Introduction:
Links to the video recording and the council packet are at the bottom of this post. Please note any errors or omissions in the comments. Anything noted in brackets was inserted by Clarkston Sunshine.
Agenda Item #1, Call to Order (Video time mark 0:00:03):
Wylie said OK, it’s 7:00. OK, I’m going to call the meeting to order at 7:00 o’clock.
Agenda Item #2, Pledge of Allegiance (Video time mark 0:00:07):
Pledge said.
Agenda Item #3, Roll Call (Video time mark 0:00:29):
Sue Wylie asked Karen DeLorge (city clerk) to take the roll.
Gary Casey, Laura Rodgers, Sue Wylie, and Bruce Fuller were present.
Mark Lamphier, Eric Haven, and Amanda Forte were absent.
Agenda Item #4, Approval of Agenda (Video time mark 0:00:57):
Wylie said Item 4 is we need an approval of the agenda, but before we get a motion, there are two agenda items, or two agenda changes. We need to decide if we want to include them, and one of them would go in Item 9a. And Item 9 is old business. 9A is a tabled motion for Saint Dan’s Church’s proposed procession. Wylie asked if they are doing this as a discussion. Jonathan Smith (city manager) said yes. 9B, that’s a discussion.
Wylie said it says, right now, 9B it says it’s a resolution, and Wylie said she’d like to change it to a discussion instead of a resolution. Wylie said she was sorry, this is the parking advisory committee on 9B. That’s what we’re looking at. Smith agreed. Wylie said sorry, OK, so it’s 9B parking, and instead of a resolution to be a discussion, and we’ll have to have somebody make a motion to make that change. So, let’s do that one first.
Wylie said that she would make a motion that we change item 9B from a resolution to a discussion for the recommendations of the parking advisory committee. Rodgers second.
Wylie asked if there was any discussion.
No discussion.
Motion passed by unanimous voice vote.
Wylie said the other change would be to the printed agenda is 10A. It would be an addition. Right now, it says to be determined. The addition would be to add in the Jeremiah Clark chapter – Wylie asked what kind of organization this is.
Smith said it was a local historical group. Wylie said it’s not the Daughters of American Revolution, but they’re named something – an unidentified man said the Sons of the American Revolution.
Wylie said OK. We’re just right now working on getting our agenda. Sons of the American Revolution.
DeLorge asked if that was under new business. Wylie agreed. This would be Item 10A.
Fuller asked about 9A. Wylie said they are not changing 9A. It was her mistake. Fuller wanted to know if they are voting on that tonight. Wylie said yes, if someone makes a motion to do that.
Wylie said that she would make a motion that we change 10A from TBD to add in Jeremiah Clark Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution presentation.
Wylie asked for a second. Second Rodgers and Fuller. Wylie said she would do Fuller this time.
Wylie asked if there was any discussion.
No discussion.
Motion passed by unanimous voice vote.
Wylie said OK, so now what we need is a motion to approve of this amended agenda.
Motion by Fuller; second Casey.
Wylie asked if there was any discussion.
No discussion.
Motion passed by unanimous voice vote.
Agenda Item #5, Public Comments (Video time mark 0:04:02):
[Though public comments can sometimes irritate the city council, there is value to both the council and the public in hearing them. While they 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, but this is a rule that they occasionally adhere to (or not). 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), another rule that they occasionally adhere to (or not).
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.]
Wylie read the rules for public comments and asked if anyone would like to make a public comment.
David Delasco wanted to know why the Mill Pond is so low. Wylie said we don’t know the answers to that, but your comment is you’re unhappy about the, the level of the Mill Pond. Delasco said yes. Wylie said thank you. Fuller said that there was some, the only response that he knows to Delasco’s question, there was a thing that some environmentalists, he doesn’t know the person, sent to Mayor Haven who forwarded to us that thought that some of the recent development in Independence Township was affecting the absorption of water into the ground, whereas a forest in particular had been replaced by a condominium development, and apparently, when you replace the forest with turf and concrete, it has a big impact on the absorption of water and hence everything in the watershed after that. Wylie said that comment came from somebody involved with the Blue Heron Water Animal Water and Land Conservancy [Blue Heron Headwaters Conservancy]. Fuller agreed. Wylie said she was sure she may get the name. DeLorge said Emily Duthinh. Wylie agreed and told Delasco there are other people investigating what’s going on.
Wylie asked if anyone else had a public comment and recognized Peg (Roth?). Peg said she just had a question and maybe it’s better that she asks Eric [Haven] tomorrow since he’s not here. She said she was curious why she keeps seeing proposals for additional building in Depot Park, and she’s wondering if people are requesting this? She’s worried about it being overbuilt, and who’s going to maintain all these things once they’re put into the park. She’s in the park almost every day with her grandkids, so she’s curious why they need or, you know, where all this came from, so she just thought she would ask the question. Wylie said she knows there’s a Depot Park – (interrupting Wylie), Rodgers said Friends of Depot Park. Wylie said Friends of Depot Park. Peg agreed and said she didn’t know if people just submitted requests or if there was some kind of a survey done or people in the Village interested in all of these additions. Wylie said she thinks it goes back several years that some of those plans, she thinks they’ve actually kind of cut back a little bit, but yes, probably the best thing to do is to address Haven and maybe even go to one of the Friends of Depot Park meetings. Wylie thinks they meet on Tuesdays. Smith said right, he thinks it’s the third Tuesday, but yes, they’ve been talking about this for a while and decided to pursue it. They’re looking for donations. Peg agreed and said they’ve been getting it in the mail, but she’s just curious, because it seems like a lot of build down there. Smith agreed. Peg said maintenance then plays into it too, who’s going to keep up with all of that once it’s put down. Smith agreed. Wylie thanked Peg. Peg thanked Wylie.
Wylie asked if anybody else had a public comment.
Wylie said she knows they got a letter from Chet Pardee but that’s not to be, he’s all set? Pardee said he’s saving himself for the budget discussion. Wylie said all right and thanked Pardee.
Wylie said OK, that’s it for public comment.
Agenda Item #6, FYI, (Video time mark 0:07:43):
Wylie said she didn’t have any FYI and asked if Smith did. Smith said he didn’t. Wylie said she didn’t see a Sheriff’s report and asked if she missed it. She sees that Sergeant Ashley is here and asked if he had anything to report on. Sergeant Ashley said no. Wylie said OK.
Agenda Item #7, City Manager Report (Video time mark 0:07:59; page 3/48 of the council packet):
Wylie said Number 7, the city manager’s report, is pretty self-explanatory. She asked Smith if he wanted to make any comments about it because this kind of goes to a little bit about what Delasco was talking about. Smith said Delasco was asking about it.
Smith said so, we are very happy to report that we did, we were approved by EGLE [Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy] for our grant for $106,000. You probably read about that in the Detroit News last weekend. So, we were one of only sixteen communities in the State of Michigan that received this EGLE grant. So, it’s good news. Most of the grants that were applied were to remove dams. Ours was a little bit unique in that we’re trying to restore or replace an aging dam. So that’s what the approval was for. This will now go into the next step where we’ll pay the down payment, basically our match, and then we can proceed with the work and then any work that’s completed, we can bill the State. So, this was a bit kind of late in the process to learn that we have to pay the money out before we get reimbursed. So, they don’t just give you a check for, you know, $97,000. We have to do the work, show that the work was done, and then submit for reimbursement. So that’s how the process will work. This is probably a year long process just to do the lake level study and the design phase of the new proposed dam structure.
(To Delasco), Smith said that the lake level study, the good news here is that the lake level study will establish the water level that ideally the pond would be kept at. Once that lake level study is done, Oakland County has said they will assist in managing whatever has to be done if the gate valve, or if there’s some other mechanism, they’ve talked about boards and kind of a more of a typical dam that you see on rivers. They’ve talked about a couple of different ways, but needless to say, they will assist in doing whatever is necessary to achieve that lake level. Once the lake level is established, they will assist with that, so that will take out some of the work on Mr. Adler’s and Mr. Roth’s part, and it will, he thinks, result in better consistency. Smith knows it’s a challenge, but they’ve said that they’re willing to help with that. So, Smith thinks we are taking a big step in the right direction here, but it’s going to take some time.
Pardee asked if the engineering company had been determined. Smith said yes, and now you’re going to ask him the name of it. It’s not HRC [Hubbel, Roth and Clark]. It’s Fishbeck. Yes, Fishbeck is an engineering firm, and they have a lot of experience in dams, more so than HRC, so we didn’t object to WRC’s [Oakland County Water Resource Commission] recommendation that we use Fishbeck to do the engineering.
Smith said that’s all he had unless there are any other questions.
Wylie asked if anyone on council had any questions about the manager’s report?
Rodgers asked if we have the money to pay up front? Smith said we do. Greg Coté [city treasurer] and Smith have talked about this. We have enough in our float, if you will, to make these payments and then get reimbursed. We have asked instead of quarterly reimbursements to get monthly reimbursements so we’re not waiting so long for that reimbursement, but I haven’t heard back whether or not the state will accommodate our request. Rodgers said they’ll do that, OK.
Wylie recognized Fuller. Fuller said he was just curious who wrote the grant. Smith said he did, along with WRC. The two of us, Ryan [Woloszyk?] from WRC and Smith worked together on putting it all together. Fuller said well, thank you. That’s huge. Wylie said congratulations on getting a grant approved. Smith said no, it is. Fuller said it is. Smith said he gives Ryan a lot of credit because he’s in WRC and he talks with EGLE people every day, so they know him, and as a co-signer on it, Smith thinks that helped. He has no grand illusions. His name on it made a big difference. Fuller said oh, you’re awesome.
Wylie asked if anybody else on council had questions?
No questions.
Wylie asked if anybody in the audience had questions?
No additional questions.
Agenda Item #8 – Motion: Acceptance of the Consent Agenda as Presented (Video time mark 0:12:44):
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- 04-24-2023 Final Minutes (page 4/48 of the council packet)
- 05-08-2023 Draft Minutes (page 6/48 of the council packet)
- 05-22-2023 Treasurer’s Report (page 9/48 of the council packet)
- 05-10-2023 Revenues and Expenditures for the period ending 04-30-2023 (page 10/48 of the council packet)
- Carlisle/Wortman April invoices (page 19/48 of the council packet)
Wylie said OK, we’ll move on to item number 8, which is a motion. Acceptance of consent agenda as presented on today, May 22, 2023. So, this will include the final minutes from April 24, 2023, the draft minutes from May 8, 2023, treasurers report for today, for May 22, 2023, and the documents are included. And with this approval, we kind of cover some things in the meeting a little more quickly than if we addressed each one individually. So, the first thing she does need is on a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented.
Motion by Fuller. Second Rodgers.
Wylie asked if there was any discussion.
No discussion.
Motion to accept the consent agenda passed by unanimous voice vote.
Agenda Item #9, Old Business
Item 9a – Tabled Motion: St. Dan’s Church Proposed procession in the City on June 11th (Video time mark 0:13:48):
Wylie said Item 9A is old business. This is a tabled motion. This is a St. Daniels Church proposed procession in the city on June 11th, and Paul Maxwell is back once again. Wylie said that’s why Sergeant Ashley is here with you.
Wylie said so, for those of you don’t know, Maxwell was here before representing St. Daniels Church about a proposed procession June 11th. And maybe he can talk a little bit about what’s the plan.
Maxwell said that he, the Sergeant, and Father met last Tuesday, and Maxwell is going to let John [Sergeant Ashley] give an update at once.
