Month: October 2022

Introduction:

Though public comments can sometimes irritate the city council, there is value to both the council and the public in hearing them. While it can’t eliminate public comments entirely without violating the Open Meetings Act, your city council has decided not to acknowledge public comments during a city council meeting unless the person submitting the comments also appears at the meeting (in-person or electronically) to personally read them. Mayor Eric Haven has also cut people off for exceeding the city council’s arbitrary three-minute time limit (it’s arbitrary because no time limits are required by the Open Meetings Act).

If your public comments were submitted to the council but not read, or if you tried to make public comments but your comments were cut short by the mayor, please email them to clarkstonsunshine@gmail.com and I will include them in my informal meeting summaries either under public comments or under the specific agenda item that you want to speak to.

Links to the video recording and the council packet can be found at the bottom of this post. Please note any errors or omissions in the comments. Anything noted between brackets was inserted by Clarkston Sunshine.

Agenda Item #1, Call to Order (Video time mark 0:00:01):

Eric Haven said he would convene the meeting at 7:00 by saying the pledge to the flag.

Agenda Item #2, Pledge of Allegiance (Video time mark 0:00:07):

Pledge said.

Agenda Item #3, Roll Call (Video time mark 0:00:22):

Eric Haven, Gary Casey, Joe Luginski, and Laura Rodgers were present.

Al Avery, Bruce Fuller, and Sue Wylie were absent.

Agenda Item #4, Motion: Approval of Agenda (Video time mark 0:00:38):

Haven said he would entertain a motion to approve the agenda as they have been presented it.

Motion to approve the agenda by Casey; second Fuller.

Haven asked if there was any discussion.

No discussion.

Motion adopted by unanimous voice vote.

Agenda Item #5, Public Comments (Video time mark 0:01:56):

[Note: Agenda Item #6 was taken before Agenda Item #5.]

Haven moved on to Agenda Item #7; city attorney Tom Ryan noted that he’d skipped over public comment. Haven apologized for skipping public comments.

Haven read the rules for public comment.

Haven recognized Nancy Moon and asked her to identify herself.

Moon provided her name and said that she’s lived in the historic Village of Clarkston for 27 years and she lives on Main Street. Moon said she understands the city council voted for paid parking in the Depot Park parking lot. The fee of $1.00/hour would become effective at 4:00 p.m. once the parking lot program is implemented. During days in which it is still daylight after 4:00 p.m., you want to charge families that bring their children to play in the park. Many families park in this parking lot and walk a few steps to the playground, and when Moon came in, there were three families already in the playground using it. You want to charge residents that attend city council meetings, planning commission meetings, historic district meetings, since they would be parking in the Depot parking lot next to the building in which the meetings are held and the meetings are after 4:00. Did you consider that residents will not pay the few dollars to attend and would still just do whatever they want (unintelligible) come to the meetings and (unintelligible). The parking lot at Main and West Washington Street does not serve the city council offices and it does not serve Depot Park. Why has this (unintelligible) and continues to be (unintelligible) to include Depot Park. Moon understands that there is a resolution on the agenda tonight to hire an engineering firm to survey the wetlands in anticipation of building a boardwalk. Moon agrees that a boardwalk would be very nice. Perhaps those of you on the city council are not noticing the economic issues of today, but many families in our surrounding community have. During the economic conditions today, is this the time to charge families visiting our community. Moon realizes that the (unintelligible) needs funds. She lives here. She knows we need money. But have you looked at all the avenues for raising funds? For instance, this certified local government program, which is managed by the Michigan State Preservation Historic Office and the National Park Service, has various grant programs. The city could become a member and take advantage of those grants. Secondly, the Michigan Department of Transportation has grant programs for local governments. Did anybody investigate these grant programs? Thank you.

Haven thanked Moon.

Haven asked if anyone else would like to address council.

Jonathan Smith [city manager] said that he would like to. Haven recognized Smith.

Smith said in the last council meeting, he was out with COVID and could not attend. As Moon just commented, you voted on paid parking in the Depot Lot. Prior to the meeting, as Haven will recall, they had a phone discussion about how this would be presented to council. It was Smith’s feeling that this should be a motion to send the whole paid parking for Depot to the planning commission for review, and Smith wanted this to not be a resolution to buy the kiosk, but a motion to send it to the planning commission, or if they opted, the parking committee, for them to investigate the different details that come along with paid parking implementation, including what are you going to do about employees, what are you going to do about the businesses up here that use these lots. A very important issue, what are you going to do about Neil Wallace’s 12 spots, that contractually we have an agreement with him about those. There are many details to be worked out, so Smith asked that it be moved as a motion, not as a resolution, and Haven commented at that time that he’d like this to go as a resolution and asked that Smith change his motion to a resolution, which he did. Then Smith watched the meeting online, and what transpired he was a little upset about because it made it sound like it was Smith’s idea to put this on the agenda as a resolution to just do it, and Smith wants to make the record straight here that he had asked for this to be a motion to go to the planning commission to do what they do, and that’s planning. There needs to be a lot of steps involved here, and now it’s all been dumped on Smith’s desk to figure out all these details.

Smith has been working closely with Ryan, because there’s a legal agreement that very much concerns him. How are we going to differentiate that, how are we going to recognize Wallace’s spots and implement this paid parking?

So, the point of Smith’s comment is that he’s not happy with the way it went down. A couple times it was referenced that oh, Jonathan wrote this, so Jonathan must be the initiator of this. The fact is, it’s not what Smith wanted. He wanted to go to the planning commission. We’ll get it done. We’ll work through the details. It’s going to take some time and let the record show that Smith is in favor of more paid parking as a revenue stream for the city. He thinks that it’s the right thing to do. It’s not that. It’s the order, the sequence of which it’s done that upsets him. So, Smith just wanted to set the record straight that he would rather it have gone to the planning commission for review. Wylie tried to bring that up in the meeting, but was kind of over, spoke over, so it just didn’t play out the way Smith wanted it to. So, Smith just wanted to set the record straight.

Luginski said he wasn’t privy to Smith and Haven’s conversation, so he doesn’t know what was discussed. He will tell Smith that it’s been with planning and the subcommittee for months, and nothing’s happened. Luginski was on that subcommittee, and he never got one phone call, one email, to have a meeting. So, in Luginski’s opinion, the planning commission failed. They had it, a subcommittee was formed, with the chair of the planning commission heads that subcommittee up, Luginski was added to that subcommittee as a couple other people were, and never was a meeting, a (unintelligible) never organized, so at what point (gesturing), do you know what he means? You’ve got to act at some point. So, Luginski thinks that the process, and he doesn’t disagree with Smith that the process he outlined probably was correct, but when the process broke, it didn’t happen.

Rodgers said she does think that they have to be cognizant of what Moon says, and she has brought those concerns up as well, that particularly, the families playing in the park. She never realized how much this park was used until her (unintelligible) lives with her, and they use it all the time, and she would hate for, you know, young parents to have to pay for it. She hadn’t thought of the whole city workers, and she really, truthfully, hadn’t even thought of that. The thought is somebody has to pay, somebody has to help pay for things in the city, and should it be the residents who live here with higher taxes or should it be the people who visit our city, and so that’s what her thought process was, and the feeling that she’s talked to others about is that once we get it, we can place like hours of use and all that. She didn’t think about the city workers. That’s a very good point, that we need to think about our own people that drive here, you know. She walks down here, but that doesn’t mean that everybody walks down here you know, in the winter or whatever, so that’s a really good point to think about. It’s a great point.

An unidentified man from the audience asked Luginski what parking committee he was talking about. Luginski said the one that was just formed a couple months ago, not the one that Luginski and the man did a few years ago. We had meetings, and you and I remember, that was what, four or five years ago. Luginski is talking about the one (asking Haven) that was formed three or four months ago. Haven said thereabouts. Luginski said there was another one that was formed that never, nothing ever happened. The unidentified man said he’s never heard about that one, no one ever talked about it, heard it about a month ago and asked about it again. Luginski said he was asked at least, and he didn’t write it down, he was asked months ago to be part of that committee.

An unidentified woman [later identified as Amanda [Wakefield, the city council candidate?]] asked if Luginksi had ever offered to organize a meeting as a member. Luginski said the chair of the planning commission was the chair of the subcommittee, and you know, we’re all busy, right, and so it was whenever the planning commission, whenever they had a meeting, he said they would call everyone together and let us know.

Haven said he appreciates the comments. What was discussed in the meeting was that we have to make a beginning at some point. Haven agrees with Smith, the details have to be worked out, they did talk about that in their conversation, but he made the comment then that you can’t steer a parked car. We’ve been a parked car for a long time here (unintelligible). Once you get controls in place, then you can begin to work with it, OK? And as we did, and was made clear at the meeting, Moon wasn’t here, but what we did with Washington and Main will be done again (unintelligible). We get feedback from people and different organizations and so on, and we will modify and go back, but without control, you’re never, no ability (unintelligible) and make revenue, OK? Now we have revenue and the ability to control (unintelligible due to audience member speaking) that’s in place, so that’s what we intend to do. We will try to make it as optimal for every one of our citizens as we can. But the council’s responsibility is to represent the residents and for their (unintelligible) also in the meeting. We built that lot, we maintain that lot, we pave that lot, we plow that lot (unintelligible). The residents have to pay for all that. It’s not illegitimate, like any other city, that we raise revenue from that asset. So that’s (unintelligible) a dollar an hour, again (unintelligible) we dial it up or dial it down as we need to do, but there’s no intent here to cause any harm to anybody (unintelligible). So, that’s again, that’s a control mechanism, and we want to benefit the city once we have that control.

