like I said, Oh, first things first, I also want to rescind my vote. Let's do that first. I want to rescind my vote on the budget with the amendments
request to suspend the rules.
Mr. Bosnick be
a motion to suspend the rules. Can I make a motion to suspend the rules? It would have to be seconded, and then it would be before this body. Ordinarily, Roberts Rules of Order would require a two thirds vote. But this court never, this council never adopted Robert's Rules of Order, so majority vote
would govern. So there's a motion on the floor to suspend the rules made by Councilwoman Martin. It's called roll. It was seconded by let's call the roll on the vote to suspend the rule. Councilwoman Martin, yes, she's asking. She doesn't get the vote. She does. Yeah, no, she doesn't.
Because the last time that I asked to suspend the rules, it was just before y'all gets the vote. It was just before y'all
she gets to vote. Go ahead. Miss mine. I
don't remember you ever not being able
to vote. Mr. Boss, the last time I asked to suspend the rules, at the last Council meeting, I was not allowed to vote. It was up to the four of them to decide if they wanted to let me suspend the rules.
Thank you. So go ahead Council.
Councilwoman Manica, yes, no as President Trump,
yes to suspend the rules under this circumstances. Miss Martin, you had a statement that you wanted to
make Yes, so I want to rescind my vote for the budget of amendments. So
that is item six. That means the vote that was made the resolution to approve the proposed budget for the period of July 1, 2025 to june 30, 2026, as presented by Mary McDonald, a motion was made by Councilman supported by council folks
in Robinson
to approve the budget with this thing that was delivered to us today as our budget, as the amendment, and Miss Martin is removing her support for that item. So at this time, right now, item six, city still has business. The chair will entertain a motion on item six. So I
want to make a motion to hold on one second,
Mr. Boss. I'm just going to say proper order would be city council would vote to allow ms mark, and then you would have another vote on Mayor McDonald's. Like,
a time I want to make a motion to rescind my vote for the amended budget. Is
there any support?
So we have a motion report to rescind the vote for item
six. Six. Item
six, a motion made by council woman Martin, supported by Councilwoman man, could you please call the roll on that motion?
Can you do City Business and council fair? This Council's
done that previously, so I would say yes. And the council is governed by its own rules, because it never adopted Robert's Rules of Order at the beginning of the beginning of the council term. Councilman
the Shafi, no,
yes.
Council moment Malika, yes.
Council president Robinson, no.
Council President Thomas, yes. We accept your resentment of your vote. Now we still have item six that needs to be dealt with. The chair will entertain a motion on Item six during Okay,
so I want to make a motion
on six. I want to make a motion on the resolution to approve the proposed budget for the period July 1, 2025, to june 30, 2026, as the President, presented by the mayor, Mayor Glenda McDonald. Second,
we have a motion on the floor to approve item six, the resolution to approve the proposed budget for the period of July 1, 2025, to june 30. 2026, as presented by Glenda McDonald. Mayor Glenda McDonald, made by Councilwoman Martin, seconded by Councilwoman Manica jacarro, my hand, I'm sorry. Ma'am, my head was down. I deeply apologize. Adam,
I have a question for the attorney.
Can there be another motion at this time to table this
we have a motion, and there's a motion on the floor right now this
money missing from my CDHP, nobody told me nothing.
Okay, and nobody said there's
a motion on the floor.
Okay, Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll on Miss Martin's Motion to approve item six, resolution to approve the proposed budget would appear in July 1, 2025, to June 3 of 2026, as presented by Gary McDonald's. Motion was made by Councilwoman Martin, supported by Councilwoman mana, would you please call the roll? Councilman
Shafi? No. Councilwoman
Martin, yes,
yes. Robinson, no. Council President,
Yes. Motion carries the budget has been approved for another year. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the third time we had to do this exact same thing. So
is my time up? Is my time up? No, it's your time. Okay. Great, okay, great, great, great. So we're still at Council affairs, right? Okay, great, great, great, great. Okay, so yeah, how do we go about making changes to the budget? How do we go? What's that process to DPW? Do they work? Do they all work on the same shift, at the same time? That's one question about the CDAC money. Something about a float. The CDAC money that was spent, was spent in October. There was no float on October. The parade happens in May. The money was spent in October, something you discuss off of the
Lisa,
we gotta get you bonded, because this is my thing. It doesn't make sense. How are we legally accepting money and depositing it without anybody being bonded? That doesn't make any sense. Also, I want to make a motion. I want to call a moratorium for the rental ordinance until we amend the ordinance. Do I have support for that?