Sergeant Ashley stepped up to the podium and identified himself as an Oakland County Sheriff. Sergeant Ashley said the initial proposed route was going to be down Miller and down Main Street and around West Washington and back up, but they kind of talked about it and felt that may close too many of the big roads down and it’s going to create a big mess. So, they came up with a better route, which would be just leave St. Dan’s Church, come down Holcomb to Depot Park, turn around, and they can go back up. And that’s going to be pretty minimal on the traffic because we can reroute it. M15 will still be open, and we’ve already figured out how many officers we need for the route. Sergeant Ashley thinks that’s going to be the safest thing for us to do. So that’s where we are right now.
Wylie said she would pass a map around showing the walk. Maxwell said it was a PowerPoint.
Smith asked how long Holcomb would be closed. Maxwell said no more than an hour. Sergeant Ashley agreed. Smith said so the procession comes down from St. Dan’s to the park. (Sergeant Ashley made a circle gesture). Maxwell said turn around. Smith asked if they are staying in the park for a while or just basically turning around and heading back. Sergeant Ashley said kind of turning around. They’re figuring it might be 180 people.
Rodgers asked if they are going to close the road where Deer Lake is, so at Dixie. Sergeant Ashley said yes. So, when they’re ready to start, we will close Holcomb right there at Deer Lake so that people can just go around, and that officer will be there. Rodgers asked to see the map again. Sergeant Ashley said they’re going to have the signs up announcing it. You need to have time. to make sure the flyers are out for the whole neighborhood, for the whole route, and then they’ll, at the key points, will either have barricades or officers there redirecting traffic, but the downtown area is going to be fully open, so people will be able to get north and south through downtown.
Wylie said when he says close at Deer Lake, he means like the Deer Lake parking lot. Sergeant Ashley said no, where Deer Lake Road comes back out to Dixie, or they can turn around there, that shouldn’t be a problem, and it’ll be closer. Wylie said OK. Sergeant Ashley said they are figuring it will be closed for about an hour.
Wylie said OK. She asked if the church or somebody is going to pass out flyers just like they do with the Angels Place Race and let the neighbors know. Sergeant Ashley said right. Wylie said plus, there’s some side streets that come in there too. There are people in, she thinks it’s called Deer Lake Farms up in there. Sergeant Ashley said they will have either deputies or barricades. There’s a couple of courts right there that might not be. Wylie said all the apartments. Sergeant Ashley said so, they are going to have people and they do have the race people helping out too. So, everything’s going to be closed down where nobody comes onto the route. That’s going to be the big thing. Wylie said OK.
Wylie said OK and asked for approximate start time. Maxwell said 12:30 on June 11th. Maxwell said it’s a smaller group and it will be done faster.
Fuller said he’s getting asked a question, and Maxwell mentioned this last time he was here, but how many people does he expect to participate? Maxwell said approximately 180. Fuller said that’s what he remembered. That’s a good number.
Wylie said and obviously, this is something he feels the Sheriff’s Department can handle. Sergeant Ashley said yes, definitely. We’ve already given them the staffing, our requirements of what we think.
Wylie said OK and asked if anyone on council had any other questions.
Fuller said he thought this is a good solution. Wylie and Maxwell agreed. Sergeant Ashley said he thinks it’s safer too.
Wylie said she knows that Peg Roth had a question and asked if she wanted to ask anything.
Roth asked what is it? It says procession. Maxwell said it’s called the Corpus Christi. It’s an annual Catholic, but it’s also Lutheran, and it’s to celebrate the Eucharist of Christ. Roth said that is nice. Maxwell said it’s an annual event. In other countries, they close down the whole country. So, this is – Roth said you are working on this slowly. Sergeant Ashley said one street at a time.
Wylie asked if this is where they walk with the eucharist up like that (gesturing). Maxwell said yes, it’s a feast day. Wylie said a feast day. Maxwell said venerable. Wylie said OK.
Smith said one thing that we do require, and he’s not sure if we talked about is, we do just like for the Angels Place Race, we need a certificate of insurance. Maxwell said it was part of the package he sent to Smith. Smith said OK. Maxwell said he has an extra copy here. That was part of the event approval. Smith said the city attorney couldn’t be here tonight because he had a problem with one of his rental units, but he did make it clear we need that certificate. Maxwell said he had it right here.
An unidentified man [Greg Coté, city treasurer?] asked if the city is the certificate holder. Maxwell said yes. Coté(?) said perfect. Maxwell said, yes, he has it right here. (Coté(?) crossed the room to collect the certificate.)
Wylie asked if anybody else had questions or any discussion about this?
No additional comments.
Wylie asked if they could do it as a motion. Smith said we can do it as a motion. There’s no money. Wylie said there’s no money involved.
Wylie asked if anybody would like to make a motion regarding this event.
Fuller said he would make a motion to permit this event to occur.
Wylie said Fuller makes a motion to permit this, let’s say this Corpus Christi walk on June 11th from approximately 12:30 to 1:30 going South on Holcomb to Depot Park, and then returning back on Holcomb to Saint Daniel’s Church. Fuller agreed.
Second Rodgers.
Fuller said that’s what he meant to say. Thank you. Wylie said she knows.
Wylie said she’s looking at DeLorge to see if she if that’s going to work.
Wylie asked if there was any discussion on that motion?
No discussion.
Motion passed by unanimous voice vote.
Maxwell passed a document to Coté(?) who asked if it was his copy. Maxwell said it was Smith’s, but the two of them can share it.
Wylie told Maxwell he was all set. Maxwell said thank you very much.
Wylie said she liked this much better.
Item 9b – Resolution: Recommendations of the Parking Advisory Committee (Video time mark 0:20:26:)
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- Parking Advisory Committee, Preliminary Report (Page 23/48 of the council packet)
Wylie said Item 9B is now a discussion about the recommendations of the parking advisory committee, and who’s representing? Just one? Maggie [Sans] representing? Wylie said she could do it there or come to the podium. Wherever she’s comfortable.
Fuller said she comes without a bodyguard, a Sheriff’s escort? Wylie said because she’s on parking? Fuller said he was wondering who would protect her.
[Two people stepped to the podium, Sans and Eric Lines, Curt Catallo’s business partner, owner of the Woodshop, Honcho’s, Clarkston Union, the Cupcakery, and Union Adworks on Main Street. Lines did not identify himself or his interests to the audience.] Wylie said backup. Sans said muscle.
Sans said so, the parking advisory committee has met several times trying to make recommendations for parking updates in Clarkston. They did approach this with a number of parties in mind, the revenue, so the city in terms of revenue, the residents in terms of traffic control, making sure it’s good for them, the businesses in terms of customers, the employees in terms of parking, and then overall city in terms of vitality, you know a vibrant business environment gives home value and it is a very virtuous cycle if we have a vibrant business community that is welcoming to visitors. So, with that, the committee work is ongoing. We think that there’s a little bit more to be done to finalize our total recommendation.
We are recommending a phased approach in as much as we know there are future businesses planned to be open. The two restaurants that were formerly Clarkston News and Rudy’s market. That will bring a considerable number of visitors hopefully to the town when they open, so we don’t want to create a solution now for something that’s going to happen 12 to 18 months from now. So, we do think city council will need to revisit this topic when those businesses open and look at what changes come to parking patterns.
We are heading down the road of recommending to you that businesses who own private property and could use that property to park their employees from the restaurants, be able to use all their own private property that’s available to them right now. They have not been in the habit of doing that. That’s not probably even a matter for city council, but we do think that with that solution, it’ll take about 60 cars off of the sort of public parking areas that will provide a certain amount of relief. We think about this as Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night is any time when there’s any kind of crunch in parking. Other than that, you know there’s not a limit. There’s no limit on availability.
The second is, especially as businesses start to open, there are private lots within Clarkston, and we do think that further conversations with the owners of those lots in coming up with a co-sharing lease agreement between the businesses and the city for those spots which would help, and that would be for employees only of the businesses who decided to participate. That would allow for taking cars off of what would be otherwise the city and publicly owned property parking, and it would give employees who probably have limited ability, some of these people who work in restaurants, limited ability to pay the parking fees. It would take straight from their wages. It would allow them to have a free place to park if, between the businesses and the city, you have a co-sharing lease agreement there.
And lastly, we kind of walked the streets and looked at a few opportunities. We have created a report, where we would provide them to Smith, of where we think there’s some improvements on signage that could be done to make it clearer. We did hear some concerns that that lack of clarity was causing, for instance, restaurant patrons to be ticketed and didn’t think they were going to be. So, in total, Sans thinks we think about this from the terms of, and you’ll probably hear it when we make our final recommendation, that again, back to that virtuous cycle we, if we were Rochester Hills or somewhere where land was never a question, we probably wouldn’t have to come up with these kinds of creative solutions. But the city was established in 1830, there is limited parking options, and we think it is a shared issue between the residents, between the businesses, and between the city to come up with solutions and that we all ought to come into that because without a vibrant restaurant business here, we have no money, no patrons that will go into the lots that will create the revenue in those lots that will then help pay for the other structural changes we want to make to the city. So, we feel like this is everybody in consideration and a reasonable path forward, but we do need a little more time on some of the ideas around negotiations with private lots and things like that.
Casey asked how long Sans thinks it will take? Sans said well, depending on those negotiations, she would think, you know, we would have at least an answer for you whether that would work within 30 days. She thinks that’s reasonable. Casey said it would be ideal to get the paid parking out here going as soon as possible. An unidentified man said for sure. Sans said yeah, the revenue is important to the city. And that’s why you did it.
Rodgers asked if it is the plan not to start our paid parking in this lot until all of this is decided or are we still going to turn that on. Sans said that’s up to you. Wylie said that’s for us to decide. You guys are not recommending to delay. Sans said we are saying we need an extra 30 days to put kind of our full program together. Wylie said she understands. Sans said she thinks that there’s probably a little bit of time that’s needed to get this lot open based on, you know, conversations they’ve had. But, you know, that would be a little bit of a scramble to open by June 1.
Wylie said OK and asked if anybody else on council had questions or comments.
Rodgers said and you’re just, to be clear, so the problem with opening this up is the whole employee problem. That’s where it would be a scramble. Sans said yes, and, you know, clarity and signage and things like that. And we do, we do worry about the impact of people who currently have employees who currently have free parking. Then they would have to pay a dollar an hour. So, if you’re making $15.00 an hour, you’ve gone down to $14.00 an hour. Our belief is that flood to the back residential areas across the city will cause a bit of a consternation for residents of the city.
Rodgers asked if Sans had any idea yet how much or is this what we need to work out in the 30 days, like what leasing financials are and all that, that’s what you’re working on. Sans said it’s still very much a discussion. Rodgers said OK.
Wylie recognized Fuller and asked if he wanted to say anything. Fuller said he didn’t want to put Sans on the spot. There’s one business owner that owns private parking that he can think of. Sans agreed. Fuller said and then that business, Union Joints, leases or whatever to other businesses on Main Street like Essence and so forth. Wylie said Lines is shaking his head no. Fuller said there are other businesses that own – Sans said that own lots.
Lines said behind us, Essence doesn’t have any parking. It is Society that has parking behind them, and that lot behind the Wood Shop and Honcho and also the dentist office has spots that’s behind Woodshop and Honcho. That’s their parking and then obviously Woodshop and Honcho have their parking.
Sans said they would not contemplate having other businesses park in, for instance, Union Joints property because of all the liability and things that come with it unless they work out some private business deal. Ours is just making sure that Union Joints uses their full capacity of the property they own to help pull, relieve some of the cars off the streets now.