Haven recognized “Amanda.” She said she agrees with Moon and a little of what Rodgers was saying. She also doesn’t want there to be paid parking in this lot. She’ll just be clear with her position. She thinks it’s nice that the city has a free parking lot. She doesn’t not see what Haven is saying. It’s totally relevant to look at the economics of the city, but there are certain amenities like parking and parks that the city floats for its residents and its visitors just out of the common good of the city. Like we could buy, she knows they’ve talked about how it would be a business tax, but it’s also a tax on the people who use the park. Personally, she thinks that part of Clarkston’s charm is a neighborhood community where people come, and they feel like they’re up north or at home. She knows that the paid parking won’t kill that vibe, she’s not saying it will, but she’s just saying that it’s something that we do for the common good and she thinks that has value, and she knows that we need to make money as a city, she’s not taking away from that, and she knows maybe we should have looked at different revenue sources before this, and that’s what planning would have done, but she just thinks that we’re kind of hastily running into this and there’s no need to. We’re not completely broke like as a city. Even if we are completely broke, we need to start looking at how we are spending our money because we’re spending a lot of money per meeting, like every single meeting we’re, there’s some sort of resolution to spend money on something that is extraneous, like we need to think about cutting back. But she thinks that we need to think about the things that make Clarkston, Clarkston. And people being able to come to the park for free is something that we need to do for everyone, not just Clarkston residents, and in the last meeting, Amanda was a little frustrated because Haven rhetorically said, who wants to raise taxes, who wants to raise taxes, and people raised their hands, like 75% of the room raised their hands and said they would rather raise taxes than tax the people that are coming to the park. And she knows Haven said it rhetorically like a joke, but she thinks there’s a lot of people who are represented at these meetings who really enjoy the park. And she knows that she’s going on and on, and she’s obviously a park person and blah blah blah, but at some point, we just choose to make decisions that like are our character. And if we really become a Birmingham that taxes everybody for every little parking spot, we are going to lose the quaintness. Like, she doesn’t know. She means, that’s her opinion and everyone can say she’s wrong and she’s not trying to be political or mean to anyone, she’s just, she’s just saying what she thinks.

Haven said he appreciated that and thanked her. That’s what this time is all about, and she’s entitled to do that, but we do need to move on because we have a limited time. He thanked Amanda again for her comments.

Haven recognized Mr. Quisenberry. Quisenberry said very briefly about taxing or charging for that are important and may need to be considered, but in the proper perspective. He would bet you dollars to donuts that the three people who are in that park with their families parked in the free parking zones. Aren’t there twelve spots there that you can park free there, right on the south side of Depot Street? Twelve spots right there that’s free parking, and he understands will remain free parking, isn’t it? Haven said it will. Smith said it’s eighteen spots. Continuing, Quisenberry said so, eighteen spots there, so this emotion we’re talking about, charging mothers to bring children there, but the bottom line is there’s free parking available there. The other issue is the employees, OK. You pay after 4:00. Do the majority, the vast majority of your workers employed by the city work 8:00-4:00, something like that? So, their hours are pre-charge parking. So, it’s something that you don’t want to lose sight of, but also let’s not give it more credit, more significance than it really is when you look at what those are. And Mr. Mayor, I really appreciated your rhetorical question last meeting. No, I don’t want to have to pay and subsidize for residents that are coming in and using this. I’d like it to be there for the restaurants to be able to thrive far more so because they don’t have to contend with their employees’ parking. He would just as soon pass that burden on as a use tax to the people that are using it. Haven said and that is what would happen. The people that use it would pay for it.

Haven said all right, thank you. Are there any other public comments?

Haven recognized Cara Catallo. She said she has a comment. (Reading from a prepared statement), Catallo said that the way the city council, particularly the mayor, behaved at the last council meeting was disgraceful. To rush approval of what was initially supposed to be a discussion to spend almost $20,000 without any plan whatsoever against the urging of residents, business owners, and city staff felt reckless. The mayor refused to allow even two weeks for extra opinion and information gathering or to hear from stakeholders. He ignored calls that the issue wait one meeting, one meeting, there’s no deadline for a full council, which obviously it wouldn’t have been [gesturing at the empty council seats] but also to have the city manager here to speak for himself, and instead, we’ve learned that he misrepresented him. Catallo doesn’t understand it. He ignored the sea of hands except for apparently Mr. Quisenberry that went up asking that he would prefer to keep the mills that are on there as Chet [Pardee] has represented countless times. You ignored all of the requests and, and, misstated again about Jonathan’s statement. You brag about other communities having success with their paid parking, mentioning Rochester which has 13,000 residents and Royal Oak which has more than 59,000 residents, our count is closer to 818 residents as far as she can tell, so we’re more akin to Ortonville, Holly, and Fenton, and none of those places have paid parking. The other communities also have large staff and police forces that can do all the necessary maintenance as far as keeping track of who’s overstaying their welcome and who’s paying. That’s another huge thing. Catallo said sorry, she’s not good at this, but all the places you referenced have huge departments and large staffs to handle paid parking which there is throughout the day, not just in evenings like we peculiarly do at our Washington and Main lot. So Catallo imagines that would be the plan here so that Clarkston can earn money from people visiting the park, a real estate office that relies on those spaces for their employees, and also anybody attending the conservatory for Kindermusik or other lessons, because as your main proponent who owns the private paid parking lot said, it’s not a restaurant tax so she’s assuming it’s all day, although Moon may have better information about it than Catallo does that it starts at 4:00, unlike all the communities that you regale as being success stories. Here’s the deal. There’s no plan. Wouldn’t it be smarter to add hours to our paid parking lot which is underperforming? Wouldn’t it be smarter to meter the coveted Main Street spots to be turned over more frequently, rather than punish parkers who already have to walk up a hill to get into our town? How many parking spots? You didn’t answer that. How will you mark off the spots that belong to other people? Who will enforce it? How much will it cost to pay that person to enforce it? How much will it cost to pay another staff member in our office to handle these issues? How much will (unintelligible) cost? What are the hours again? You should be asking these questions before spending city dollars that will add up. It’s not as simple as Eric [Haven] even pretends. Remember, he got you to pay for a $1,000 cake that only $500 of which was edible. He had council agree to spend $1,000 or more to send out the fact sheet about the medical marijuana proposal and then made sure to hand-deliver the next statement but never took it off the table so that we all got two, so we paid for that mailing, and also whatever hours went into Mr. Ryan attending to it and the special meetings. So, there’s a lot more money to be dealt with there. And, at the last meeting, the mayor referred to Tom as his attorney, which sounds like a conflict of interest unless he meant the city’s attorney. There is a difference. You’re not the city. Frankly, Catallo isn’t surprised that Haven can’t grasp how this might harm Clarkston’s businesses, still reeling from the pandemic. You recently called Clarkston a bedroom community that is made up of 53% residences and 20% water. Crickets about our downtown. Yet somehow our businesses are to blame for every pothole. Placemaking and businesses that bring visitors into our downtown and make our community walkable in his estimation and not (unintelligible) as a cut through to get to I-75. Spending $18,000 without any plan, without a full council, without a city manager, against the urging of the majority of the people in the audience was self-centered, and changes the welcoming vibe of our small town, potentially damaging businesses and making our park less friendly. Changing the hours of the Washington and Main lot would have cost nothing. There is no deadline. You could have stopped to see. Instead, you are risking harm to our business community and likely created a parking problem in nearby neighborhoods where none currently exists. Responsible politicians like businesspeople start with a plan and work from there. This was a lazy, ignorant political move that makes Clarkston look selfish, much like he behaves.

Haven said OK and asked if anyone else had a comment.

Rodgers said she wanted to understand. So, it’s just this parking lot right here, it’s not all the parking downtown. Haven said it’s just Depot Park, Depot lot. Rodgers said just the lot, OK.

Moon spoke (without being recognized) and said that the city should become a certified local government with the state, so you have access to grant money. You need to fill out the form and you need to do it. Haven said that Moon’s point is well-taken and he agrees with her 100%, so thank you for bringing that to our attention. You can help us with that, you know, guide us through that process. Moon said she would just add it to her plate. Haven said he wasn’t trying to – (interrupting Haven), Moon said if that’s what it takes for you guys to do it, then she will help you because a lot of this would disappear if we could just go and apply for grant money because it’s there. They don’t even spend all that they have available, so let’s do our homework.

Raising her voice from the back of the room, Cara Catallo said that Moon spoke twice. She spoke twice, so Catallo thought she would address what Moon just said. Haven said she had three minutes. Catallo said so, I can’t respond to her? Haven said he knows that he is going to be called on the carpet for this too – (interrupting Haven), Catallo said it’s only me. It’s only me. You let everybody else speak twice. Haven said no, no – (interrupting Haven) – Catallo said she just wanted to say that Main Street Oakland County is doing that right now, so don’t worry, you can talk to us, we’re working on being a CLG [certified local government]. Moon said OK, thank you. Catallo asked if that was so hard.

(Unintelligible comments.) Haven said he did. Is Chet [Pardee] online? Smith said he can’t tell. He hasn’t identified himself. Haven said that Mr. Pardee submitted them in writing. He didn’t get a copy of it. Jennifer Speagle [Clarkston Clerk] said that she has a copy of it here. Haven said he would be happy to read it if you have it. Is he on the air? Speagle said he’s not responding. Haven said that he appreciates him taking the time to write them. Speagle asked Haven if he wanted her to read it. Haven said if she wanted to read it, sure. Speagle said she wanted to make sure Smith wanted her to read it or if he was going to read it. Smith said he didn’t have it.

Speagle began reading, saying that this is from Chet Pardee:

All:

Below are several points I request be discussed during the consideration of the EV [Electric Vehicle] Charger resolution:

1) Charger Capability:  Is the expectation that the Level 2 charger(s) capability be 32 miles for one hour of charging and 3-8 hours from battery empty?

2) Charger Connection:  Will the connection for the charger(s) be the standard connection of US built vehicles not including Tesla, Kia, and Hyundai EV’s such that owners of Tesla, Kia, and Hyundai EV’s will require their own adapters?

3) Agreement Term:  The ten-year term of the agreement seems too long for the expected changes in EV, EV battery, and EV charging technology.  Does the city incur any cost of termination after the initial 36-month period?

4)  Maximum Cost to the City:  If the agreement is terminated under the terms of the agreement what is the estimated maximum cost to the city?

5)  Charger Placement:  Consider the placement of the chargers on Church Street which would cause no reduction in parking revenue to the city.

6) Revenue Per Parking Spot:  Based on experience what is the per spot revenue for the Washington and Main lot?

7) Parking Fund:  What was the parking fund balance at the beginning to the 2022-23 budget year? 

What items in the 2022-23 budget are planned to come from the parking fund? 

What has been spent? 

What is the cost expected to be paid from the parking fund for Depot Lot paid parking installation expense?

What is expected to be the balance after the expense? 

What revenue is expected for the balance of the budget year? 

What expense is expected to be made from the parking fund yet in the budget year? 