I would like to make a motion to suspend the rules.
We have a motion to suspend the rules for a second vote made by Councilwoman Martin, supported by Councilman ashafi, questions concerning the dissent. So let's call the rule on suspending it. Let's call the roll on suspending the rules.
Councilman Shafi Yes, to suspend the rules. Councilwoman Martin Yes. Councilwoman Banneker Yes. Council Pro Tem Robinson, yes. Council President,
Yes. Motion carries. Miss Martin, the floor is still yours. Go for it.
Okay, so now I can make the motion, yup. Okay. I want to make a motion to call a moratorium until the rental ordinance is amended
Second.
Okay, I give it to you, mister. So we have a motion on the floor to suspend the rental ordinance while we work on it. And there's a moratorium. Has been we're declaring a moratorium, a motion made by Councilwoman Martin, supported by Councilman O'Shea. You have questions concerned? Yes, you need to put a
time on it. Yes, I did, until we amended that ordinance.
So 90 days, 60
days, I don't know how long is it going to take us to amend it? I mean, it's been taking us so long. How long is it gonna take us to a minimum wage?
90 days. Give us. Give us 90 days.
Can y'all work together in a point of order? We
can do it in three months. Definitely my
question. You can? We can do this in three months? Yes, we're gonna need time. We are. I'm looking at we can do this in three
months. I must. Didn't ask for a point. Yeah, you did. You did. But I'm just saying yes, we're all agreeing we can do
this in three months, working to catch
so go ahead. Miss Manica, you had, you had a statement, because I'm ready to call for the vote on that thing. Let's call the vote. Miss Monica, you have something you wanted to bring
forward. So you're saying, 90 days, 90 days. Can I finish? I thought it was my turn. I can ask you a question though 90 days. Yeah, that we can't come back in a week or two weeks. Yes, we can, but we just want to give ourselves three months. No, why? No, we can. Okay, listen to what I'm saying. Yes, ma'am, first before y'all jump to this thing, are we just talking about on, we're talking about just on rental property, correct? Right now, that's what is that? Just for residents. That's
what the what are you talking about?
So, yeah, the rental order. Okay. Why
would we wait 90 days? Though?
No, no, we just, I'm sorry, ma'am.
I may give us at least, because we're going to need to have it vetted by the legal department. We don't know how long that's going to take or the process. Yeah, we don't know. So I wanted to make sure we had enough time, right? That's the summer
I want, I want to quickly piggyback on what you just said. I agree with the 90 days we have, historically have a tendency to bump head some words, right? 90 days would give us enough time where there's no problem. Everybody's in the greens. So when it comes to a vote, it would meet unanimous.
And that would be that would give the citizens a reprieve over the summer, because, again, you got summer taxes coming. So that gives us agreement. That gives us, yeah, we gotta, we gotta have a public
hearing.
We all have to still read the entire thing and start to finish exactly so that that's that's and now if we could get done sooner than that, that would be awesome, but that at least gives us the summer to work on this for citizens. Did that? Does that address your your concern? Mr. Manager, it does. Okay. So now we have a vote on the floor. We have a motion on the floor for a moratorium on the rental ordinance, call by Miss Martin, supported by Mister al sharpa. Would you please call the roll on that.
Councilwoman Martin, yes,
yes. Council Robinson, yes. Council President,
yes. Now let me jump in and say you will five minutes, but you've been cooking, so I'm just going to let you done?