Lines said that other parking is at 90 North Main. Rodgers said that she was going to ask if that’s what he was referring to. Lines said that spot, that business there. [Lines is referring to Union Adworks, also owned by Catallo.]
Sans said that’s their update.
Wylie recognized Casey and asked if he had a question or comment. Casey said he did have one. Contemplating 90 North Main, so that, would that be open for public parking? Lines said, no, that would be for employees of the Union Joints businesses. Casey said so, the employees would park there. Lines said correct, and then obviously that would open up those spots that they would be taking for guests that are coming into the city. Casey said he understood. Casey said there’s a lot of space back there. That would accommodate all of your folks, right? Lines said between that and what they’ve got at United Methodist Church, that will take care of us, yes. Casey said OK.
Wylie said so, just to clarify, in that next page on the updates and preliminary recommendations, the item number two, which says allow local businesses to use all properties they own available to them for additional employee parking, that’s what you’re also referring to, the 90 North Main. Sans said that’s correct. Wylie said OK. She wanted to clarify that.
Wylie recognized Rodgers. Rodgers said she just, and you said it like, she just knows that the Methodist Church there has their lot open for any employees that want to park there as well. Lines agreed. Rodgers said distance-wise, it’s not that much farther than any of the other lots, so that’s always free. So just, we need to keep that in mind when we’re talking to the employees that there is an option for them free of charge. Lines said Union Joints has had a relationship with United Methodist Church for some years now. Rodgers said for years.
Wylie said she didn’t know what Sans means by virtuous cycle. Sans said oh, just that if we want to make revenue off of the lots, the restaurants have to be able to thrive and bring in patrons. So, they’re, you know, there was a question about how does sort of the cost sharing between the businesses and city work, and it is our point of view that it should be a cost sharing partnership for leasing those seats or spaces, because you know downtown Clarkston being an old town, there’s not available parking as there would be in maybe other towns that you could just build a parking lot. So, the idea that we all benefit from having visitors come in and shop our businesses. So, the virtuous cycle is a thriving downtown that means there is an appreciated home value. There is revenue for the city out of those lots. If the businesses don’t thrive, it doesn’t matter if you charge a dollar for those spots or not, nobody’s going to use them. So, we’ve got to have the businesses thrive in order for the city to make income off of those lots. Wylie said thank you.
Rodgers said she thinks a lot will depend on those financials. Because you know there’s X amount of money that we’re making from paid parking, we can’t afford to, and it’s in the budget for a lot of, and earmarked for a lot of stuff, you know. Sans agreed. Rodgers said that’s probably not a real technical term.
Sans said we did, we actually looked at when we were doing our committee, we looked at a lot of different things trying to think about visitors, like do we keep the hours on Saturday the same as during weekdays to simplify things? Do we try and go to 5:00 o’clock instead of 4:00 o’clock? We looked at all of those, and really the implication on the income for the city, the revenue for the city was too high. So, we are keeping that in mind, which is why we’re trying to limit it only to thinking about businesses who want to co-share in leasing the spaces. So, we hear you, and Smith has actually made it fairly clear as well, that we have to be thoughtful about that. Rodgers agreed. Wylie said OK.
Fuller said so, in terms of people, now that he’s thinking about this, there’s a lot more people that own their own parking spots. Mr. [Neil] Wallace owns his, and you’ve talked about the Music Conservatory that donated property at one time for parking. Sans agreed. Fuller said he didn’t know that. He thought that was interesting. And you’re talking about putting a sign out in front of their business, 15-minute loading and unloading, but no parking. And so, these business owners that do their own parking, there’s no discussion about what is their options, because he knows, in light of one of the options, if we lease property, the request is that the city provide supervision over that in terms of ticketing. The owner of the Conservatory, Mr. Wallace, Union Joints, others. What do they do when people park in their parking spots? Was that a part of the discussion about that. Sans said they didn’t have an entirely focused discussion about that. But her contention that she thinks the committee came out of that discussion is, you know, the jurisdiction of the city only goes over either city property or property that the city would be in a lease agreement with, and that’s where the jurisdiction sort of stops and starts, and that’s probably that, you know that may be then, unless there’s another way around that. We didn’t really talk about any kind of enforcement beyond city property. Fuller said or beyond leased property.
Lines said he can’t speak for other businesses, obviously, but with Union Joints, and specifically behind the Union and behind the Woodshop and Honcho, we’ve always considered that to be public parking. We’ve never asked anybody to move their car. You’ve got apartment dwellers that park in their lots overnight. We are fine with that. We just know that obviously when you implement paid parking down here where people park, that’s going to push people out away from that, and that’s when we know we’re going to have to do more as far as to protect our lots. Fuller said he saw that Lines put a little guard house there. Is he utilizing that? Lines said not yet, but there’s not paid parking yet either. But we know that once that happens that we’re going to need to protect what we’ve got. But like he said, until then, they let people park back there. Fuller said yeah, he knows, his son is an apartment dweller there and you would, you were very generous and there was never any question of him parking there or anything like that.
Wylie asked if anybody here on council had another question or comment?
No comments.
Wylie said she was going to open up to the audience if they have a comment.
Wylie recognized Peg Roth and asked if she would like to say something.
Roth said she did. She actually sent Jonathan an email probably at least two weeks ago and never heard back from him. She sent it to a couple of people on the parking committee. She wondered why Mike Cascone, who she thinks is full time, he’s out there every day, he knows a lot of the actual license plates of people who come and go. And she just thought he would be such a great resource for questions or suggestions or something. She thought he would be a good person to have involved, not necessarily to be on the committee, but as a resource to ask questions about, you know, how is this running? It just seems like he knows it all. She thinks he’s been like a year at least, hasn’t he? Smith said yes, about a year. He works 20 hours a week, just to clarify on that. And to further clarify he’s paid by the hour, not by the citations he writes. But Smith has mentioned that to the committee that he’s happy to come in. Smith thinks that something we should do is have a meeting where they he can come in and just give them a download on the kinds of things that he sees firsthand, and some of the pushback that he gets from patrons. So, Smith thinks that would be good information to have just someone.
Sans said yes, because they’ve been eyeballing the lots at different times during the day and the evening and weekends and weekdays to try to get a sense of the flow, but he’d be the expert. Roth said he’s out there all the time, and he seems like a reasonable guy. Seems like a good person. Just get input. Just a suggestion she made a couple weeks ago. Wylie said it was a good suggestion.
Wylie asked if anyone else in the audience had questions.
Wylie recognized Chet Pardee.
HealthQuest has a sign at their lot that reflects some change, and Pardee doesn’t know if they had implemented that some time ago, or if that’s the result of some recent activity. They’re inviting people – Sans said she didn’t know. Lines said they’ve always had the 7:00 to 7:00 for their location. When their business is open, they want it for their customers. When their business closed, they’re OK with anyone parking there. Sans said that Steve [Lukens of HealthQuest] is part of their committee. Lines agreed. Wylie said OK.
Wylie asked if Pardee had something else. Pardee said #1 appears to reference, and he wished Tom Ryan [the city attorney] was here, the ordinance the city has but hasn’t implemented and what sticks in his mind is $10,000 per parking spot. Wylie asked about what Pardee was referring to. Pardee said he was on the update and preliminary recommendations. This is as new addition, or additional business open we suggest . . . Wylie said OK, she understood what Pardee was referring to.
Sans said what they were referring to in that is, you know, Robert [Eshaki] will be opening both Rudy’s and the Clarkson Union [Clarkston News] building as restaurants. But what we didn’t want to do is, we think that when he does, the committee and/or city council, more importantly, should go back and visit and see what happens to traffic flows and parking and all of that, and either right in advance when they open and anticipation for, you know, she doesn’t know, he brings in 100 guests tonight. I’m not sure what he does, what his projections are, but just making sure that we don’t get ahead of ourselves and plan right now, today, 12 months early before that business opens. Lines said he thinks it’s more saying that the public community is going to be an ongoing community. It’s not going to be something that’s going to fix this in the next month and then we’re done. Lines thinks it’s always going to be an evolving program.
Pardee said so we’re going to face this issue as Eshaki’s restaurants move along, and Pardee just invites the council to make a decision. You’ve been dealing – Wylie said talking about that – Pardee said the ordinance, yes. Yeah, it’s being essentially, we forget that it’s there. Wylie said she just made a note. Wylie said when Pardee brought that up, she wasn’t sure what he was referring to, but she understands now. Pardee said we should take it off the books if we aren’t going to use it.
Wylie asked if anyone in the audience or council wanted to make a comment.
Wylie recognized Neil Wallace who asked if they are planning on making the decision this evening. Wylie said they are not; this is a discussion. Wallace said that he’s had a number of discussions with Smith over the years about the parking spaces up at 39 South Main. He doesn’t know how many of them remember, but the last real significant addition to public parking here in this community was this lot, which used to have a huge hill, and it was maybe 10-12 spaces up by his building. And less than that down here for the village. And so, we reached this accommodation where, when Main Street was improved a couple of decades ago, the parking lot was then created and made for a lot more spaces. Wallace is very concerned about making this paid parking because somebody alluded to in a different sense, but water is going to seek its own level. All of a sudden, people are going to be out hunting for free parking spaces. We see the people in shopping centers who will drive around and around looking for just that much closer space. So, he’s very concerned that that will happen to put a lot of pressure on the spaces that are supposed to be for his buildings’ tenants on his property. Wallace and Smith reached the accommodation about what the signage will be. Pretty much the council has been hands off on that particular issue, and Wallace just wants to suggest that he would like them to continue to do that. Wallace thinks they’ve got it worked out. Wallace’s concern is that when we reached that accommodation a couple decades ago, there was no consideration for, or contemplation for, this to become paid, those spaces to become paid parking or the entire parking lot, for that matter, and it’s going to put pressure on Wallace’s ability to use that, and it’s going to be an increased burden on the easement that he granted to the city to use the balance of that property. So, we’ve got it worked out. Wallace doesn’t think there’s a decision there for you all to make. They’ve left a lot to Jonathan and to the parking committee, and Wallace is just asking that they continue to do that with respect to those spaces. Wylie thanked Wallace.
Fuller asked Wallace how long he’s had the signage up, that pay to park here. Wallace said it doesn’t say pay. There are two different sets of signs, and actually, not very long. As Smith will tell you, for a long time there was no signage because there was, there was no pressure, right? And we didn’t. Other people parked up against the building and we had nothing. Some employees of the Union, and Wallace didn’t gripe about that. So it was, it was all kind of spread around. But then as things got more involved, then he put, and he can’t tell you how many years ago, but it was pre-pandemic that we put signs up against the building for those spaces. Then it got worse and probably a couple of years after that, you put the signs up on the Conservatory’s side. They still haven’t put the signs up on the Real Estate One side. So again, the pandemic came, and the pressure was off in terms of parking, but it’s certainly come back now and will increase exponentially Wallace is certain, when you do this paid parking with respect to the Conservatory.
Wallace said Fuller said that they had granted an easement for parking. Fuller said no, what he said was they had, or what he read, and this proposal was that they had at one point in history donated property. Fuller said that is news to him. Wallace said he actually knows what happened because, you know, he was real concerned about it at the time and all of what was going on, and actually all it was a temporary construction easement that paralleled for a couple of feet long, where you now see the parking lot. That’s all it was at that time, and in return, they were granted an easement. At least, and he’s never seen the document for this, but it’s on the survey for the construction drawings for when they did this parking lot, that there is an easement across the parking lot from north to south for the contemplated parking lot that they would have put on the backside of the Conservatory so that they could access their property to put in parking back there. That was the thinking 25 years ago. Fuller said OK.