What is the projected balance in the parking fund on 6/30/23 that could be used in the 2023-24 budget year for sidewalk, street, and parking lot maintenance?

Haven said OK. We don’t have to respond to that unless you want to. Haven didn’t think this is a revenue discussion at all. This is just a use. We’ve been given a gift and we can use it or not, and we decided to use it. Smith said that there are lot of questions there that couldn’t possibly be answered at this time. Haven said no, he didn’t expect him to. Smith said that we can research these and answer, but there are a lot of questions. Smith said he can tell you right off that it is a Level 2 charger. It’s not going to charge a car in thirty minutes. Those are Level 1 chargers that are much more expensive. This is a Level 2. It will charge a car, a typical car, in about eight hours. If they’re there for dinner for two-three hours, or at a business meeting or whatever they may be doing, they can typically get enough charge to get home and they can charge their car at home. As far as the location, those are still being determined, but we were not going to charge for parking if they’re charging their car. So, let’s get the right signage that works out those details so they’re clear. If you’re charging your car, you don’t have to also pay for parking. We will make some revenue from this, so that kind of offsets the not charging for parking. It seems like double dipping if we charge them for parking as well as charge for charging. It is excessive. Haven said OK (unintelligible). Smith said that he would look at all the figures that Pardee was thinking. We will have to research that and get back to him. Haven said that’s why we ask you (unintelligible).

Haven asked if there were any other public comments.

No other public comments.

Public comments were closed.

Agenda Item #6, FYI:

[Note: Agenda Item #6 was taken before Agenda Item #5.]

Item #1 – Clarkston Garden Club 2022 Holiday Greens Sale (Video time mark 0:01:02)

• • Clarkston Garden Club, 2022 Holiday Greens Sale Flier (page 3/48 of the council packet)

Haven said he had two announcements. This is the season for the Clarkston Garden Club holiday wreath sale, and there’s a flier in the packet if you’re interested in the price of some of these. They’re beautiful pieces, and Haven recommends that you support the Garden Club with purchase of these.

Item #2 – City Clerk Job Posting (Video time mark 0:01:24)

• • Job posting for City Clerk – October 17, 2022 (page 4/48 of the city council packet)
  • Responsibilities of the City Clerk (page 5/48 of the council packet)

Haven said that there’s also a job posting for Jen’s [Speagle’s] job, our clerk’s job, in our packet as well from October 17^th, and we’ve already, he thinks, received a couple of applications for it, but we’re actively looking for someone to fill Jen’s very big shoes, so if any of you know or have friends that might want to consider that, we would encourage you to have them submit an application.

Agenda Item #7, Sheriff Report for September 2022 (Video time mark 0:30:04):

• • Oakland County Sheriff Department, Independence Substation, City of the Village of Clarkston Monthly Report (page 6/48 of the council packet)

Haven said they had a copy of the Sheriff’s report in their packet. He asked if anyone had any questions or comments for Sergeant Yan(?) who is here with us. He’s from (unintelligible) from the Sheriff’s Department.

No comments.

Haven said that Sergeant Yan(?) had an interesting incident that he was telling Haven about, and he asked him to please describe it to them. Haven thinks that may be an omen for people here locally to pay attention to. Sergeant Yan said yes, and the victim is sitting in council with us tonight. Approximately fifty-sixty vehicles were broken into. They were unlocked vehicles where the subject went in and stole everything from loose change to wallets, purses, laptop computers. Whatever was in the car, he took, and we were able to follow up on an investigation with the Waterford Police Department. Sergeant Yan said (unintelligible) Springfield Township and Independence Township. We caught the suspect, and the suspect was caught, warrants were issued for his arrest. He had a prior criminal history for the same type of incidents. He was charged with seven felonies. Not all the property was returned to owners. We had quite a bit of property at our substation. But these were all vehicles that were left unlocked in driveways in front of houses and in parking lots (unintelligible). This is just one subject that we actually locked up and have charged right now. We know there’s others out there, but we’re constantly trying to work on that. The bottom line is you should lock your cars. If it’s not in the garage, if it’s in the driveway, you should lock your cars and not leave purses, wallets, and other valuables in the car. These incidents were occurring after midnight and before 6:00 a.m.

Haven said that’s interesting, thank you.

Luginski asked where in the village specifically, where did they hit. Sergeant Yan looked in the direction of the audience at a person who was off camara (laughter). Luginski said Washington? Sergeant Yan said we only had two reported. Luginski said a motorcycle. Sergeant Yan said it doesn’t mean that there weren’t more than that, but most of them were in subdivisions in Independence Township. Luginski said OK, you did just mention (unintelligible) so he didn’t mean to point. Sergeant Yan said we had this everywhere. Waterford had problems, Springfield Township, a lot of areas in Independence Township, surrounding the village (unintelligible).

Haven thanked Sergeant Yan. Haven said it’s been one of those towns where we’ve felt for a long time safe, and every now and then, you’re going to get something like this happening.

Sergeant Yan said pretty much the traffic enforcement was pretty average as well as the calls for service.

Haven thanked Sergeant Yan for coming. He appreciates it.

Agenda Item #8, Discussion: Parking Fees and Tickets September 2022 (Video time mark 0:33:18):

• • City of the Village of Clarkston – 2022 Parking Fees & Parking Tickets (page 7/48 of the council packet)

Haven said there is a chart that Smith provided for them. It’s a year-to-date summary. Haven said he just did a little, quick graph here, and it looks like we’re projected to do, if we do a projection, we’re going to be close to $18,000, as opposed to like $20,000 for last year. Again, these are round number projections. It’s like 12% down from the previous year, but again, we’re going through interesting times right now.

Smith said he thinks that it’s important to point out that we had a major expense in September, $14,689 it’s showing here on the screen. So, that expense was the sealcoating and repair of the parking lots. So, we didn’t have that last year. We sealcoat and repair every other year, so if we hadn’t have done that expense, we wouldn’t have been at $17,000, we would have been at $31,000. Haven said that was a good point.

Smith said just so Pardee is aware, these are the year-to-date numbers. So, we started the fund, the parking fund, at the start of the year he thinks was around $40,000. So, if you add the $17,000 net income that we have on top of the $40,000 that we started the year, we have about $57,000, and he just talked with Greg [Coté, Clarkston Treasurer] today, between $57,000 and $60,000 in the parking fund today. Haven said very good.

Luginski asked if that is before the $14,000 or $16,000? Smith said after. Luginski said after, OK.

Haven said it’s almost $60,000. And again, we wouldn’t have money to pay for that except for coming out of residents’ taxes and so on, you know, had we not been raising money to pay for that (unintelligible).

Haven asked if council had any questions about the (unintelligible) report? This is on one lot and we’re looking at (unintelligible) on the next lot, so that’s the idea.

Agenda Item #9, Election Update (Video time mark 0:35:28):

Haven called on Speagle to provide the report.

Speagle said that today was the last day to register to vote in any other way than in person. The write-in deadline is this Thursday at 4:00 p.m. Speagle has forms in the office if anybody wants to come in and fill those out. She has to have them by 4:00 p.m. on Thursday. Speagle will be holding office hours 8:00-4:00 on Saturday, November 5^th for election purposes only. The AV [absentee voter] return rate, she has 228 ballots have been issued, and she’s received 85 of them back so far. So, she has 143 that she has not received. Haven said OK. Speagle said that was it.

An unidentified person mentioned testing, and Speagle said that they did the Public Accuracy Testing today, and everything went well with that. Haven said good. Is that the equipment test? Speagle said yes, that’s where we test the machine with preprinted ballots and it runs, you know, it’s the same kind of scenario as, you know, during the day of election. So, once she puts all those ballots through and make sure everything matches up on the reports and it does get submitted through Oakland County because by law, you have to do a Public Accuracy Test (unintelligible).

Smith asked Speagle and said that it’s a question that’s asked all the time, the last day you can get an absentee ballot. Speagle said 4:00 the day before the election unless you have extenuating circumstances and then you can request it the day of, and that started, she believes, when COVID hit. They extended that. But it has to be in writing, you have to have a good reason to want an absentee on the day of the vote.

Luginski said Speagle said she had 84 or something like that, 80-something. Speagle said 85 she has returned so far. Continuing, Luginski said out of 200 – Speagle said 228. Luginski said that’s about 30%. Speagle said that she has 37.28% that have been returned back to her so far, 62.7- (interrupting Speagle), Luginski said just out of curiosity, how does that, just a gut feel, compare from previous elections as far as the timing of it, 37% at this point, is that normal? Speagle said yes. Luginski asked if they all come in at the end? Speagle said yes, and she’s still getting absentee ballot requests too, so that AV ballot issue number will go up. Luginski said OK.

Haven said and you feed all of the absentee ballots through the machine the day of the election, right? Speagle said yes. Haven said so you save them all for that? Speagle said yes, when she receives the absentee ballots here, they get logged in through the qualified voter file and then they get locked in a box, and then we have a set procedure on election day to open up the ballots and feed them through.

Haven said and there’s no connection to the internet (unintelligible), right? Speagle shook her head no. Haven said it’s isolated. Speagle said yes. Even the way that they open the ballots and get them ready, there’s a set, there’s a way that you have to do it so that you don’t know who voted for what. Haven said yes, excellent. Speagle said there’s procedures. (Unintelligible crosstalk.) Haven said that Speagle spends a lot of time on this, and he thanked her.

Agenda Item #10, City Manager Report (Video time mark 0:39:22):

• • City Manager Report, October 24, 2022 (page 8/48 of the council packet)

Haven noted that the city manager’s report is in their packet as well, and he asked if anyone had any questions or comments for Smith on his report.

Luginski said he didn’t know if Smith knew the answer because Luginski knew that Smith was out, but the woman that brought up the Mill Pond Bed & Breakfast, have we verified that nobody lives there on a permanent basis? Smith said that they are trying to verify that. There is an individual that kind of lives there on and off, and he has said to Smith’s understanding yes, I live here, but we can’t really verify that very easily. Amanda [Wakefield?] said that her family rented out the whole place for her wedding so at least at some point, you can rent out the whole place. (Unintelligible crosstalk between Amanda and Speagle as Lugniski was speaking.)