Do I still have my time? Because I've included you guys in my time, you know I've been sharing. Yes, you have. Okay, so, alright, real quick, I am going to finish this up you guys. I am big on supporting the youth. I just want to share with you about the the Boys and Girls Club. They have a rental space. They wanted me to let me know that they will do anything from seven in the morning to 11 o'clock at night. That includes baby showers, birthdays, repass whatever event, business, whatever it is that you have for your event. Also, they have a summer camp enrollment scholarship, that's about 75% off. That's part time or full time for kid, grandkid on, not on, niece, nephew, I apologize I'm tired. Also, they have a fashion. I love it because my daughter will be in it. You want to learn how to sew, that's kind of like a lost skill. There's not a lot of people that. So I know my mother did. I really wasn't something that I picked up on. But they will pay your 14 year old, or I think it's 14 to 16, they will pay them as as they are learning to sew and make clothes and design. I think that's fascinating. With that, last thing I wanted to add, they also have a summer camp from June 16 to August 15, and that's to get our kids out here to do something and get involved. So with that being said, I'm gonna go ahead and finally take my past my 20 minutes. Go ahead. Thank you, ma'am, thank you. Have a great night, everybody.
Sorry, it's a fire, yep.
Okay, good. Good evening. Good evening, everyone. I hope that you had a interesting night. First, I want to make mention of some things and considerations. Ethical standards. Council members must avoid any appearance of using their position for personal gain or to influence outcomes in which they have a personal interest. Secondly, transparency, it is advisable for council members to disclose any potential conflicts of interest and recuse themselves from discussion or votes where such conflicts exist. These are just some examples and statements. I wanted to make sure that my council are aware of there you go again. No, I'm talking to all five of us. There were some questions about who can speak, or who can speak during Council, I mean, during citizen participation, yes, Council can speak during citizen participation. So can directors, if the mayor gives them the allotment to do so, council people just have to identify themselves, step down from here and identify themselves as, at that time, private citizens, and that's what they're going to say. So those people who had that question, that's your answer. I have a more extensive part to that, but it sums it up pretty much so that they can, they just have to step down from wherever they're sitting and say, Hey, I am doing this as a private citizen speak. They only get the same amount of time a citizen gets, etc. They also must also maintain decorum and and do that for civility and respectful conduct for ourselves as well as for you. The other thing is zoning and planning, everybody kind of slows out of here all of a sudden. But I have some residents, and I have that concern too. We talked about lots, selling a lot, and being careful how we do that, because we must consider the fact that Highland Park needs revenue, guys, you need revenue and you need people here. So you need housing. I will continue to say this. I've been saying it now for two years. This is the third year you need housing. You need people. And so just as an example of why, sometimes I said, Hey, no, let's think about who we're selling this too, because we have a lot of people that are here buying property that live other places, which is kind of fine if they were doing something to help you as the resident, but that's not what's happening. They're either continuing to just be renting it out, which is not helping you it as far as revenue and so and so. Again, as we talked about a workshop for the ordinance, there's a need for workshop for education. In regards to how does this apply when you have a lot, I tried to mention this before, if you have a lot, or you have a lot, that lot is only going to bring you maybe $250
in
what's that property tax? Yes, the water goes to, you know, the person who owns it. Now, some lots may be more, some lots might be less, but either way, when you put a property and you put persons on there. You put a house on there, you are bringing greater revenue to your city as well as you're providing some things called like walking points or and that might not be in that case, but when it comes to money in your city, you need people. The young lady talked about schools. No, that's a school board this district issue, so please, we have a school board meeting that happens make sure you attend, so that you can let them know what your concerns is about children in education in the city. Now, I do agree that the city has a responsibility to try to work with the school board to see how we can indeed get schools here, but you have to have people again to even talk about schools. So that is and so a lot a lot of times, people get offended for