Smith said and that’s still true today. If they decide to fill that low area and put in a parking lot, we would presumably give them two parking spots, whatever, to make a driveway out of the side of our lot into their new lot just for access. Fuller said OK.
Wallace said the other thing we did back at that time, and we reached another accommodation about this in recent times, there was to have been two other spaces eliminated up here for dumpsters. And Wallace, before Smith’s time, said you know, we don’t really need those. We’ll just have some trash cans. So, one of Wallace’s neighbors was trashy about their trash cans, so they’ve eliminated that and what little refuse they have goes into the city’s dumpster. Wylie said OK, thank you. Wallace thanked Wylie.
Wylie asked if anybody else in the public had any comments or questions to the parking committee really.
No comments.
Wylie said OK, so this was a discussion item, and they don’t have any resolutions or motions to make other than – Wylie recognized Smith for a comment.
Smith said the question is going to become when do we turn the parking on. Wylie said right. Smith said that there are lots of questions and even pressure to get this going June 1st and as you can hear, there’s a lot of open issues to be resolved. The hours of operation. It doesn’t sound like the committee is going to make a recommendation that we change the hours of operation, at least not right now because that would be a big financial impact to the city. So, we would prefer not to do that. But Smith has been kind of waiting for the committee to get to that point because the signs have to be ordered, and the signs have right on them the hours of operation, as you can imagine. So that’s very important that we kind of close that chapter so he can order the signs. Then we also need to order the signs for the 12 spots that Wallace was just referring to. So, that’s the first step, and that’s going to take a couple weeks to get those signs. Smith didn’t want to do that. This is probably $1,000 of signs. You’d be surprised some of the signs he has to order. So, it’s a big bill and Smith didn’t want to just willy nilly make a decision and order signs that say the wrong thing. So, and then Jimi [Turner, Department of Public Works supervisor] has to install them with posts. And one thing we’ve learned from the Washington and Main lot is, and Sans was referring to this, is there enough signage. We have 22 signs in the Washington Mills lot, Washington and Main lot, and people say to Smith all the time there wasn’t a sign in front of my car. There was a sign on part of the line next to me and on the other side, but not in front of my car so I shouldn’t have to pay, right? Well, that’s what those double arrows and then you suggest, but people don’t see it that way. Smith thinks as much as it we hear complaints about sign pollution, he doesn’t think we have any choice, because otherwise we’re just opening ourselves to a can of worms when it comes to enforcement. So that’s the next step. So, it’s going to take a couple weeks. June 1st is just not a realistic possibility. We’re working as fast as we can on this. There are a lot of the things going on, namely the budget, but we’ll try to get this going, but it’s not going to be June 1st.
Wylie said when we passed the resolution to implement paid parking in that lot, did we specify a date at that time. Casey said it was in March. Wylie said she means to open up the paid parking. She’s heard this June 1st before. Smith said that was the expectation. Wylie said it was just an expectation. It wasn’t in – Smith said we originally were targeting a spring launch, March, and then that was clear that there were still many questions to be answered and Haven proposed at that time, he thinks it was April 1st, and Smith said, well, he needs more time, so it was agreed a two month delay to June 1st. Wylie said OK. Smith said so, that’s where it stands right now is June 1st, but Haven has said many times, Smith, you’re the administrator, you administrate this at your comfort level and his comfort level is he needs more time.
Rodgers said to Smith that she has a couple things to think about. One is maybe instead of flooding the lots with a sign for every parking space, you do one sign that states all parking spaces, like at least that one up in on Main Street. And she knows down here it might be, you know, or number the parking spaces, and parking spaces one through 30 or whatever, so that you aren’t, we’re not spending $5,000 on what is going to look atrocious in our lot. Secondly, at some point we have to have a date because we’ve kind of lost a lot of time for our financials, and the main reason we even passed that, and there was a lot of discussion as to whether or not to do that, right, was for money. Smith agreed. Rodgers said it just feels like this is a huge, it’s been a huge problem for a very long time, and it really needs to be addressed, and the parking committee is doing a fabulous job addressing all the issues that we’ve been talking about for years, but waiting until all those issues are thought out completely and solidified completely, we have to have a date that we’re pushing for, like we have to know that this is it, whether or not, if we’re not, if we’ve not resolved all the situations that are listed here, we’re still going to start paid parking on June 1st or July 1st. Otherwise, Rodgers just fears that it will just keep getting put down the road. Smith said he doesn’t mean to suggest that this is just open-ended. He’s just saying the time to get the signage is probably the critical path. If that’s two weeks, then that’s what it will be, and for Turner to get them installed. But he is concerned, and he would say to Rodgers, he is concerned about the water seeks its own level comment that Wallace made. These employees that are parking there and don’t want to spend a dollar of their $15.00 an hour wage that they are going to go out in the community, and we just need to be prepared for that pushback.
Rodgers asked if there is some way to get to the restaurant owners that there’s at least 50 spots at the Clarkston United Methodist Church that are free, that these people can park in? Wylie said that she thinks Union Joints – Wylie said they know that. Smith said certainly for Union Joints; he’s not sure about the [unintelligible], but he can talk to them. Rodgers said right, she means that it just seems like we keep trying to make them spaces that are closer. If that’s it, that’s one thing. Or maybe she’s totally out in left field somewhere that she doesn’t understand, but it’s less than that. It’s a few blocks down the road that if we really are worried about that, that’s free, completely free.
Lines said for the record, with us and the United Methodist Church, we make sure we reciprocate. Rodgers said oh, for sure, she knows. She runs the front porch coffee so she knows. Lines said it’s not free to them, but they’ve got an agreement with them, and they’ve talked to them. And they let us use it. Rodgers said yes. Lines said they’re great neighbors for doing it. But Lines didn’t know if Rodgers knew that it’s not free. Rodgers agreed.
An unidentified woman said she didn’t know if the other businesses know they can use that lot. Rodgers said she didn’t think they would kick anybody out if they parked their car there.
Wylie said she feels like, it sounds like, we’re so close to perhaps getting some way for the employees to get some parking handled, because based on what Sans was saying, you’re saying that possibly within a month you may be able to come up with an agreement to find some more parking for employees. As nice as United Methodist Church parking would be, and 90 North Main, when you’re coming to work, you don’t, sometimes you’re if you’re there, due at 9:00, you pull in at one minute before 9:00 and you don’t want to walk two blocks. Something that’s closer would be a lot more helpful.
Rodgers said that Lines is right. They have a reciprocal relationship. Rodgers and Wylie said they supply their coffee.
Wylie said if we could find something that’s easier for the employees to use, she thinks that would really, really help a lot.
Fuller said his concern is that this is a discussion point tonight and there’s issues in here which will need to be further discussed and then this pushes this back and back even further, the one being that, you know, needs to be a public discussion about the city leasing property, and then the city policing it, collecting revenues, you know? And then the businesses sharing in that responsibility for reimbursing employees or reimbursing the city and so forth. He’s never heard of a situation like that. Maybe it exists in other places, but it’s, you know, we mean it, you know, every two weeks and then that’s another discussion. And it has to be done in public. Fuller said he’s just concerned, he means, are you guys coming back every and then Sans coming back every council meeting and going over this again or coming up with more details and you know in terms of where people are at or how are we handling this?
Smith said in that respect, he has to agree with Haven that we can’t wait for all these decisions to be made. That could take months, establishing that agreement, getting a legal agreement signed, written and signed, could take months, and Smith doesn’t think we want to wait for all that. To Smith, the signage was a big part of it and with that kind of general understanding that we’re not talking about the change of hours, then Smith thinks he has his marching orders that he was looking for before turning it on. And he can get started on that tomorrow. He can order the signs tomorrow. But this long-term agreement, which the previous parking committee also suggested but didn’t go down the road, this current committee is actually going down the road and helping with that discussion. That, Smith thinks, is a, and he applauds their efforts, because that’s where the solution lies here for ongoing purposes. Fuller agreed. Smith said in the short term, we may just have to see what happens and react at that time. If there’s a huge backlash from employees saying I have no place to park, then we need to maybe sit and talk with them about what their options are. Smith thinks there are options, but he doesn’t think we can wait until that long term agreement is hammered out because that could take months.
Fuller said but to vote on something, and vote on activating the kiosk out here, you can’t vote on when the signs come in. Is he wrong? Smith said well, honestly, his understanding was from the previous – Wylie said she doesn’t know that they actually, she’s sorry, she just doesn’t know that we actually have to vote on the date because we kind of handed over this administration on this parking lot to Smith. So, she thinks if he says we’re ready to go, we’re ready to go. Unless we say no, unless as a council, we say, no, you cannot do it or yes, we want this if we clarify a date. Smith agrees.
Casey asked Smith if they needed to appropriate money for the signs or is it in his budget. (Unintelligible crosstalk.) We need to authorize you to, or is that something you can do on your own hook? Smith said that’s something he can do. The council kind of approved him to launch this system. Casey said OK, so if that’s the case and you do that tomorrow, is it realistic to turn on the paid parking on July 1? Smith said oh yeah, it shouldn’t even be that long.
Wylie recognized Cara Catallo [Curt Catallo’s sister] saying she had a comment she’s been waiting patiently.
Catallo thanked Wylie and said she just wanted to provide some historic context and largely for what Mayor Pro Tem [Wylie] said, and also councilmember Rogers, because she doesn’t believe that some of them at least understand that this lot was created solely to provide employee parking for the businesses within this community. Like that is why this lot exists so while, you know, we can see it as a potential way to earn money, she just wanted to provide that historic context and she can also like send you sort of like the historic, she would say start documents but it’s, more from like the parks and views and things in the past. But just as a slight reminder, when you’re talking about like how far they have to walk, this was the solution to provide parking so that visitors – Rodgers said she’s never heard that before. That you’re the first person that’s ever said that. Catallo said so that’s so that visitors to our businesses could park on the city streets and that they’re parking there, and also she thinks the parking at the corner. So that was, she just wanted to provide that little nugget.
Fuller said he’s curious. This is the first he’s heard this too, and what year does she approximate? What year was this done? Catallo said she didn’t have that on her right now, but she thinks it was Bonnie (unintelligible), who was a village council member. She was one of the people who were, who sort of initiated it, and she can get that. Catallo asked if she could send you those articles tomorrow or what? Fuller said he’s never heard those. But yeah, she means, it’s like doing your homework. No offense, but she feels like this was. Rodgers said well, it’s hard to do your homework on something like that car if you have no knowledge of that’s ever been a thing so. Catallo said she’s been saying that cart was put before the like the horse in this case, and it was just, it’s not, it wasn’t that difficult to find, she doesn’t know if city records really covered that, but that was just, that is why that lot exists. It used to be dirt. She doesn’t remember it as dirt, but it was paved to give a better spot for the employees to park, and she doesn’t know if that is in conjunction with Wallace’s lot, but back, you know, back when there were sort of two lots that merged toward being one, but it used to be dirt.
Wylie asked if anyone else on council had anything else to say.
Casey said to address what Catallo just said. That was quite, that was a long time ago. And it costs a lot of money to maintain the lots, so given the financial condition of the city, it’s something we need to do. Casey understands that people need a place to park, but on the other hand, we’ve got to generate revenue to maintain what we’re doing. (Catallo made an unintelligible comment.)
Wylie recognized Sans for an additional comment.
Sans said she would just clarify that the advisory committee just started at the assumption that the metered lot was already passed by city council and that was our starting point. So, they did not visit backwards. They just knew that paid was going in and they made recommendations based on that going forward, as opposed to backwards. Wylie thanked Sans.