Luginski said ever since that meeting, that discussion, he lives right down the street, and he’s driven by or walked by, he’s tried to see activity. He hasn’t seen a car in the driveway, he hasn’t seen lights on. He doesn’t know. That’s just a very casual observation over the last couple of weeks where he was kind of watching it, so yes, it’s interesting that they rented out the whole – (interrupting Haven), Amanda said the whole thing. Amanda said it was open, everywhere.

Rodgers said so there was nobody that made the breakfast or anything like that. Amanda said they’re separate units, so you would have your own, like unit, so every single, you know, every room – (interrupting Amanda), Speagle said has their own little kitchenette. Smith said they have little kitchenettes in them, but – (interrupting Smith), Amanda said it’s on Airbnb, you can see every room.

Smith said that the theory behind the bed and breakfast though is, and it’s called out in the agreement, right Ryan, that they must prepare breakfast, a warm breakfast in fact, and Smith thinks it even goes into more detail – Ryan agreed – (continuing), Smith said for the patrons.

Luginski said and somebody is supposed to be living there. Smith agreed and said we have to look at them further, no question, and because of the previous little issue we had with them [Smith was likely referring to the Kopietz lawsuits], we have to be very cautious about how we proceed with this. So, it’s something that Ryan will be intimately involved with, no doubt.

Speagle said that she talked with Stacey [Kingsbury, the city’s contract code enforcement officer through Carlisle/Wortman] and gave her the information that Speagle had, and she said that she’s going to begin the process, so Speagle knows she’s working on it.

Haven said he wanted to comment that Clarkston Road looks really good. He knows that it was a lot of grief for Smith and (unintelligible) and so on, but it turned out nicely. Smith said it’s nice to have it all done, and it widened it a little bit by Morgan’s so we will have a little bit more of a turn lane there. Yet to be worked out is some gravel shoulders that need some grading on the shoulders. Smith was disappointed that two manhole covers were not raised up. They were already sunken before, now they’re even more of a grade and so Smith has filed a request that those be reworked. So, they haven’t accepted Smith’s request yet, but he has asked that those two manhole covers be reworked and raise them up. Even if they have to cut the asphalt, raise them up, and repave around them, so be it, but that’s got to be done. It’s just ridiculous how much noise that creates as vehicles go down that road. But other than that, yes, they did a nice job and it’s done and behind us. Haven said they spent a lot of time grinding down the north lane there, with the idea to channel the water off into the little ravine there. Smith agreed. Haven said (unintelligible) to drain stormwater (unintelligible). Smith agreed. Haven said it really looks nice.

Amanda asked if we know why the Mill Pond is so low right now. (Laughter.) Smith said yes, it’s a very large topic, but yes, we are looking, and we have a meeting actually this week, so we are working to find a solution for that.

Haven asked if there were any other thoughts or comments about Smith’s report.

No additional comments.

Agenda Item #11 – Motion: Acceptance of the Consent Agenda as Presented (Video time mark 0:43:39):

• • 09-26-2022 Final Minutes (page 9/48 of the council packet)
  • 09-28-2022 Final Minutes, Special Meeting (page 11/48 of the council packet)
  • 10-10-2022 Draft Minutes (page 12/48 of the council packet)
  • 09-24-2022 Treasurer’s Report (page 14/48 of the council packet)
  • 10-19-2022 Revenue and Expenditure Report for the Period ending 09-30-2022 (page 15/48 of the council packet)
  • Carlisle/Wortman September invoices (page 25/48 of the council packet)

Haven said he would accept a motion for the consent agenda as presented, which is the compilation of the final minutes of 09-26, the final minutes of 9-28, draft minutes of 10-10, and the Treasurer’s report. We put them all together so we can dispense with them officially. Would anyone like to move that we accept the consent agenda.

Motion by Luginski; second Rodgers.

Haven asked if there was any discussion.

No discussion.

The motion to accept the consent agenda as presented passed by unanimous voice vote.

Agenda Item #12, Old Business:

Item 12a – Motion: EV Charging Station Agreement Approval (Video time mark 0:44:20):

• • CEV [Charge EV, LLC] Charging Station Agreement (page 27/48 of the council packet)
  • Exhibit B, Signage (page 35/48 of the council packet)

Haven asked Smith to respond. Smith said at the last meeting, they know that Ryan commented there were some details in the agreement that still needed to be worked through, that there were some missing details, so Ryan provided a redline version of the document showing the changes that were needed. There were only two (unintelligible) the LLC, and they accepted Ryan’s changes, and they signed this agreement and sent it back, so it’s been fully accepted by them. At this point, the ball is in our court to complete the approval.

Haven asked if we needed a motion. Ryan said it should be a resolution first of all, but secondly, as to Mr. Pardee’s comments. So, Smith and Ryan discussed this earlier, so number one, he said it’s a ten-year agreement and why it seemed long. Well, it is long, and we brought that up months ago, and they said because they’re making this investment, that they needed to have some kind of security, that their investment was not going to be taken away from them, so they requested a ten-year agreement. That’s why the ten years. And we changed it from an exclusive agreement to a non-exclusive because we may have other opportunities, and they agreed to that as well. The only issue that Pardee said about, that we want to know, and we need to talk about or not is that we have a three-year out if we want to, but if we do it with cause, that’s one reason. If we don’t, then they could hold us liable for 50% of the monthly. There’s from three years to the next seven years we could be penalized or charged for if we terminate this early, we could be charged by them for any lost income they have, half of their lost income. Ryan said he doesn’t know, that’s a negotiation point that Smith has (unintelligible). That’s something we need to have our eyes wide open about when we go into this, because we’re all thinking this is going to work, hopefully it will, but we don’t know what the electronic, what the charging is going to be. It’s the wave of the future, but we don’t know how long it’s going to take, and we don’t know if this is going to penalize us or not.

Smith said that technology over the next ten years is certainly going to change, and they’ll need to upgrade these. They certainly recognize that their offset for doing this for free, their offset is going to be the revenue side. Haven said sure. Smith said if they’re not making any revenue because these chargers are now obsolete, they’re not the latest and greatest technology, they will be punished by the fact that there’s no revenue coming in. So, they’re going to want to upgrade it if there’s some changes that are needed to make them viable for the vehicles that are being produced at that time, they’re going to do that. It behooves them to make those changes.

Continuing, Smith said now, to Pardee’s point about the plugs, this is for all American vehicles, all American-made vehicles and some foreign, but there are Kia and Hunyadi, as Pardee said, have proprietary plugs, but Smith’s understanding is that the company makes available, throws in the glove box for the Kia and Hunyadi EV an adapter. So, when you go to a charging station, which 90-plus percent of the charging stations in America are this type that we’re going with, then they can just plug on their adapter and plug in and they’re off and running. So, yes, there is an adapter that’s needed for certain manufacturers. Ryan said that he thinks Smith said that a couple meetings ago. Smith said he did. Ryan said that question was answered. Smith said yes.

Rodgers wanted to know how we make money off of this. There’s going to be six parking places, spots, that get used up where you have to be an EV to park there, right? Smith said that’s correct. Rodgers said so, they’re paying for this charging and the company that gave them to us for free is going to reap that benefit. What do we get from that? Smith said so, they’ll capture the revenue. There’s going to be a payment methodology. It’s not going to be coins or a credit card at the site. It’s going to be all electronic with your phone. If people are buying EV cars, then they’re capable of using a phone app. So, they’ll have to pay, and that revenue goes initially all to Charge EV LLC. They have an obligation, it’s called out to what percentage – Ryan said paragraph 10, $.03/kilowatt. Smith said $.03 per kilowatt hour. We’re not going to get rich off this, but we do get offsets to our costs. So, in round numbers, it’s going to be equivalent to the lost revenue had we qcharged them for parking there. So, we do make some revenue. They share with us, (asking Ryan) on a monthly basis, or a quarterly basis – Ryan said the 10^th of the month, he believed. Smith said the 10^th of every month they send that to us, so we’ll have to work out a transfer of funds methodology. Ryan said they pay for the utilities cost. They pay for the electricity. (Unintelligible crosstalk.) Ryan said we get three cents per kilowatt hour. Smith repeated per kilowatt hour. Ryan said that’s our revenue.

Luginski asked if they had any estimates or averages of what these machines generate, how many kilowatt hours they generate. Smith said no, we didn’t go down – (interrupting Smith), Luginski said he knows it depends (unintelligible crosstalk).

Rodgers said she knows they talked about doing a study to see if they’re used, or how often they’re used, or how long they sit empty. Is there something in here where if we find they’re just not being used and they’re just sucking up six spots that we can get out of this? Smith said well, they have an out too for that same reason, if they determine that there’s just not – (interrupting Smith), Rodgers said she figured they would, she just wanted to know – (interrupting Rodgers), Haven said do we have. Smith said we do too. It’s a joint decision that we would have with them, that is if these things are not being used – (Rodgers made an unintelligible comment) – continuing, Smith said if for some reason gas prices go down and suddenly, EVs are not (unintelligible) of the future, then they’re going to suffer as well. They have a big investment in this, and they want to recapture their investment. So, Smith thinks that they’ll be the ones probably knocking on our door and asking us to terminate if that’s the case. Smith doesn’t envision that. You see, and Smith was just on an EV charging webinar, and they just show this steady pattern increase over the next ten years.

Rodgers said she guesses her viewpoint is different only because the national income is only like $65,000 per household. We can’t find an EV around for that. Smith said no. Rodgers said so, in the next five years, she knows that they say there’s an increase, and she’s sure there is an increase, but she doesn’t see, she just has a different opinion about that. She’s not all hyped up that we’re going to get 100 EVs every evening into our spots. Smith said he thinks the assumption for some of this is the technology cost is coming down. It has to. As more are sold and the automakers become more adept at this, their costs will come down and so they can start selling a Chevy Volt or whatever for much lower than, you know, $60,000, $70,000 is what the current – (interrupting Smith), Rodgers said that she just wanted to make sure that if that doesn’t happen, if they can’t, if the costs can’t come down – Ryan agreed – (continuing), Rodgers said that we have a way to get rid of them so that we can have our parking spaces back and make at least $1.00 an hour. Ryan agreed.