whatever reason that I mentioned, hey, we have a zoning board meeting. We have a school board meeting because those are the places that you really want to talk about those issues, but going back to the lot so bizford, I have complaints, and they were here, but or Okay, so there were some other residents here as well. We talked earlier, and so we sold some private lots to we sold some lots to an individual. Then we sold some lots to a company. Wayne County sold a lot to the company. Well, in turn, some kind of way that company has acquired more lots in that role. So I don't want to continue there, but I know they have more than what they had that we gave them, so that means somebody else either sold or gave so now the residents are complaining because the whole block almost is now a parking lot. That is something that that block Club does not want, or at least the ladies do not want it, at least the ladies that spoke to me, so I'm speaking on behalf of those residents in that on that street, who is very concerned. The same thing has happened all the way down in Berkeley or whatever, when the restaurant, a popular restaurant, wanted to add additional parking lot down the street, the residents did not want it for several reasons, but I don't know how I came about that they knew, but either way, I have some residents. So I'm just pointing that out, because those are things you have to think about. Because people come here and they maneuver, whether you know that or not, they maneuver to get what they wanted. We're not consciously thinking about it. This is what happens, cuz we agreed on and then. So now that makes me ask, did they go to the zoning board? Did they go to planning it never came to city council for them to have additional a bigger parking lot. So therefore, is McKenna, or whoever should be looking at that? So I was going to ask administration to look at that, because if planning didn't approve it, zoning didn't approve it, I know we didn't approve it, it needs to be addressed. I mean, hey, last, last couple of things that are really important. That's why I said May 31
one to 4pm
myself, Councilwoman, Tomiko Manica, district one, Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated as well as, I'm sorry, the dove foundation will be having a women's enrichment community baby shower Saturday, May 31 from one to 4pm it is at, excuse me, our station on our Community station on Hamilton. That address is 13233, Hamilton Avenue in Highland Park. Also, you can also make donations for the baby shower in the meantime. And so that was what I wanted to mention. If you have any questions, you can see me later after this last thing, block club, the huge black club meeting is may 28 2025 when I say huge, that means everybody's block club, the the city's black club meeting, and it's at 6pm at the Justice Center. 13233, Hamilton, uh, last, but not least, thank you for that revolt, Miss Martin, and thank you for the comments of the residents. In regards to that, it is nothing personal. We have to stop being personal and be about business. Have a great night.
Thank you, ma'am, council president, um, it's I'm going to move on to,
I just want to quickly say, Miss America and Miss Martin. They really need to work on a five minutes.
You're correct. They went, I was going to say,
Is this my time? Definitely
not the 20 minute.
Let's not. Let's not. You want to take this one of the preachers. Ladies Gentlemen,
let's not steal from her. He's right. Oh yeah, you're right.
Let's not wait for Madam President. Let's go.
Let's not steal her time. That's the first. It's the first. And I was, I was over here chewing my jaw the whole time thinking, Okay, go ahead, Madam Protem, the floor is yours first
I would like to make a motion to amend the budget may the 27th at 7pm
so Wait a minute.
Hold on, hold on. Let me make sure before i You gotta write this down. You're making a motion to amend the budget. Yeah, on May 27 at 7pm Oh, be here. May 27 at 7am I know where I'll be. Oh,
what day makes works good for you, council president,
well, first you have to be a motion to suspend the rules. Yes,
I make a motion to suspend the rules. Okay, thank you.
There's a second second
may by second, we have a motion to suspend the rules, made by council proton Robinson, seconded by Councilman el shadd, would you please call the roll on the suspension of the rules? Councilman
to amend the budget. I suggested May the 27th or 7pm but it's some conflict. So what day can we do this?
It is at the leisure of Council.
Is it? Is it a motion to
so you call them a special meeting? Yes, yeah. So you can just call a special meeting. Okay,
well, I call a special meeting later 27 to 7pm
Okay, so then if you do it in writing, and we don't even have to do a mo you, you and Mister motion, okay, you're going to do a motion. Okay, so we have a she's making a motion. There's a motion on the floor from Council approach and Robinson to hold a special meeting on May 27 at 7pm that's seconded by Councilman Mina Shafi. Go ahead and call the roll on that special meeting.