Wylie said so, if we leave it as is, then it’s up to Smith to determine when the paid starts. Casey said that’s what he understands. Smith said that’s the way it was previously left, so nothing’s changed in that regard. Wylie and Casey said OK.
Smith said so, he still applauds what the parking advisory committee has done, and he encourages them to continue on with their endeavors and we’ll certainly talk more, but Smith thinks he has the preliminary information he needs to get the signs ordered and get this started, but it’s probably, we’re talking probably mid-June for launch. Wylie said OK.
Wylie asked if Fuller was OK. She’s asking everybody. Is Fuller all set. Fuller said he thinks he’s good and thanked Wylie.
Wylie said OK, let’s move on to the next topic.
Wylie recognized Pardee for another comment on that topic.
Pardee said Sans’ report said that they’d like to have 30 days. Wylie said she understands that. Pardee said did we just say no, you have 21? Pardee said he, and part of that’s Smith, he means, they heard Pardee days ago, and Pardee thinks we empower the committee. Wylie said we empower the committee to give advice to council and to the city manager, and that doesn’t mean we won’t still hear what they have to say, and that doesn’t mean we won’t move forward with what their recommendations are. But Wylie thinks we’re going to go with what the city manager chooses to do and, you know, maybe at a different meeting, other people here, things might be different, but Wylie thinks this is the direction we’re going in right now. Nobody’s made a motion to do anything different.
Agenda Item #10, New Business (Video time mark 1:01:43):
Item 10a – Presentation from the Jeremiah Clark Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution
Wylie said OK, moving on to item 10. We’ve got an addition to 10. OK. She’s looking at two different agendas. So, we have the Jeremiah Clark chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution who would like to make a presentation. I was looking at the wrong people. Sir, if you just introduce yourself so we can have your name in the minutes.
Grant Goulet:
Good evening. My name is Grant Goulet, and I represent the Jeremiah Clark chapter of the Michigan Society, Sons of the American Revolution. We are the 14th chapter formed in the great state of Michigan, and we’re dedicated to promoting patriotism, preserving American history, and supporting better education for the nation’s youth. On behalf of our chapter officers and members, I would like to express our sincere gratitude for this opportunity to address you and share our vision for the future. He’s been in communication with Haven and Smith in the past and hoped Haven would be here tonight so he could talk to him some more.
To facilitate communication and engagement, they have established a comprehensive online presence. Their chapter website, jeremiahclarkchapter.org, serves as a hub of information and resources, while their Facebook page allows them to connect with a wider audience. On their website, if those interested in joining the Sons of the American Revolution, they can find information on how to do that.
Next slide please.
Their chapter programs encompass a range of meaningful initiatives. They actively participate in the Wreaths Across America program. They support the Boy Scouts and Eagle Scouts. They conduct genealogy workshops, and they’ll be collaborating with local schools to provide educational programs. In addition, they’ll be working closely with the Sashabaw Plains Daughters of the American Revolution, and they plan to try to identify other patriots that are buried in our area. For those that do not know, Jeremiah Clark is a patriot who is buried in Lakeview. His family moved here around the 1830s, and Clarkson was named after the family. So, the Clark family holds a significant place in their chapter’s narrative.
One of their initiatives is the Clark Family Legacy Project. Jeremiah Clark was a Connecticut native who fought alongside his father during the Revolutionary War. After the war, he and many of his family members moved to Independence Township. Their contributions were instrumental in the growth and development of the township, culminating in the establishment of the Village of Clarkston in 1842. Up there are many different dates. If anyone is interested in more of the history, you can find it on their website.
So, the Clark Family Legacy Project is a research project that they started through diligent research, and they have identified approximately 1,400 descendants to date. Among those descendants, they have identified 672 living individuals, and 300 of those future connections through their Facebook outreach efforts. Their ongoing Clark Family Legacy Project aims to reach out to these descendants and inform them of their ancestral ties to the city. To ensure the preservation of this legacy, they have hosted Jeremiah Clark’s family tree on their chapter website. Furthermore, their Clark Family Legacy Project plans include the compilation of a comprehensive lineage book documenting not only the Clark family history, but also the history of Clarkson itself.
Looking forward, their grand plan for the Clark Family Legacy Project culminates in a grand celebration in July 2026 to mark the occasion of America 250. America 250 is the 250th anniversary of our nation. So, they hope to collaborate with the DAR [Daughters of the American Revolution] and the City of Clarkston. They aspire to organize a momentous event that brings together as many living descendants as possible. This milestone anniversary represents an opportunity to honor the indelible contributions of the Clark family to our community and to foster a sense of unity and pride among these descendants.
In closing, they in the Jeremiah Clark chapter are committed to upholding the ideals of patriotism, historical preservation, and community engagement. They stand ready to collaborate with esteemed organizations such as yourself to further enhance our shared objectives. Together, allow us to embark on a journey that celebrates our collective heritage, uplifts our community, and inspires the generations to come.
Goulet thanked the council for their time and attention. He welcomed any questions or suggestions they may have and said he looked forward to collaborating with them for the betterment of this beloved city.
Wylie thanked Goulet and asked if there were any questions.
Goulet said over here he has Mike Packard, he is their secretary, and Ken Loudy, who is their registrar/genealogist who helps their members get accepted into the SAR [Sons of the American Revolution]. Wylie said so, they have to have a certain lineage to be accepted. Goulet said yes, you have to be able to prove your lineage descents, and they assist with the application forms. They don’t necessarily handle the research, that’s more so on the person themselves, but they facilitate once they’ve taken their research to get them into our organization.
Wylie asked if it is like the DAR? You have to be descended from somebody in the American Revolution? Goulet said yes. If they’re familiar with the Sashabaw Plains DAR, that’s going to be their kind of, their sister, you know, companion. Wylie said OK. Goulet said they decided to open this chapter in this area late last year. It’s not always easy forming a new chapter. You have to have so many signatures and get members to move, and you know, a lot of members like the chapters they’ve been at. So, it’s a big deal to get this chapter formed and they have big plans. Wylie said she’s already seen them on Facebook, so it’s reaching somewhere. Goulet thanked Wylie.
Wylie asked if anybody else on council had any questions or comments.
Fuller said it says here work with the City of Clarkston to plan a big event. Goulet said so, that’s their grand plan. That all depends on how their research goes. So, as he mentioned in his presentation, they’ve been researching the Clark descendants and they have a list of 300 people today on Facebook that he can start reaching out to. Fuller said right. Goulet said so, they’re going to start reaching out to them and informing them of their chapter and just the history. And then if he can get enough participation and interest, then he will start this idea of you guys want to have a big family reunion to celebrate the Clark family. And there’s no better time to do it than the 250th anniversary of the country – Fuller said 2026 – (continuing), Goulet said which is quite a ways away. A lot of time for planning, you know. Wylie said it will happen fast. Goulet said that’s a big idea they have.
Goulet said so, they had one back in 2006. Bart Clark hosted the last day of the reunion. There were only about 25 people from what Goulet understands. So, they hope to host a big family reunion, and he’s been in touch with some living Clark descendants already. The mayor has, you know, forwarded an email to a couple of them. So, everybody is pretty excited about what they’re doing. They meet the third Tuesday of every month at Buckshots Bar and Grill. So, if anyone wants to come hear anything else about they’re doing, they are welcome to join them. All of their events will be posted on their website and Facebook.
Wylie thanked Goulet and asked if anyone on council had any questions.
No questions.
Wylie asked if anyone in the audience had a question.
Wylie thanked Goulet but then recognized Pardee for one question.
Pardee asked Goulet if he could describe the communities where there the other organizations are in southeastern Michigan. Goulet said so, there are SAR chapters in Michigan, there’s thirteen of them, and they’re all over the state. There’s the Detroit Metro chapter, which is based out of Rochester. There’s the Oaks chapter, which is kind of more, he thinks, east Oakland County. Huron Valley. All over the state. They actually are a distinct chapter since they chose the name Jeremiah Clark. No other chapter has a state name like that that honors the city and the patriot together. So that’s kind of they’re doing. A little bit more effort with this Clark family project and honoring his family.
Smith asked since they are part of this larger SAR organization, are they automatically 501(c)(3). Goulet said they are a 501(c)(3). Soon they’ll have a donation button on their website so they can start collecting donations and things like that. And they have other initiatives that they’re going to be implementing so they can start raising money. They just formed their chapter. The charter was signed and approved in February of this year. They’re very early, but they have some big plans.
Goulet thanked the council for their time. Wylie thanked Goulet.
Agenda Item #11, Public Hearing: 2023/24 FY Budget (Video time mark 1:10:44):
Wylie said they’re at Item 11, a public hearing on the 2023-24 fiscal year budget, and this is a public hearing. So, let’s do it.
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- Call to Order (Video time mark 1:10:56):
Wylie said she will call the meeting to the public hearing to order at 8:11 p.m. They’re going to have a presentation of the draft 2023-24 fiscal year budget, and she thinks they have Smith and Coté. The treasurer and city manager.
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- Presentation of the Draft 2023/24 FY Budget (Video time mark 1:11:22, page 26):
Johnathan Smith budget presentation:
OK, first, the finance committee, which is made up of, by charter, is made up of the mayor and two council members, Bruce Fuller and Mark Lamphier, and Haven, and then Coté as our treasurer, and himself as the city manager. charter [The charter provides the committee is three council members appointed by the mayor with the advice and consent of the council.] Those five are the core meeting. Pardee sits in on almost all of their meetings as well. It’s an open meeting. People are always welcome to sit in on these meetings. So, the group has been putting this together, primarily Coté and Smith putting the numbers together, and then they run it past the committee for input.
So, what they’re going to take you through today is the proposal. There’s no voting tonight. It’s just a public hearing. For those of you that have not seen it, Smith will walk them through an explanation of what they’re proposing and why. And then, of course, it’s a public hearing, so the public is welcome to chime in and have comments on anything that they see.
Smith told Coté to go on (referring to the slide presentation).
Smith always likes to start the discussion, you’ll see some repetition if you’ve seen these presentations before, he likes to start with Where Do My Tax Dollars Go. People generally think that 100% of their property tax revenue comes right to the city. And initially it does. But then we turn right around and pay out. So, what you’re seeing in this slide is that about 44% goes to the local community. That’s the purple section, but schools are a big chunk. The county gets some, intermediate schools, community college; there are many other places where the monies go. It’s not just to the city. We get 44% approximately. OK, let’s go on to the next slide.
Millage rates. So, here is something that he’s shown every year and what it shows is that with the Headlee rollback, which is something that was voted on way back in the early 2000s, that there will be a rollback every year and that this chart shows that in fact there has been a gradual reduction in the millage rates. This is required under the Headlee amendment. This year, however, from 2022 to 2023, you see that the orange bars stay the same and you say, well, why didn’t it roll back anything this year? That’s because there is an inflation clause in the Headlee agreement that says if inflation exceeds 5%, then that rollback is not required. And that’s just to accommodate the already complicated times that inflation is throwing at us, so we don’t further complicate that by rolling back. But once the inflation rate falls back down below 5%, then the Headlee annual reduction will continue. So, what this is showing in the gray bars is the amount that is levied on the homeowner. So, in that table at the bottom, you see 11.1420 is the levy amount, and down in the box at the bottom, it shows that we could actually levy as much as 11.8330, but with the library mileage reduction that we have passed years ago, .6910, that brings it down to a levy of 11.1420. That’s where it was last year. That’s where it was last year, and that’s where we begin again this year.