Haven said when this thing came to him in the first place, he thought it was beware the gift in a way, you know, it’s kind of a very complicated contract with a whole bunch of (unintelligible) and so on. Haven said he’s looking at the upside for Clarkston. What in the world is the upside other than to have a two, three cute little plug-in places. Where is the upside. Rogers said she guesses convenience. Smith said it’s showing our willingness to support current technologies. Haven asked if that was it. Smith said yes, he thinks it’s a strong statement showing that we’re not stuck in the past, we think gasoline vehicles are going to be historical. Haven said so it’s a statement, that’s what you’re saying, it’s a statement, with a contract attached, OK. Smith said really with very minimum risk.

Haven asked if Ryan felt that way. Ryan said he thinks that paragraph seven, early termination, to Rodgers’ point, so thirty-six months is kind of the key. Three years. It’s like a three-year experiment with an out. So, they say, it says that if any time after the thirty-six months of the term, the EV chargers at the premises are performing at an average of fewer than fifty kilowatt hours per month, over any period of six consecutive months, CEV, that’s them, shall have the right to terminate this agreement by providing the host with a notice of termination, you know, of sixty days. So, if these things aren’t going in three years, they have the right to cancel it. Further, for three years, we have after three years, we can terminate with cause, and cause is stated in B of 2 and 3, without any penalty. But if we try to terminate after thirty-six months without cause, in other words with whatever, we got a better offer or something like that, that’s when the penalty would come in about 50% of monthly gross if we want to terminate them just because. We have to have cause to terminate them after – (interrupting Ryan), Rodgers said so, if we show they are not being used and we don’t want them anymore, that’s cause. Ryan said, well, yes, it says if they didn’t properly maintain them, fail to repair them, and (unintelligible) and any other reason beyond the host’s control, the point is, if they’re not being used, they’re probably going to pull the plug because they’ve got all this expensive equipment here with its cost, and nobody is using it.

Haven said it sounds like it’s obsolete equipment at some point, so they may have to come get it at some point – Ryan said it might be – (continuing), Haven said they can’t just leave it here on our doorstep. Ryan said no. Haven said and then monitoring becomes our burden. We’ve got to catch it if it isn’t performing right three years from now. Ryan said no, they’re going to do all that because they’re the ones who are going to report how many people have used the charging stations. We won’t know that. That’s not on us, that’s on them. Haven said he doesn’t know how we could possibly know that. Ryan said through them, because every tenth of the month they’ve got to account to us the prior month, what happened. Haven said so there’s no trigger in there in particular, right? They’re not going to send you a default mode, you know, describing after a certain point, we haven’t repaired it, we haven’t done what we should do, so we have some liability facing us. Ryan said we will get the notification from them as to whether they are underperforming or not, and if they are – (interrupting Ryan), Haven said but there are some stipulations in there that we have to do something, right? We have to keep our end of the bargain. Ryan said we don’t have much to do, honestly. We just have to let them use the space and that’s about it. Haven said OK.

Haven said again, he’s asking for upside about this whole thing, why do we need these here. It’s certainly bookkeeping, it’s all non-stop, it may look good, we’re leaning into the future, which may or may not be the future, at least it looks but (unintelligible) the future, so what is the real upside to Clarkston. Ryan said that’s a political decision. Smith said it’s offering this technology to our patrons and our residents with virtually no cost to us whatsoever. It’s free to install it, free to maintain it, they’re on the hook for all of it. We will make some revenue off of it, but that’s not why he’s proposing it. If it was just the $.03 per kilowatt hour, he wouldn’t have proposed this. It’s more about making a statement that we’re supporting this technology, we’re supporting our residents that come here, and the patrons that come here, to use this. Haven said OK.

Haven recognized Cara Catallo again. Catallo said for the benefit of this, it would put us on the map for people who do use this technology who might prefer to stop in Clarkston to do some shopping and dining and walking around, as opposed to stopping at Meijer or a less desirable, much less exciting parking lot. Catallo sees it as a huge benefit, it’s hard to say now how many – (interrupting Catallo), Rodgers said it would go on that map, right? People that  have EVs, so if they’re running low, they would maybe come into our town and spend some money while they’re waiting for their car to charge. Catallo said on such a direct route as we are, it seems like a definite, like, bonus to stop here as opposed to, again, like, she sees those people sitting at Meijer, and she’s just like, oh, God it must be a drag, and she always wonders how long you have to sit there, but to be able to stop where we are and to walk around town seems much more (unintelligible) and it puts us on a map and it might introduce us to some people who don’t normally stop here.

Haven asked if there was any additional discussion (gesturing toward the audience).

Mr. Quisenberry said he is missing something here because he does see this as lost revenue. It’s lost parking revenue for people that are parking in it that aren’t paying for it because they are plugging into a device, and he doesn’t see it as a conflict by dinging people twice because parking there is one thing; charging your vehicle is another. Haven said a second value. Continuing, Quisenberry said he doesn’t see a double whammy against someone that’s using it. They have to pay to park there, the same way as the vehicle next to them that’s not in that spot. Same right, same everything. If they’re not, then we’re losing that revenue, and if they are parking there, they pay for it, but they still have to then pay to charge, they’re getting another service to charge their vehicles, just like they have at Meijer. They have to go, they put it in, and they are paying for a product to be delivered to them. So, Quisenberry doesn’t understand why they don’t have to pay parking as well. Rodgers said that they’re actually getting a bonus because they’re only paying – (interrupting Rodgers), Quisenberry said right, it’s a bonus, we’re giving you something, and at the same time, we’re losing revenue.

Smith said that’s a decision that council can make. If they want to charge for both charging as well as parking, that’s an option. There’s nothing to prohibit that. Rodgers said there’s nothing in here that says we can’t. Smith said no, not at all. Ryan said it’s not a problem.

Luginski said he just looked up, for what it’s worth, the average Level 2 EV charger, which is what we’re getting, distributes about 13.4 kilowatts per hour of electricity daily, so 13.4 times $.03 is $.40. Smith said really, that’s all that’s used? Luginski said that’s what it says. Quisenberry said so, we’re giving up an hour – (interrupting Quisenberry), Lugninski said listen, this is not, this is not rocket science math here (laughter). He just did a quick, you know, what does the average Level 2 charger dispense on a daily basis and that’s what came up, so for whatever that’s worth.

Speagle asked Smith for those that park there, if somebody parks there with an electric car and is not plugged in, are parking enforcement going to be allowed to give them a ticket for not being plugged in? Quisenberry said good point. Smith said it is a valid point and it’s one of the details that we have to work out with signage, what exactly the rules are. So, it’s going to take us probably a couple months to get these all up and running, installed, and what not, so he can bring to the council a proposal on how the rules would work, whether you pay for parking, or just pay for charging, pay for both, and what happens if you have an electric vehicle and you park there but you’re not charging. That’s something that we need to think about because then here comes the guy who needs charging and can’t get in because there’s a car sitting there. These are all rules that we just have to establish.

Rodgers asked if the app tells you the available ones, or does it just tell you – (interrupting Rodgers), Smith said it does tell you, the one that he saw, does show what are available, what are not in use. Rodgers said that was interesting. Speagle said so, if we have two on Washington and Main and they’re being used, they won’t show up on the app or it would show up on the app as being used or in use. Smith said correct. Smith said and then we have four down in this lot (gesturing) then it would show those are available.

Haven said, so that’s not part of our motion. Smith said no, this is just – (interrupting Smith), Haven said it really isn’t a motion. Smith said it’s a resolution to approve this agreement. That’s all that’s on the docket tonight. Haven said he sees 12a is a motion, right? Ryan said it should be a resolution. (Unintelligible comments.) Ryan said it will need, if it’s adopted, it will need unanimous support of all four of you, so if there’s an issue about that, maybe it should be put over until the next meeting because everybody here needs to vote for it to pass.

Haven asked if anybody wanted to make a motion on this. Casey said he would make it. Luginski asked what the motion is. Haven said it’s agreement approval, approve what Ryan has ferreted out here. Ryan said and let Smith sign the agreement on behalf of the city. Haven said so, that means we’re in business, and we’re going, right, because we have an agreement that says we’re going to go. Ryan agreed. Speagle said that the signature page has Speagle and Haven on it. Ryan said that’s true. Haven said so the agreement has nothing to do with whether we charge parking over and above, right, that’s a separate consideration. Smith agreed. Haven said we don’t have to confuse that with this approval of this document. Ryan said the mayor and the clerk would sign it, right.

Rodgers said if we approve this, then we can come back and figure out the whole payment of it kind of thing. Smith agreed. Haven said you mean if we get revenue or not, is that what Rodgers is saying, paid parking? Rodgers agreed. That’s her biggest thing. She just thinks, she doesn’t know how they’re going to be used, and parking space as we can see, and how this whole meeting started, is pretty priceless in the city and it’s very important. Rodgers just can see that because you can afford to have an EV car, you plug it in and pay whatever, a few cents on the dollar or whatever, and somebody else is paying $1.00/hour to park in the same parking space and they’re getting nothing but the spot. That just doesn’t seem right to her, she agrees with you (gesturing toward Quisenberry), 100%. It seems like we just spent like a half an hour of some pretty heated accusations and comments about parking in the city, and now we’re going to say six spaces are just free, just essentially free. That seems totally bad to her.

(Chet Pardee began speaking over the GoToMeeting connection). Pardee asked if Haven could hear him. Haven said he could. Pardee provided his name and said his issue is that MDOT [Michigan Department of Transportation] has gotten approval to put in Level 3 chargers every fifty miles, you have four-six chargers, every fifty miles on the interstate, including I-75. So, that’s what we’re going to be competing with, number one. Number two, Pardee didn’t see a resolution in today’s packet. Is there a resolution there? Haven said no. Pardee said Mayor Haven, let’s slow down please, and can he ask Smith to please answer the questions that Pardee has asked, it was 7:00 this morning, Pardee agrees, but there was no resolution, and it wasn’t like there was a big hurry. Pardee thought those were questions that needed to be answered before council considered accepting a proposal that was being made by the supplier of the units. Haven said he understands, and they probably read his comments out of sequence. It probably should have been held for this particular line item. Pardee said that’s correct, and he appreciates you’re considering them in public comments, but Pardee decided to give them a break tonight and not do public comments. The points that Pardee was asking, all seven, relate specifically to this item, and he will accept the fact that Smith is not prepared to answer the financial items, but he thinks that his projection of having $60,000 of revenue in the parking lot at some point does not make sense to Pardee. Haven said Pardee’s comments are well-taken.