Councilman Asha Yes, Councilwoman Martin, you know, Councilwoman manager.
I We're voting to amend the budget, yes
on the 27th at seven o'clock.
Councilwoman, manager,
I'm trying to see if I'm available that day.
It's three. Y'all, you three will be at the meeting.
Goes to three. I don't know.
Gonna see in a minute. You got one, yes, one No,
no,
I'm sorry. Ma'am, no, I'm sorry. No.
Council Robinson, yes. Council, president,
no. Motion does not carry madam, floor is still yours.
Okay first. Now I want to speak on the lots on Kendall. It was three lots and one resolution, and we approved one. And now I need to know to the process for them to come back and get the other two lots, because I sent them to the CG director and they were sent to council. So I'm asking that right now,
how do we go about letting them get the other two lots?
How do we go about doing that
they would meet with the director Clyburn, if they want, they would go through the ordinary process, just like they did the first time they came before Council. My understanding was that they didn't want lots, but maybe that's changed. I wouldn't know. No, they wanted them, okay, yeah. Then they would work through the same process. It would talk to Director Clyburn and try to get
on the agenda. Director Clyburn told us to come to council. Okay, I also would like to let them, the citizens, know that in the first couple of months when we all took our seats, I had suggested to the mayor that we let and allow the residents to have first bids on the purchase of lots and property. She instructed me that that would cause lawsuits. I didn't understand it then, and I don't understand it now, and I just wanted to let everybody know that, and I'm done.
Okay, ma'am. Thank you very much. Imma. Imma, be under five minutes. Um, we're near the end of the school year. This is for coming. We're in near the end of the school year. This is my first year teaching in the public high school system, and I did not give my environmental science students a final exam. They're doing a report. It's on simple, basic phenomena recognition. And what I want to caution all of you people in the audience for is our young people are not reading they're not reading books. They're not reading magazines. And as a science teacher teaching these kids environmental science, I was appalled that most young people cannot recognize a phenomenon that means something that occurs, either naturally or man made, that they can identify. A simple phenomenon is someone comes into come in the building. One of them has an umbrella, the other one doesn't they're both wet, but one of them is fully wet. What is happening? That was a simple question, and I had high school students that couldn't tell me. The phenomenon was one person didn't have an umbrella and was outside. So I'm raising this question, and I'm discussing it among the people, so that the people that are at home and the people in the room can understand our children are very deficient in their capacity as a result of the pandemic, and we are there's going to be a rule in the school system that I teach in next year where students are not going to have their phones. And as a science teacher teaching chemistry and environmental science, I can tell you that that is going to be catastrophic. I talked to my students today, all of my students. They're between 15 and 17 years old. They have never seen a time in their parents, in their lives, where their parents did not have a phone or a tablet, where they were multitasking. So we've been doing this in front of this generation of children their entire lives. If your child was born in 2008 forward, they have never, ever seen their parents without their phones. They have never, ever seen their parents without at least one computer. We drive and talk, we text and walk around, we scroll, we watch Tiktok, and we wonder why the children are deficient in this way. I told my fellow educators, if we take the phones away from the children, they may shut down learning altogether. And I'm asking you, as people in the community who care about education, please start engaging the young people in your family. It's about to be the end of the school year, and since they were babies, you've been sticking a device in their face. Here, sit on your tablet here, play with your phone. We're not talking to the kids anymore, and I would never do it to my students. I'm one of the only teachers in the school that tells the students you're going to use your phone to help you do your coursework. I teach my students how to use AI, how to use Google. I show them how to use the tool, not to be reliant upon it, but how to use this tool to find a ferret out information. So I'm just encouraging all the people with young folks in your family, grab a hold of those young people's semester is about to end. You put your phone down. You sit them and put have their put their phone down, have a conversation with them about real life things, because these kids are deficient in the skills that make us human. So that's my urge for you, that is, it's a very important Highland Park does not have a school system. We have charter schools. So we're going to have to engage our kids so that they get those skills. That's all I have for y'all. I want to entertain a motion to adjourn.