So, those are the mileage rates. Now you say what does that mean to me? You go onto this slide, and this is the assessed value versus taxable value. So, first of all, just to give you a background, the orange bars are the assessed value, so Oakland County Assessor is our assessor. They do all the assessing for the city. We don’t have our own internal assessing department as you all know. So, they have shown this growth that’s been going on ever since really, 2012, after we came out of the last recession. It’s been climbing very healthy, a very healthy climb.
So, this year has been no exception. The proposed increase is 7.7%. And the gray bars are showing the taxable value and that also has been climbing. Proposal A is similar to the Headlee Amendment. It was something that was passed many years ago and that caps how quickly the rates can go up. There is a clause in Proposal A as well that’s connected to inflation. And so, it says, well, you cannot increase the taxable value either 5% or the rate of inflation, whichever is less. So, under that clause you say, well, why could it ever be more than 5%? You’ve got 8.3% here. What? Why is it more than 5% growth? There is another clause that kicks in. When somebody sells their home that resets the clock, if you will, the taxable value clock, and so if a family has been living in this home for 20-30 years, their growth has been capped by Proposal A. But when they sell the property, and we’ve had a lot of resales in the last few years, then the clock gets reset. So, when it shows 8.3% increase, anybody that’s in their home is not going to increase 8.3%; they’re going to be capped at 5% or the rate of inflation, whichever is less, in this case it is 5%. But somebody that resells changes the average, if you will. So, if you have 400-some homes and a quarter of them, or a tenth of them, turn over, when those clocks reset on those homes that sold, that increases the average to 8.3% in this case. So, that’s why the gray bar is at 8.3%.
Smith said he’s done a little math again in this bottom box here as it shows there’s an 11.1420 mileage rate that we talked about on the last slide. What Oakland County is telling us is that we’ll have a taxable value of $56 million of property values in the city. And so, you do the math, $56 million times 11.14 divided by 1000 and you come up with taxable revenue for the city of $628,000 per year. That’s a pretty significant increase and we’ll see more about that in the coming slides. So, we’ll talk about that.
Well, that’s actually the next slide.
So, the very first line in this one, and now we’re actually getting into the nuts and bolts of the presentation of the budget. So, the very first line you see is tax revenue, and you see the proposed 2023-2024, you see $620,000, you say well, you just told me on the last slide $628,000. Why did you only put in $620,000? Well, Coté and Smith have both been very conservative when they put these numbers together. If you didn’t know, if somebody defaults on their taxes, even if they default on their property taxes, the city still gets paid by Oakland County. Oakland County will take on the task of going after that individual, putting a lien on the house or whatever. They do that, but we get, we will get our revenue one way or the other. That’s a real benefit for being part of Oakland County. They will do that for us. But nonetheless, personal property is not something they will necessarily collect. Property taxes, yes, but personal property taxes not so much, so we’ve been a little conservative. We’ve knocked the $628,000 down to $620,000. Nonetheless, that’s an 8% increase over what we have in the current budget of $575,000. So, you have a $45,000 increase in annual revenue. That’s a nice shot in the arm for the city and we’re pleased to see that. Homeowners might not be quite so pleased, but from our revenue for the city, from an operational standpoint perspective, it’s good news.
Smith said he wasn’t going to go through all these line by line, but he does encourage you to ask questions. He’ll pick out some of the larger items on the revenue side here. About halfway down, you see state revenue sharing, sales tax going up from $87,000 to $107,000, $20,000 increase. This is really music to Smith’s ears, because you’ve probably, if you would recall some of his previous budget presentations in years past, there was always a slide in here that showed Michigan dead last in the states. It was a nice graphic that showed Michigan was just horrible when it came time to return sales tax revenue to the local communities to help out the small communities in particular. Michigan was dead last in providing that assistance, and the Michigan Municipal League is taking this on and was just relentlessly hammering our Michigan legislators and our governor that they need to do more to help the small communities, and finally their voice was heard. So, they, Michigan, have made some changes in how they distribute sales tax and it’s starting to show up. So, for the first time in a number of years, we’re seeing a nice healthy bump in our sales tax revenue sharing.
Wylie said so we’re not still last. Smith said they don’t even publish that chart anymore because we’re not dead last, so I assume we’re in the mix somewhere, but we’re not last.
Lines raised his hand and said he wanted to assume that that line from the businesses downtown, that that’s where the sales tax comes from. Smith said well, certainly yes. That’s where the sales tax is generated, yes. But Smith doesn’t think they just say the sales tax for Clarkson is what the city gets some percentage of. It’s sales tax overall in the state. And in recent years, even since the pandemic, sales tax revenue has been up, way up, and it’s because people were buying a lot of things online where there was sales tax being charged. Coté said it’s an algorithm based on the population. Smith agreed.
Continuing, Smith said so right, the sales tax, the state of Michigan has a sales tax total, and we are a very, very small percentage of the State of Michigan’s population – Coté said 922 people – (continuing), Smith said but we do get a share of that. So, the good news is that they’ve given us a higher percentage, and they’re actually putting more money into it than before. That’s good news.
Smith said let’s see, anything else on this. Coté said district court revenue. Smith said so, Sergeant Ashley has left, but when the Oakland County Sheriff writes tickets in the community, anything within the Clarkston border, they automatically get registered as a Clarkston ticket, even though we didn’t, our officers, we don’t have officers, only our parking officers, but we get 33% of every citation that’s written in the city. And the sheriff gets the other 66%. So, we do get a percentage and during COVID, this dropped from about $10,000 to $12,000 a year all the way down to about $1,000. Just people weren’t out and about, but that’s starting, it’s a sure sign that people are kind of returning somewhat to normal because that’s going way back up. So, that’s the proposed 124% increase. Not that we want people to get tickets, but if they’re violating the law and the sheriff catches them at it, then we get a portion of that.
At the end of this page, and there’ll be more discussion about this, we show that we’re transferring some of our revenue in from the fund balance. In this case, we’re showing that we’re transferring in $62,000 of revenue out of our fund balance. And we’re also transferring in the almost $97,000 that we got from ARPA, the American Rescue Plan Act. That was a few years ago from the federal government. We have until December of 2024 to spend those ARPA funds, and we’re waiting for the right project. Smith would love to use it on the Main Street aprons and sidewalk redo that he talked about in the last meeting, but he doesn’t think we can wait that long. We’ve got to spend these monies or lose them. So, we have to spend them by December of 2024. So, it’s Smith’s plan to use them on the lowest or worst condition road in the city, which right now is Depot Road, right outside here. So, that’s the plan this summer, to use the ARPA funds to pave that road. So, those are transfers in out of our fund balances into basically into our checking account.
Wylie asked if Smith thought that the paving of Depot Road will take both the funds transferred from the fund balance and the ARPA funds. Smith said no, just the ARPA funds. Wylie said OK. Smith said that’s a good question. We’re going to come back to where we’re spending those monies that are being transferred in from the funds.
An unidentified man asked Smith where the parking revenue is. Smith said we’ll talk about this, good segue, we’ll get to that because we do use those monies. The unidentified speaker said OK.
Smith said so, on this slide you’re seeing the appropriations. So, these are all the various departments, if you will, in our 101 fund. Council administration, clerk (unintelligible) and so on. So, these are where we’re spending the monies. Council is actually down, because we’re reallocating monies for conferences which was all under the heading of council previously. Now, Coté and DeLorge and Smith, all three of them go to their respective councils or conferences. And so, we’re splitting that out of, strictly out of the city council budget into the individuals, like the administration. So, that’s changing.
So, let’s see, FICA [Federal Insurance Contributions Act, i.e., Social Security and Medicare] is a new requirement you see across the board that we used to have the FICA contributions that the city makes to employee wages, that used to be all in one department. Now it’s been spread into the individual departments. It used to be all in under clerk, regardless of who you were, it was put under there. We are correcting that. Some of these are changes that the state is mandating. It’s not just something we’ve decided. Coté said the state did mandate that. That’s the new chart of accounts. Smith agreed.
Smith said some of these numbers you’ll see when we talk about salaries, but he’ll mention it now. Salaries, we’ve been working for a few years to try to get our salaries more competitive so we’re not dealing with turnover. It’s very challenging to replace somebody right now. If you lose an employee you, you certainly read that under the news. So, we’ll see. He’ll save that for a slide later in the deck about salaries and why we’re making changes there.
Elections. About 1/3 of the way down, you see elections, and we’re more than doubling our account, and this is because of Proposal 2. Proposal 2 was passed last year that changes a lot of things. One of the most significant things that Proposal 2 offers is nine days of early voting. Those nine days of early voting are put right on the back of our local clerk, and we basically have to absorb that cost. The State of Michigan has passed, it was proposed by the state, and it passed, but the cost burden is on the individual, the small municipality, to find a way to pay your workers, your contract workers. They’re not staffed. DeLorge receives her salary another way, but on the other workers, we have to bring in as needed to run nine days of election. It’s going to cost more. Now we’re talking, DeLorge has been talking with Oakland County about ways that they can help the small communities. Smith is very pleased to hear that Oakland County is proactively, you know, taking this lead on it, to try to help the small communities, maybe there’s some collaboration on these nine days of early voting that they can help with. Maybe there’s just a few sites around the county where people will need to go if they want to vote five days earlier than the regular election, and they need to maybe drive to Pontiac or drive to Waterford or whatever. Those details are still being worked out, but we may not have to incur all this, but if we’re left to our own devices, suffice it to say, we’re going to have to have, this space that we’re sitting in would have to be set up for an election for nine days with a ballot machine in the back that you put your ballot in then, and it’s up and running for nine days as opposed to one day, so understandably, that’s going to drive more cost into the system.
Wylie said that has to be implemented starting with this next election. Smith said this next election. Wylie said OK.
An unidentified man asked if that may cause a council meeting to be cancelled. Smith said it could be because we can’t have a public meeting in our voting space. That could drive that. Wylie said Clarkson United Methodist Church in the past has been very generous. Rodgers and Smith agreed. Fuller said we could do driving out here and charge everybody a buck. (Laughter.) Wylie said such good ideas.
Smith said he trying to think if there’s anything else significant on here. Transfers out at the bottom. This is reflecting that we’re taking $180,000. Some of that is the ARPA funds, some of it is the other funds that were in our 101. We’re going to transfer those to our 401 capital improvement fund. So, this is just a way of transferring the money to that other so work can be started. We’ll see more about that.
Smith asked Coté to go to the next slide.
Major streets and local streets. This is a mandatory department that we have major streets. You say what is that? Clarkston Road, Waldon Road. Clearly, M-15, East Washington, South Holcomb. Sorry, West Washington and South Holcomb and White Lake Road. Those are considered major roads. And then we have local roads, which are basically everything else, you know, Overlook and Robertson Court. Those are considered our local roads. We receive money from the state based on our expenditure of funds that we spend on maintaining the roads. They essentially reimburse us. So, we get monies that come into our major street account, and that more than covers that, and then we transfer that down to local streets. That’s totally allowed to where we have excess, we can transfer it down to local streets. You can’t transfer it anywhere else. It has to be used on streets. So, in this proposal, you see that we transfer $7,712 out of the 202 down in the 203 account. That’s something that we’re allowed to do, but Smith is leaving $10,000 on the table in our 202 account that Smith cannot use, at least not right away. As they went through this budget process, Smith will say that they were reminded, he doesn’t want to say they learned, he will say they were reminded of the fact that monies left in these accounts are usable, and we will be using it. So, this is, right now, we have about $120,000 in these two accounts that can be used for roads. So, this was, you know, it wasn’t new news, but it was fresh news to see this. This money is available to us, so about $120,000 that we can start to use on roads that previously we didn’t have on our radar, so that was good news. So more on that to come.