Haven said we have a motion on the table to approve the agreement which we’ll turn into a resolution because that’s what we have to do, right? It’s a money discussion, it’s a contract discussion. We have to move first of all to change it to a resolution, right, by motion. Ryan said he didn’t realize because he left his packet at the office that we didn’t have an actual printed resolution for this. Haven said it’s not in the packet. Ryan said he thinks they ought to table it. Haven said we have a motion. Pardee said thank you, he appreciates that, thank you very much. Haven thanked Pardee.

Haven asked if anybody wanted to second this motion. Ryan said a motion to table takes precedence. (Casey made an unintelligible comment.) Haven said withdraw, OK, good.

Rodgers said that she would make a motion to table; second Casey.

Haven asked if there was any discussion.

No discussion.

Motion to table carried by unanimous voice vote.

Item 12b – Discussion: Main Street Oakland County Update (Video time mark 1:08:52):

Haven asked if there was a representative from Main Street Oakland County here. Cara Catallo said yeah, just Cara, and walked up to the podium.

Catallo said she just wanted to give them a quick update on where they are and everything. First of all, she wanted to thank everybody for voting to approve the seed money contribution to help us launch the nonprofit. It’s, we’re currently underway. We also, she should say, we have the generosity of several private donors to sort of help finish the process between the city and the county, so those sort of three entities that are making this a reality. We’re working with the attorney, and we’ve already filed our articles of incorporation and so the next step is the nonprofit status. We’re solidifying our board, which we’ll announce, you know, probably, mostly, we don’t want to put the cart before the horse, we want to have everything like in a row when we get that valuable nonprofit status. We attended funding meetings already, and we are only invited because of the steps we’ve taken to have this Main Street program. We’re preparing to support our downtown with ads and swag to celebrate Small Business Saturday, so with any luck, if you’re shopping close to Small Business Saturday, you’ll be able to see, you know, some bags and a few other things that just sort of say Main Street. Catallo doesn’t think that people realize how expensive bags can cost, so it’s a nice, she thinks, bonus for our businesses to get some free bags. Haven asked if it was a tote or something. Catallo said no, just paper bags, yeah, that’s like maybe that next year. It’s a great idea. She’ll put that on the list. Haven said make it his suggestion. Catallo said (unintelligible) like Main Street Oakland County. Haven said Mayor Haven suggested it.

Catallo said they’re working, ideally, they would like to have an outline created for businesses up and running by the holiday shopping season so they are trying to get adequate information so we can represent everybody well. They continue to speak with business owners about that and how best they can support them so she might be able to reappear (unintelligible) about that at some point.

Catallo said that they are hoping to address what Nancy Moon suggested, the CLG [certified local government] is something she’s wanted Clarkston to have for a long time. It opens us up for better grant opportunities, so she thinks that paired with the survey that she’s doing, it will help us get to that important next step, so she mentioned that to Moon outside. Catallo is hoping that that can happen.

Catallo said (unintelligible) a few things to (unintelligible) she thinks we need, to delay any confusion at your table and the audience. First, the city government is not synonymous with the charity. She knows the mayor mentioned that, if that had been a possibility, then we might have done it. Most of the grants that we are looking at we had to go to a DDA [Downtown Development Authority] or a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and that is not the same as what the city is. You can accept donations, you just can’t get a grant or anything like that for, and again, the grants wouldn’t be allowed.

Another aspect that the mayor referenced and Catallo did want to announce was first of all, thank you for finally supporting us, because it was a long drawn out process that she didn’t expect and there were bizarre, unfounded, false accusations that we had to sort of came up against that she would have never guessed because she grew up here, but you had made that, you had added in here (unintelligible) support we don’t need diversity, and she just wanted to make sure that in no way reflects their nonprofit position because we are not against diversity, we all benefit from having diverse selection of viewpoints, people, and businesses in our community, and so your opinion in no way reflects our beliefs and we don’t want to risk losing any grant opportunities, including through MDOT, who she thinks has [unintelligible] opinions, you know, because of that comment.

Catallo said that’s about all that she has. She’d hoped to bring in the swag, she thinks someone was trying to deliver it via (unintelligible) so it’s at home, but she can bring some back to the next meeting which would still be before Small Business Saturday, which is the Saturday following Thanksgiving.

Luginski said that CLG, he agrees, is that a difficult process, is it just like, does everybody get accepted, or is it just like you have to sell yourself to get accepted, do you know? Catallo said she feels like if you followed the process, which might be paperwork, substantial – (interrupting Catallo), Luginski agreed. Catallo said she feels like, that’s a good question, she hasn’t heard of anybody being rejected (unintelligible), so thanks, but she thinks it will, like, if they go through the steps, and really, she thinks the survey almost has all of the material they want, so. Luginski said OK, because he’d heard that before and we never really looked into that. Catallo said yeah, it’s been bandied about for like years so she thinks it’s just time to sort of do that and seeing as there really are grants that, you know, we can get, it’s peculiar how, she means, she’s been noticing some of them, like she thinks Birmingham got a few, and so she just wanted like, let’s get into that pool so that we have the opportunity. Luginski said OK. Catallo asked Luginski what effort he would like to undertake so that she can reach out. Luginski said text him. (Laughter.) Lugninski said Catallo knows how to do that, she does that a lot.

Haven asked Catallo who she sees as being initiating for a certified local government, CLG. Who do you see doing that? Catallo said you mean who the contact would be? Haven said no, who would actually drive the project. Catallo said well, she thinks right now, Main Street Clarkston is doing the driving to get it, and then she thinks once it happens, that we would work in like basically with our city to get whatever is possible. Haven said so Catallo said Main Street is in fact the driving entity for – (interrupting Haven), Catallo said she’s under that impression. It certainly seems that way. Haven said pardon me, you’re representing them, are you saying they are? Catallo said yes, because she means she asked Oakland County, she said, you know, Clarkston doesn’t have this valuable outlet, is it something that we can try to get for the city, and they said yes, she thinks they’ve worked with one other community, maybe Pontiac, she can’t remember which city, but she thought that that would be the opening step and then if it’s something, that she doesn’t think it’s, it’s going to be like a huge time-consuming, like, oh, I have so many options and opportunities. It’s more just being aware and making sure that we have that element that makes us a viable candidate to get certain grants, which she would guess would happen mostly through the city, but she thinks it’s also putting the cart before the horse.

Haven wanted to know who award the status of certified local government so that we can become recognized and be applicable for those grants, who is the recognizing entity or body. Catallo said they get the status through the state historic preservation – (interrupting Catallo), Haven said so it’s SHPO [State Historic Preservation Office]. Catallo said yes. Haven said OK, that’s what he was wondering. Catallo said yeah, it’s a state, she thinks state-run, but yeah, she’s not sure specifically where their funds come from, but she would happy to – (interrupting Catallo), Haven said so they wouldn’t have to fund it, they could be the recognizing entity so we would have the credential. Catallo said right. That’s why it works so beautifully with the survey because it all sort of comes together to demonstrate that (unintelligible) that community. Haven said he didn’t know if it was HPN [Michigan Historic Preservation Network] or if it was actually SHPO. HPN is a charity as well, you know. Catallo said yeah, it’s more the state operating. Haven said that’s what he was hoping we were at, so it’s official at that level, same level. Catallo agreed.

Haven said he would like to say one other thing. He wasn’t sure where Catallo was coming from with her comments about diversity. He doesn’t know what that meant. Catallo said Haven said something about we don’t need, we just don’t need more diversity. Haven said he thinks diversity has to be defined, so again, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t remember the comment, and he really doesn’t want to be saddled with it, so just be careful with that. Everything has a context, so that really needs its context. So, that’s all Haven wanted to say. That doesn’t come off OK. Catallo said she can tell everybody that Haven said we don’t need diversity, that’s what he said. Catallo said that so – (interrupting Catallo), Haven said diversity has a definition and a context, and he wanted to make sure that it’s not – (interrupting Haven), Catallo said she guesses that would be a question for Haven to answer, what did you mean when you said we don’t need diversity. Haven said he didn’t remember.

Ryan said excuse me a minute, you’re talking about something on August 22^nd, which is two months ago, we don’t have the minutes here, if you want to send that link out, that’s fine, but how can we comment about something that happened two months ago that should have been brought up after that, he means, when the minutes were approved or something. So, if Catallo wants to send that out, that’s fine, but that’s not what this meeting is about, this meeting, this is about this item and not about what happened August 22^nd. Catallo said she was just protecting her organization, we need to make sure – (interrupting Catallo), Ryan said protect it from what? You’re having a one-sided conversation with information you have that nobody else has, and it may be accurate, and it may not. Catallo said respectfully though, to get to this point where we are making this nonprofit happen, she’s had to go against multiple people telling her that the mayor has had individual meetings with them that we wanted to bring a pride parade.

Haven said he thought that Catallo was out of order. Ryan said this is within sixty days of the election, this is election interference. Catallo said it wasn’t. Ryan said Catallo was taking on a particular person who is a member of council, leads council, but he didn’t make all of the decisions, and you’re trying, it’s electioneering, which is inappropriate. Catallo said she disagreed. Ryan said OK, that’s fine.

Haven said Catallo’s time is up and he thinks we’re done. He’s just trying to make sure that – (interrupting Haven), Catallo said that she’s available if Haven wants to talk to her to tell her what he said. Haven said he knows that she’s available. He’s got that, and they’ve talked before. Catallo said not about this.

[Catallo was referring to a single comment made at the August 22, 2022, city council meeting. Here is the entire context, taken from the Clarkston Sunshine post for that meeting:

Haven said he wanted to say something candidly to Catallo and Still, and he alluded to this earlier. He’s watched you guys over time, you know, he’s watched what you’ve done. He talked with Catallo about the banners two years ago in town and other things they’ve done. She’s chaired their sign committee. You gave us good signage. Still is proactive in getting grant money. Haven (unintelligible) the last 24 hours, he talked about the two grants that really you were successful in getting last year $2,500, and he thinks Lines benefitted and he thinks Still’s [?] business benefitted as well. There may have been some others and Haven doesn’t know how they distributed all the money, but nevertheless, his question to him was, and his question to you is this – when thinking about the personnel, the liaisons going forward, is there’s something that you may not have taken into consideration, and that is, you realize the city is a charity already. (An unidentified person agreed.) Haven said that we are not a 501(c)(3); municipalities are charities in and of themselves. The Friends of Depot Park two years ago raised $50,000 in cash and in-kind gifts to match a DNR [Department of Natural Resources] grant of $50,000, OK? And what that money was used for was putting down the pathways in the park, OK? So, we’ve already exercised that tool here that we have. With Smith being affiliated, if you will, a board member or not board member, and he knows they have some affection for Smith (unintelligible), you’ve worked with him already, if that’s too strong a term, no misunderstanding, but he gets the relationship, and he knows Rodgers has been very proactive as far as the Christmas Market and so on, and he’s encouraged her to do that as well, so, Haven has been thinking about this a lot, thinking about relative to the history and our relationship with Oakland County, and realizing that the crux of the issue is revenue that benefits our business community. If you’re in our community at large, all right, as a result of that, so he’s not opposed to this relationship. He’s been thinking about it for quite a while because he knew what the history was. He knew the 2008 history. He was sitting here. He knew the DDA discussion, you know, which had no merit whatsoever. But you guys in fact have put a lot of energy, you know, into this, so he’s appreciative of that, frankly. His only thought was that he did want to see the articles of incorporation and the bylaws. He thinks that it’s right that we do that if we’re going to call ourselves in some respect, you know, affiliated, we need to understand that, but you’re a private, you’re a separate entity. If you’re going to go for your own 501(c)(3), that’s up to you, but you can utilize, and we’ve already utilized, the charitable institution we have right here, you know, right now for dealing with grants. Haven said he thinks what you’re bringing to the picture is a lot of energy, you know. You guys have worked hard over the last two years and you’re bringing energy to this cause, and he thinks together, we all want the same thing. We all want a prosperous community and COVID hit us right between the eyes and we’re still sort of trying to recover from this. But a lot of things we do, we want to be on the same page, so we don’t need diversity, we need unanimity, you know, going forward. So, he’d like to, we can do what we want with this discussion item tonight. You kind of heard the council, you know, the spirit, and so on, and we can leave it at this for a moment, and then take next steps toward you moving forward.

The link to the August 22, 2022 Clarkston Sunshine post can be found here. The link to the video recording can be found here, and the discussion quoted above can be found at time mark 0:54:06 and is linked here. You can listen and decide whether Catallo’s comments were fair, whether Catallo intended to cast the mayor in a false light, and whether the city attorney was correct that Catallo was engaging in electioneering. Catallo, her mother, her daughter, her ex-partner, and her brother’s business partner all signed the nominating petition for Haven’s opponent in the upcoming election, linked here.

Since Catallo said she was there to represent Main Street Oakland, it would be fair to ask Main Street Oakland for confirmation that Catallo’s allegation that the Clarkston mayor is anti-diversity reflects their official position; whether they support their representative making such a negative, unsupported insinuation about an elected official; and if the answer to both questions is no, then Catallo should publicly apologize to the mayor and step down from Main Street Clarkton as an unfit representative.]

Item 12c – Motion: Halloween Hours in the Village (Video time mark 1:19:26):

• • Motion – Halloween Hours in the Village (page 36/48 of the council packet)

Haven said this is a resolution in their packet, and the resolution – Smith said motion – Haven said sorry, he has resolution on the brain, it’s a motion to our discussion last time where we activated whether we should have a two-hour, he thinks we had that last year, isn’t that what they said? Smith said two hours. Haven said two hours last year and we sort of batted around whether we should have two or one. But the resolution that’s coming to us is for one, from 6:00-7:00, so he will look for someone to make this motion.

Motion by Casey. Casey said one hour. Haven said Casey likes one hour, OK. Second Rodgers.

Haven asked if there was any discussion.

Rodgers said she has a question, they don’t close Main Street for Halloween, do they? Smith said no. Rodgers said someone asked her and she said she didn’t think so. Smith said no. There are extra patrols out, Sheriff patrols particularly are out, but no, we don’t close the streets. Rodgers said OK.

Luginski said this discussion actually came up, not only the two hours but what it says in here, to match the township, which is what we typically have done. Haven said Luginski thinks he wrote that up or something (unintelligible). Luginski thinks he did. Just typically (unintelligible crosstalk). Rodgers asked if that is what the township does. Luginski said we’ve pretty much always just fallen in line with what the township does just to keep it so (unintelligible). Haven said the two hours is a social distancing thing and is a COVID (unintelligible).

Haven said they have a motion and second and asked if there was any further discussion.

No discussion.

Motion passed by unanimous voice vote.

Agenda Item #13, New Business

Item 13a – Resolution: Tree Removal Bid Acceptance (Video time mark 1:21:27):

• • Resolution – Tree Removal and Trimming (page 37/48 of the council packet)
  • 10-24-2022 Comparison of Bids, Subject: City Easement Tree Removal and Trimming (page 38/48 of the council packet)
  • 10-05-2022 Request for Quote: Tree Removal and Tree Branch Trimming (page 39/48 of the council packet)
  • 10-17-2022 Shiver Tree Service LLC Bid (page 43/48 of the council packet)
  • 10-09-2022 Otto Tree Service, LLC (page 44/48 of the council packet)

Haven said that Smith has done some work here. He’s given us bids and his recommendation to spend $5,959.00 on trimming trees that are defined in this resolution and taking out some trees, seven trees in the easement, five trees for trimming, not to exceed $5,959.00, with $3,500.00 paid from the tree trimming budget and the balance to be paid from the professional and contractual services budget.

Haven said it’s a resolution, so he would accept a motion to resolve.

Motion by Luginski; second Casey.

Haven asked if there was any discussion.

Luginski asked Smith, and he doesn’t know if it’s pertinent or not, he keeps getting these DTE, we’re going to come trim trees blah blah blah, how does that line up with what we’re doing? Is that a conflict or are we doing stuff that they might do for free anyway? Smith said no, none of these are issues with DTE lines. Those are totally separate. There is one on Clarkston Road that’s hanging on a phone line, but DTE won’t touch those. Actually, there’s one at the corner of White Lake and Depot too, sorry, Holcomb and Depot, that’s the same way, where the branch is leaning right on the phone cable or Comcast line, but DTE will go right past that. Even if they have to trim in that same tree up higher for the electrical lines, they’ll leave those hanging on the Comcast lines alone.

Luginski asked if Smith knew when DTE is going to be coming down. Smith said that they start here in about two weeks, and they’ve given us a list of trees they will be focused on. Smith thinks that there are three or four trees in the city that they will be taking down in their entirety because they’re just a nuisance.

Rodgers said you would know that if they were in front of your house, right? Smith said yes. These won’t typically be in front of your house. They’re going to be wherever your power lines are. A lot of times they’re in back of the house. But they’re not going to be doing any of these trees. These trees are in the easements and there aren’t too many DTE – (interrupting Smith), Luginski said OK, he was just wondering, he didn’t know if it was a pertinent question, but he thought he would ask.

Amanda [Wakefield?] wanted to know where the waste is going from the trees. She wanted to make sure it doesn’t go in the wetlands. Smith said that the contractors that bid on this, they take away all of it. Now, one of them had suggested that we take away some of the branches as a way of keeping the cost down, but their quote was actually higher. So, the proposal that we are recommending here from Otto Tree Service, $5,675.00, they will haul away all of it. None of it is left in our wetlands area. Amanda said great. Smith said that the stumps that remain in the ground, we will come back to you with a proposal for grinding. That’s not included in this, there’s no stump grinding included in this, but the tree removal will cut it flush with the ground. Amanda wanted to know if we will work with the city tree committee to replace all these trees. Smith said yes, yes, that’s another separate approval process, but yes, we will work with the tree committee if you think some of these need a tree in the same general vicinity, then yes. Haven said second step. Smith said we have a separate budget available for tree planting.

Amanda said she had one more question. Did we ever look at the warranty on the two trees on Main Street? Smith said no. Amanda said OK, we can talk about that later.

Haven said they have a resolution in front of them made by Luginksi and seconded by Casey to spend and not to exceed $5,959.00.

Casey said he had a question for Smith. He knows there’s a lot of tree trimming outfits around here. Was there only three outfits who proposed to bid? Smith said that he put it out to these three companies and wanted them to respond. Casey said yes. Smith said you’d be surprised how many of them shy away from municipal work, and probably even more important, they shy away from work around electrical wires. Casey said OK. Smith said there is a special certification you need to trim trees around electrical lines, but not all the guys have those. Casey said OK. Smith said that these three companies he was told are all certified in tree removal by power lines. Unfortunately, the third one didn’t respond which is why he just has the two quotes. Casey said OK.

Haven asked if there was any other discussion.

No discussion.

Haven asked Speagle to take the roll please.

Rodgers, Casey, Haven, and Luginski voted yes. Resolution passed.

Haven said that was short. We could use two to three more.

Item 13b – Resolution: FDOP [Friends of Depot Park] Recommendation on Depot Park Wetland Boardwalk (Video time mark 1:27:09):

• • Resolution – Depot Park Wetlands Boardwalk Assessment (page 46/48 of the council packet)
  • Phase One-Five Diagram, Depot Park Wetland Boardwalk Plan (page 47/48 of the council packet)
  • 10-13-2022 Email from Matt Slicker, Hubbell, Roth & Clark, to Jonathan Smith, Subject: Clarkston – Depot Park Nature Trail (page 48/48 of the council packet)

Haven said this is a Friends of Depot Park [FDOP] recommendation on a wetland boardwalk. Haven told Smith he was pleased to see this come as a recommendation from HRC [Hubbell, Roth & Clark, the city’s contract engineers]. We do this in anticipation of, and for your information, there’s many drawings and so on of what this eventual boardwalk might look like, which we’d all love to look at over time, and then the recommendation, actually the email that came from Matt Slicker about Derek Stratelak who is this wetlands specialist who would do this service for us which would sort of answer the question on the amount, and you can correct him if he’s wrong, would answer the question of the viability of a boardwalk over time, or a river walk, which would start here and follow the mill race basically to Deer Lake beach. And then the FDOP have been working for a long time, you’ve got some of the (unintelligible). You can see that a lot of work has gone into sort of defining what that might look like. So, it’s a big project over time and Haven thinks desirable for the community and he thinks everyone feels that way, but we need to spend a little money up front, and it’s not the kind of thing you fundraise for. You’ve always got the frontline basic cost for something to get rolling, and then once you get these things lining up that it’s a good idea and there’s merit for it, then you can do some serious fundraising to bring it to fruition.