Let’s go to the 401. The last account in our four accounts is the 401. This is our capital project fund. This is where we actually do capital improvements. So, to fund this, because it doesn’t have monies by itself, it has to be funded either by the general fund or the parking fund. So, what you see here in the proposed budget column is $180,000 coming in from the general fund that was previously in the 101 account transferring out of 101 and then we’re going to take $24,000 out of the parking fund for sidewalks. So, we’ve got a lot planned here in the 401.
We’re going to basically do a lot of what was in the capital improvement plan [CIP]. Smith presented the capital improvement plan a couple weeks ago, Derek [Werner] from the planning commission is here. [Werner is the planning commission chair as well as Cara Catallo’s former partner.] But the first column, if you remember in that capital improvement plan, essentially is the budget. So, this $204,000 that we’re planning on spending this year for all these capital improvements, and Smith will go through them real quickly, those are basically the first year of the CIP. So, there is a connection between the budget and the CIP, a very important connection. So, we are planning on doing it all with our found monies.
So, let’s talk about what are the improvements.
Well, Friends of Depot Park gets $5,500. This is something they’ve received for a few years now to do infrastructure improvements in the park. So, that’s that.
Tree planting, $5,000. That was a request from the tree committee. So, that’s there.
$1,000 for street and signpost replacements as those get hit or damaged.
$4,500 for crosswalk paint tape work. That’s something that Smith has heard a lot lately about. You can’t see our crosswalks, especially at night or in the rain, they’re hard to see. So, we’re going to step up our game there on crosswalk tape.
And office furniture. We have actually knocked that down. We had planned on spending $5,500 this year. We didn’t spend it. Smith doesn’t see us spending it. Smith knocked it down to $1,000, and that’s just to replace chairs like these that break.
Then you see a big amount, $56,000, under what the Uniform Budgeting Act calls professional contractual services. You have a lot going on there. Smith said he would kind of enumerate what’s in there.
So, fence. We’re going to put a fence up here in the back just to be good neighbors with our neighbors to the back. We have a lot of stuff back here that really shouldn’t be something that they have to look at.
That’s $5,000 irrigation. We want to do some irrigation work to support our raised beds in the park infrastructure.
General infrastructure work is anything from sewers or what have you around town that need infrastructure improvements.
Computers. We need to periodically replace the computer that’s going bad.
East Alley Storm drain. Smith left it on the list here, but he’s had some somewhat depressing news lately that the East Alley storm drain is worse than what we thought, and it’s going to cost more than what we thought. So, Smith is still kind of going through those bids. He did get three bids from contractors, and none of them were great. So, needless to say, we’ve got to kind of sharpen our pencil and go back to that. But Smith does have money, some monies in this professional contractual services, he thinks it’s $20,000.
The Mill Pond grant, as Smith mentioned earlier in the meeting when we were talking about the Mill Pond, $106,000. We are responsible for, our match is 10% of that, or $10,600. Of that $10,600, the Lake Improvement Board is paying $5,000. We have to pay the other $5,600. So, that $5,600 is in this professional contractional service line item.
Playground. Any playground equipment that’s broken has to be replaced.
And website. We have put in, it might be between $9,500 and $9,800 for website upgrades. We’ve had a lot of complaints as it relates lately, and DeLorge is doing a wonderful job of bringing our website up to date, but there’s only so much you can do. This is like, you know, trying to, you know, put new wheels on the Flintstone mobile so it needs some work. So, we’re going to look at some upgrades to our system. And we’re first talking with our current website provider, but that’s not going to be the end of it. We’re going to get some quotes from other people that would, you know, start from scratch. So, the website, as much as Facebook has taken off, the website is still our primary communication tool. We can do more on our website than we could do on Facebook, so that still needs to be an investment for this city when it comes to communicating and educating our public and our residents on what’s going on in the city.
Sidewalk repairs was in the budget for this year of $18,000. It’s not done. Smith has started his survey, but he’s gotten so busy lately on other things that he had to put that on the back burner, but it is going to be done this summer. Smith will guarantee you that as he stands here. That will be done this summer, and we will be coming around replacing broken and heaved slabs of sidewalk. The way they’ve done this in the past is they’ve kind of established a budget and then Smith backs into how many slabs he can fit within that budget. And the criteria for doing that is how much of a gap it is. If it’s over two inches, if it’s two inches or more, it’s a no brainer, it’s replaced. If it’s one inch or more, it’s going to be replaced. It’s when you get between zero and one inch, that’s where you start to dial in how much money does Smith have in the budget. So, Smith is kind of looking at about 3/4 of an inch as his criteria. Yes, he knows ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] compliant is a quarter inch. Smith doesn’t have enough money to achieve ADA compliance at a quarter of an inch gap, but he thinks he has enough money to sustain a 3/4 inch as kind of the limit where we replace it. So, that’s sidewalks.
Resurfacing roads. As Smith said, Depot Road is the number one worst road in the city. When you look at the PASER [Pavement Surface Evaluation and Rating] study. The PASER study, if you don’t recall, it is like an X-ray vision of your road base and looks at the condition. Not just at the asphalt, but at the at the road below it. So, it’s kind of an X-ray machine. They put this machine down on the asphalt and it can kind of through a sound determine how strong the subgrade is below that road. And this road, if you’ve walked in Depot Park, you know it can be spongy in spots. No big surprise Depot Road, underneath it, is kind of spongy too, so it tends to flex. Flexing is never good for a roadway, so it tends to break up. So, that’s our number one worst road, so that’s our focus for this summer.
Security cameras, another project, much like sidewalks, has not happened. Not because we haven’t done anything on it but getting a wide variety of quotes. Needless to say, Smith needs to do more on that before that’s going to be ready to be approved.
Electronic speed control. If you’ve been walking down Depot Road, and Smith had a lot of people comment to him about this, is people come off Main Street, come down here, it’s a nice downhill and start to your drive and before you know it, they’re going 40 miles an hour, and you can go up on the angled parking. Angled parking was a great solution in that it added a lot more parking spaces than the parallel parking had offered, but the downside is you have people backing out into a roadway where people are coming down this hill like they’re on the, you know, raceway or something. So, it’s very concerning. Plus, you have little Johnny running around the car while Mom is trying to get little Susie out of the car seat and little Johnny’s out in the road. Smith doesn’t know how many times he’s seen this, cars come literally skidding to a halt. He just dreads the day that they don’t stop. So, Smith’s suggestion, and he’ll bring a recommendation to council on this later, he’s just putting money aside for it, is to put one of these Your Speed signs that flashes, you know, 25 miles an hour. When the Oakland County sheriff put his sign out here with Your Speed, in just in that two weeks, it makes a difference. It’s enough visual impact that people do slow down. So, Smith thinks we need something on a more permanent basis before we have a fatality out there.
So, all that adds up to $204,000, which magically is what we moved into this account to spend. So, in total we have a balanced budget with the exception of the $10,000 of 203 budget money that, as Smith said, he can’t use on anything but roads so that will stay in the 203 account. But otherwise, it is a balanced budget. [Balanced budgets are required by state law.] So, Smith is going to go on to a few other slides here. He asked if there were any questions about the numbers. He’s thrown a lot at you.
An unidentified man said he still didn’t see where the parking revenue is. $24,000. Smith said, so, the parking revenue is $24,000 up here at the top. Parking revenue could be used on roads, sidewalks and parking lots this year. Sidewalks is where he can best put it to use. The unidentified speaker said he thought we talked about a $150,000 number. This is the money just being transferred.
Smith said we have, he thinks our bank account right now is about $65,000. Coté agreed. Smith said we had to spend some money to get the kiosk, to purchase the kiosk out here, and when like, when he goes to purchase signs, those will come out of the parking account because they’re paying for all this, but it is paying for things, the parking fund is definitely paying for things, but right now we’ve got about $65,000 in the account. Smith will spend $24,000 here. Smith hopes to, with the new parking lot coming online, quickly replenish that and start saving money for other road and sidewalk work. Coté said the parking lot at Washington and Main gross is about $70,000 annually, and they’re projecting the new city lot here to be grossing about $30,000 out of the gate. The unidentified man said so, we’re talking $100,000 in the budget between the two. Smith said yes.
Smith said he wanted to go on in the interest of keeping moving. Wylie asked if anybody else had questions about what they’ve seen so far? Anyone on council?
Fuller said, you know, he thinks we should consider a speed bump down here though (gesturing). Smith said right. Speed bumps are something they’ve talked about here on Depot Road. Smith actually had a resident purchase and ship to Smith’s house one of these crosswalks with the little man you know, saying “slow, crosswalk” because they felt that strongly, they paid for it out of their own pocket to put on Depot Road because they had witnessed a near accident. There is a crosswalk up near the alley, and they are suggesting, and we just haven’t put it out yet because Smith needs to verify the legality of it, is to put it up there. So, there are things they’re looking at. Speed bump is another one. Fuller said he’s just afraid that when you repave that, that’s just going to make things, it’s going to make the road nice, but it’s going to make the speed that much worse. Smith said that he just has to work with Turner on, you know, from DPW [Department of Public Works] as to what that means to him from a snow plowing standpoint, to make sure it all fits in. Fuller said yeah, that’s true. Coté said they’ve had suggestions regarding speed bumps too. Fuller said the types you mean. Fuller said he saw on the news that Dearborn put some, like rubber ones in or something. Coté said on the road. Fuller said yeah, right on the road, although rubber barricades and whatnot on Miller Road didn’t work so fine. He doesn’t know about rubber speed bumps. Coté said they wreak havoc for you when you snowplow in the winter though. That’s the downside. Fuller said it’s just, he knows what he has found is it’s faster to get going that way on White Lake Road, to come through Depot Park and to go to the intersection down here which backs up with all sorts of cars going back and forth, and so he’s sure he’s not the only one who’s using Depot Road to cut through and then when you cut, you have to make a conscious decision to get to a reasonable speed. You have to brake as soon as you turn down this road, and he catches himself. Sometimes it’s like, holy smokes, now there’s kids around here, and I’m going 35 and it’s not right, you know. Coté agreed. Smith said no, Fuller is absolutely right. They’ll look into the speed bumps. Fuller said it’s just an idea. He doesn’t know.
An unidentified woman said it’s very dangerous. It’s really scary to go behind there where those cars are. Rodgers said the kids are hidden. The unidentified woman said dogs and kids and it, it really is amazing. Fuller said kids love to dash between cars, and he’s seen it in school buses and parents lead them through these things. Pardee said he knows there are communities that put proper speed bumps in place and take them up in winter. Coté said that’s an option. Smith agreed.
Wylie said OK, let’s concentrate on the budget. She knows there’s lots of interesting things. We’ve got a lot to get through. Fuller said he didn’t have anywhere to go.
Smith said so this is kind of just a recap of what we’ve been talking about. So, what are the key sources of revenue? What are the key uses of that revenue? These lines don’t match up. Don’t read anything across it, just straight down.
Sources. As he mentioned earlier, a $45,000 increase in tax revenue. Great news for the city. $20,000 in state revenue sharing income, great. $96,000 in in ARPA funds, and $62,000 that we will bring in from our fund balance. So, that’s a lot of money right there. Now where are we going to use that. Salary increases, which you’ll see a slide on that in a few minutes. To improve salary competitiveness, inflationary times. $96,000 of repaving of Depot Road. We talked about that. $24,000 in sidewalk replacement. $10,000 is the number for city website updates, $8,000 for security cameras. $5,000 for tree planting. These are the big items, not by any means everything, but the big items.