Haven said so, that’s kind of where we are. The resolution is to spend $2,400.00 to get that survey done. There’s been some question about whether it’s a survey or not. In that respect, it’s certainly a walk through and a determination as to the viability of certain parts of the land, you know, for walking paths or actual boardwalk location and so on. Again, Haven is just talking like a layman right now, but what is it, Smith may want to answer that question.

Smith said HRC already has a topographical survey if that’s what we need, that’s what we want to see, they have that with the different elevations. But what this is about is having their wetland specialist that works for HRC, our city engineer, have him go out and walk the paths. Emily Duthinh is very familiar with this. Emily has been out there with her boots on walking through that, and Smith thinks these maps are largely based on that. Smith is not taking anything away from Emily’s expertise here, but the city engineer would actually develop a GPS-based assessment of where he thinks the path should go, and he is very closely related with the people at EGLE [Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes & Energy] and the Water Resources Commission and he knows what would likely be approved by EGLE if we ever were to pursue this. So, the thought was two-point. One is to have him walk this area and confirm what Emily and the FDOP have thought, that this would be a great asset to our park and a great thing for people to enjoy, a way for them to enjoy the wetlands and all the nature and the plants and the animal life that might be in that area. It’s a way to get them access to this. We all believe that, but having the engineer from HRC walk that with a GPS-based tracking, to say OK, we recommend that you go from this point to this point, using, which Emily has done as well, with (unintelligible) you can avoid the higher expense of an elevated boardwalk by just putting woodchips in this area and then you’re going to have to do a raised boardwalk from here to there. He would do that all with GPS and at the same time, he’s looking at it with the eyes of an EGLE analyst that would look at this and say well yes, we would agree that this is a good candidate for a raised boardwalk or if he says no, there’s no way they’re ever going to approve this, it just doesn’t meet the criteria that EGLE may have for approving a boardwalk. That was the whole thought. It’s just a way of getting this project off the ground.

Smith said that we’ve been talking about this for what, two or three years. Amanda said more like ten years. Smith said maybe. So, the thought was to take advantage of, and Smith didn’t even know this person existed at HRC, this is his specialty, is wetlands and boardwalks, and so take advantage of that resource, have him do an assessment. That $2,400.00 is within the budgets that Smith has identified here, engineering services and the Friends of Depot Park, split 50/50. Smith thought this was a good way of just getting this off the ground. And if he comes back and says yeah, this is great, they’re going to approve this right away, in fact here’s some grants that you could get, that would be wonderful, or on the other hand, he says there’s no way in hell this is ever going to get approved by EGLE, then we know that too. Smith thinks we need to get off the starting block here, and he thinks this is a good way of doing it.

Haven said he agrees, and he appreciates Smith’s initiative.

Haven asked if there was any discussion. Council first.

Ryan and Haven both said they need a resolution. Haven said let’s do that and then they will discuss it.

Resolution by Rodgers; second Casey.

Haven asked if there was any discussion on council. We’re pretty clear on the initiative and the objective.

Rodgers said that we can’t do anything to that without knowing what’s going on, right? So, if we never do anything, is this something, like, she just needs education, do we have within our budget a Friends of Depot Park budget? Smith said yes. Rodgers said so that’s set. Do they have a separate thing, or does all of their money come into the city council’s budget, the Friends of Depot Park? Smith said that they have their own separate budget to do what they recommend, but ultimately council has to approve anything over $500. Haven and Luginski said it’s a city budget. Haven said we’re a committee of the city. Rodgers said that’s her question. So, we can’t do anything unless we do this, right? Smith agreed. Rodgers said OK.

Haven recognized Amanda. Amanda said today, she got one of Haven’s emails and she misunderstood that it was a survey, and she (unintelligible) but she thinks this is a great first step. From the development point of view, yes EGLE normally takes about 180 days to approve anything, especially in a wetland. It’s extremely, extremely complicated. Starting with this direction would be a great step in the right direction, which EGLE will respect that you’re already looking at the wetland from a very professional and ecological point of view from a permitting standpoint. She permits seawalls all the time which she thinks is similar because it’s right in that arena. So, she thinks this is a great step for our community. What she misunderstood was that this is a survey, and she was like what’s the scope of work, for $2,500.00. So just for an idea of what a normal survey would cost, so most of you guys live in a residence, so that’s something along like Rodgers’ backyard or maybe half the size of your backyard, that would range for a survey for around $3,000.00, so that’s why she was like wow, this is such a deal, like what are we getting out of this. But she does think this is a great first step and we do already have topo [topography] so that’s huge, but her only thing is when we get the deliverables, that we get this in CAD [computer-aided design]. It would be great to get in PDF as well, the map, but for next steps, we’ll want that deliverable.

Haven said exactly and asked Smith if that’s part of the process, that we’ll get a CAD. Smith said yes. Haven said that’s a given anymore. Smith said the full CAD drawing. Haven said paper doesn’t work anymore. Amanda said that (unintelligible) property to divvy out as we need. Haven said exactly, and then you can rotate it and do a whole lot of things. Amanda said she could have another student work on this if we have that piece. Haven said exactly, that would be great. (Haven made an unintelligible comment.)

Haven asked if there was any other discussion.

Haven recognized Mr. Quisenberry.

Quisenberry said the term “assessment” here throws him. Is that meaning to apply that all, what we’re going to have this EGLE company do is make an assessment of what, if anything, can be done. It’s not like tied to an assessment for a property owner to fund anything that they decide to do, correct? Smith asked if Quisenberry meant a financial assessment. Quisenberry said sure. Smith said no, this is not. Haven said it is an evaluation. Smith said maybe evaluation is a better term of the property to see its usability and the likelihood that EGLE would allow us to put a pathway through there. Quisenberry asked how, if we can, how that would be funded would have to be determined. Smith and Haven said correct. Smith said that he would say that this MML [Michigan Municipal League] conference that he just came back from one of the topics was a new DNR [Department of Natural Resources] grant that is coming out, and they actually announced it at this conference. It’s brand new, and the DNR grant that we previously had, if you will recall, was a 50/50 match. The beauty of this new DNR grant is that it’s working off of federal funds and it would be 100% free, no match, 100% gift. $65,000,000, very short window, it starts October 28^th, Smith thinks, and then it ends December 14^th. Haven asked if that was this year. Smith said this year. And then they’ll award it in January, so it’s a very short window that we have to jump on. So, Smith is getting all the information on that. Not to say that we’ll get it, not to say that even all this is approved, but Smith thinks we can apply for it and see. Haven agreed and asked if we’d described the project well enough to make application. Smith said he thinks so. Smith thinks we have a lot of the documentation. They said that they were really striving to keep this a very simple application, recognizing that some of their previous applications were very – (interrupting Smith), Haven said well, good.

Haven asked Smith when did he think we might have this to add to our application. Did he have any term? What’s the lead time on this, if he knows? When would we get that back, within that window? Smith said for this, yes. They said they could start on this in the next couple weeks. Haven said great. Smith said he said it could be done probably around the 1^st of December. Haven said so, we have until the end of the year to make everything. Smith said yes. Haven said that’s exciting. You could plug it in. Smith said yes.

Haven said he cares about what Emily [unknown last name] has to say and recognized her. Emily said she really supports this and thinks it’s a great idea. She has walked in there several times. She’s been able to walk on one, two, and three, almost but not completely to the gazebo and the (unintelligible) area of the park because it gets to be too deep at that point. But just because Emily has walked on Henry Ford’s footsteps along the mill path doesn’t mean that that’s where the city should be building a boardwalk. She thinks we need a more professional survey, and then with the GPS tracking, she did not track on GPS, a survey of the entire park, she was unable to cross the mill lake and explore around the Clinton River where line four is located and she thinks that needs to be done before the city starts asking for major grants to fund this. Thank you for the vote of confidence, but we need something more comprehensive than where she was able to walk in the wetland. (Amanda made an unintelligible comment to Emily.) Emily said their scope is to look at the whole area. She thinks it is particularly worthwhile walking along the Clinton River, which would be another excellent potential area for a boardwalk. Emily said she didn’t go there because she had a sense that it was too deep for her to go there, but again, a boardwalk could be built on it that she feels like walking, but just because she didn’t feel like walking in knee-deep water doesn’t mean the city should not consider a boardwalk in that location, and this is a way to do a comprehensive survey and see really what is the best place for a boardwalk path.

Haven thanked Emily for her input.

Haven asked if there was any other discussion.

Haven recognized Amanda again last time. Amanda said that she will say that a lot of times people, the only reason they’ll say they’re anti-boardwalk is because it’s developing in a wetland, and she will say this would allow us access to (unintelligible) basics long-term, which is an ecological benefit of getting further in, so that’s one side note for this environmentally. Haven said there’s a lot of huge educational benefit. Amanda said of course.

Haven recognized Cara Catallo again. Catallo said it’s really exciting and a very good first step, and the only thing that concerns her and she clearly doesn’t understand waterways around Clarkston, but she didn’t know if it was something that would have to be repeated if something, there’s a major event regarding the Mill Pond because everybody referenced the Mill Pond earlier and just wasn’t sure if it was something that might have to be repeated if the Mill Pond suddenly doesn’t exist or something happens, which she means it might just, she knows it’s a lot of money to her but not a lot of money to a lot of people so it’s probably worth the chance, but she just thought she should ask if she guesses we might not need it, a boardwalk, but she was just curious if that was something that could sort of change the outcome of the research work.

Haven said it is a hypothetical. Amanda said it would change the high-water mark, which EGLE would be concerned about. If a dam were to break. Haven said it’s a separate thing which is going on simultaneously. Smith agreed. Haven said again, he thinks this is economical enough, an evaluation tool that’s probably worth the investment.

Haven said hearing no additional discussion, Speagle should call the roll.

Luginski, Haven, Casey, and Rodgers voted yes. Resolution passed.

Agenda Item #14, Adjourn (Video time mark 1:42:48):

Haven said he would entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion by Luginski; second Rodgers.

No discussion.

Motion to adjourn passed by unanimous voice vote.

Resources:

• • Link to video recording here.
  • 10-24-2022 City Council packet