Smith asked Coté to go to the next slide.
So, no budget presentation would be complete without analysis of the fund balance. So, you are sitting here, you should be asking yourself well, can I afford to do this? How much money have I got in my checking account, like you would, you know, at home. Can I afford to do this? So, let’s start off with the current fiscal year that we will end on June 30th. So, we have a starting fund balance. This is an audited number from our auditor, $195,000 is what we started that year, July 1, 2022. We have $804,000 of revenue and that’s been refined as we go through the year. $776,000 of expenditures. So that’s a net positive of $28,000. So, we’ll grow the fund balance from $195,000 to $223,000, and that represents a 28.8% coverage. Our charter requires that we have a minimum of 16.6% at any given time. [This is a goal set by council resolution. It is not a charter requirement.] We shall not fall below that. So, 16.6% equates to two months of being able to pay bills without a dime of revenue coming in. So, in that doomsday scenario, 16.6% is the bare minimum. We’re at currently 28.8%.
We have a slide. Smith asked Coté to click on that link, historic fund balance. When you get to it. Very long. So, what this shows is historically our fund balance levels and you see we’ve never been in the 16.6% kind of danger zone. We’re always much higher than that. We were almost 100% back in 2012. We had a lot of money in the bank, and you get up to those levels, the residents are rightfully asking why are you keeping my money? I want you to spend it. So that’s why that’s not a good thing. You want to keep spending the money and putting it into improvements.
An unidentified man said he wants Smith to not take it. Smith said if we have to take it, let’s at least make some improvements with it. So, Smith just likes to show that show that 28.8% is really not that bad. We’ve had some years that are lower, but not too many.
OK, so now let’s go on to the next slide. Now, we’re talking about the projected fund balance. So that was, we ended, we’re projecting that we’ll end the current fiscal year at $223,000.
And now, what are we going to spend in the new budget year? So, we’re going to spend, we’re going to bring in $831,000 of revenue, we’re going to spend $894,000. If we do everything that we’ve proposed, including all the 401 capital improvement fund expenditures, we will actually overspend our revenue by $62,000. So, we’re actually going to use up some of that fund balance and bring it down to $161,000, and that equates to 18%. So that’s very healthy, it’s not down in the 16.6% danger zone, but it’s not up in the 30% range either. So, it’s probably about where we should be, and so Smith feels comfortable with these numbers. It’s a very aggressive plan to get all these capital improvements done, and you say why is it aggressive? Because these projects need to be managed and Smith is the project manager of them, and there’s only one of him. And so, it’s always a challenge to get all these things done, even though they’re in the budget, and we have money set aside for it. Just getting to it with other things going on every day can be a challenge. But this is their goal. It’s to spend all this money and get down to 18%.
All right, let’s go to the next slide and talk about salaries.
So, salaries is something Smith is very passionate about, because if one of his employees leaves, he has to find a replacement, which is very difficult at times. He has his staff up to speed and trained where he wants them. They’re all humming along, working very efficiently. But if he loses somebody, he’s set way, way back. Not only is their function, whatever that is, is now not getting done, but Smith’s job is not getting done because he has to, he’s the safety net. He has to jump in and do their job and then hire somebody and then train that person to do that job. And so, Smith becomes horribly inefficient. So, Smith’s goal is to, suffice it to say, retain his current staff and he looks at competitive rates. He looks at the Michigan Municipal League that publishes pay schedules for all of the communities, most of the communities in Michigan.
Smith looks at Independence Township. His biggest competitor is our buddies over at Independence Township. They’ve taken two of his employees [former clerk Jennifer Speagle and her husband, former DPW supervisor, Mike Speagle], and they have eyes on another one right now. So, he’s telling them please leave my guys alone. He’s just a little gnat in the big scheme of things here, leave me alone. Look in other waters because Smith needs, you know, Turner in particular is somebody he’s very concerned about. Turner has just been a breath of fresh air for the city because he not only knows how to do all these various mundane things, but he’s a smart guy and he can repair things. He’s saved Smith thousands and thousands of dollars by repairing the trucks in the garage here, as opposed to sending them down to the Ford dealership and Smith is spending, you know, $100.00 an hour for a technician to work on it. He has just been so valuable, and he’s getting courted by Independence Township and other municipalities. They see the work he’s doing and very quickly are coming to him and making offers, so Smith is going to show in here that, so let’s start at the top and go down. Smith does have a plan for Turner.
So, across the board, inflation alone, inflation alone, we’re proposing a 5% increase across the board. Some are a little bit more similar or less but Smith makes no exception for himself. He doesn’t have anybody to advocate for himself. So, he just put 5% in that same box.
City treasurer. A couple of things have changed here. Coté not only deserves the 5% increase, but Coté is, if you weren’t aware, he was, he had two jobs for a while and he was working remotely. That second job, long story short, the second job has ended and he’s back here in the office four days a week, helping answer phones, helping residents. He’s just a perfect person to help our residents. He’s just so friendly and open to helping anybody. So, it’s been a great improvement to have him back in the office four days a week. When he left and was not working, he was in the office one day a week and working remotely the other three days, we gave him a $5,000 pay cut. It’s only right that we restore that now that he’s back in the office. So, restoring his $5,000 pay cut and giving him a 5% increase, that equates to a 24% increase that says wow, what the hell? That is justified in my mind is that you need to do that.
Smith loves Karen DeLorge. She’s doing an excellent job, he’s very sincere about thanking her. But she just was raised to $35,000. She started in at a probationary rate of $30,000, and she just bumped up to $35,000, which is where Jennifer [Speagle, former clerk] left at $35,000. DeLorge is doing an excellent job and Smith wants to increase her salary, but right now, he’s proposing, because she just got that fairly recently, he’s proposing to stay at $35,000 for now. Not forever. Next year, she’s going to move up.
Evelyn Bihl is, kind of comes and goes. She travels a lot, but that’s fine. When she’s here, she does special projects, and is valuable. So, she would go up 5%.
Jimi Turner, Smith’s DPW supervisor, they talked about numbers. Smith said you’re getting other offers. Just talk to me. What are you hearing? And he says, well, a dollar an hour, a 5% increase would be a dollar an hour. He says honestly, that’s not going to cut it. Smith said well, he wanted Turner to be honest with him. He was. He said they’re offering him $26.00 to $28.00 an hour. He loves working here, if you can at least get him to $25.00 and then next year we can talk again, but at least get him to $25.00, he’ll stay. Smith said he’s being very frank with them. This is the discussion that he had with Turner. So, Smith doesn’t want to lose Turner, so he said let’s put it in the budget and see if it passes. So, he’s bumping it from $22.00 to $25.00. 13.6% increase, more than anybody else. Well, you know, Coté’s going back to his old salary, so he’s getting more. But Turner is somebody that is just key to this organization. And we’re all key, but Turner is just like the glue that really holds the outside world together here.
Carson Danis [DPW laborer] would go up 5%. Great guy. We love Danis. If you know Danis, you love Danis. He’s just a great kid and we want to retain him. But 5%, Smith thinks, is satisfactory.
So overall, 8.9% increase. Our revenue went up 8%. So, this is in line with our revenue increases. It’s not asking for more than what our revenue went up, and Smith thinks salaries are super important when it comes to retention. We have a very fragile house of cards here. Any one of our people here that are employers know darn well that it’s a very fragile house. You start to lose your staff, and the whole house of cards just can fall down in a matter of days so, so it’s important to stay on this. Smith knows it’s a lot of money, but it’s very important. Smith can’t emphasize that enough.
So, any questions on salaries, while I’m on this slide?
(No questions.)
The last two pages are the CIP. He’s not going to go through all these individually because he did do that last month, but suffice it to say, the first column on that far left, that adds up to – go to the next slide – that adds up to $204,000, which is the amount that was in our capital project fund that he went through earlier on this presentation. So, there is a connection. Smith isn’t saying that next year we’ll have $352,000. He’s not saying he’s going to have enough to do that, but we’ll make some hard choices when we get to that point, but right now we’re planning on, you know, as much as $352,000 next year. But right now, the current year is $204,000.
Thank you for your patience a lot, a lot of numbers to go through. Are there any questions?
Fuller said he did think of a question on the employee salary page, not to employee salaries. But is there any thought towards hiring any additional staff? Such as someone to handle FOIA requests and so forth, which he believes are a big burden for our clerk. Smith said that was a very good point. He’s glad Fuller brought that up. So, he didn’t touch base on it, but we are bumping our legal salaries. Fuller said he could see that. Smith said it’s not because he wants to hire another attorney. It’s because that’s where he thinks a FOIA consultant would fall. That’s his goal is to obtain a FOIA consultant, not an employee that he would have to pay, you know, other costs to and wait. They’re just sitting there while we’re waiting for the next FOIA to come in.
Wylie said that was a good question. Smith’s thought is a consultant that would be like essentially on a retainer that when he needs them, he can bring them in. He thinks that’s the most efficient way to operate. There might be days or weeks where he has no need for them. And then there’s other days where he needs them here eight hours a day. Fuller said well, it might ultimately save money. Smith said might ultimately save money, absolutely. You’ve got to think along these terms that we’re getting FOIA request with complicated and extenuating circumstances that we as a staff, a small staff, can’t accommodate. Smith needs a consultant that can come in and help them prioritize exactly what needs to be done and when. And yes, the FOIA laws are pretty basic when you think about them. But there are nuances to the laws that if you miss something, you miss a step, you can get in deep water real quick. So, that’s where a consultant, and he put that, what did we put in there, $7,500. Coté said yes, he brought up the screen for Smith. Smith said yes, there it is. Fuller said OK. Coté said we bumped that 25%. We went from $30,000 to $37,500 in anticipation for any external cost. Wylie said OK.
Smith said he doesn’t see that going to Tom [Ryan, city attorney]. He sees that going to maybe Ryan, if that’s a function that he’s going to do, but this consultant, Smith doesn’t know that Ryan has the time to necessarily be that fire drill kind of on-the-spot Johnny. Fuller said it would be nice to have someone who’s designated for that specific purpose. Wylie said a FOIA expert might be more cost effective, and you guys probably get emails on companies and groups that do that. Smith said not too much, but they do have some leads on people. They’re working with the county, the Michigan Municipal League. Smith was given the name of an attorney that does specialize in FOIA law. So, there are things that we need to do as a city just to become more efficient. He thinks it would be more efficient in the long run. Wylie said right. Good idea.
Wylie asked if anybody else on council has questions on what Smith and Coté have presented.
Fuller has one minor pea-sized issue. He sees $5,000 for planting trees. Do we buy these trees from nurseries and so forth and why? And he doesn’t know. He’s transplanting trees. Could we grow them ourselves? No, seriously, we’ve got all this property back here. Smith agreed. Fuller said you pick out the type of tree that you anticipate parking on the ground there five years later. It’s a pretty big tree and you put it in the ground. Smith said yeah, the thing that they do, of course, they come in with these big Vermeer spades. Fuller said OK. Smith said that they take out the soil where you’re putting it, put that aside, and then put their tree in there, and they fertilize it, and they guarantee it for five years. With the right type of fertilizer, they will guarantee it for five years. And so, it’s just become an efficiency thing is this is what they do for a living. Coté said do we not use Weigand’s? Smith said Weigand’s Nursery. Rodgers asked where do these trees go? Smith said these would all be in the easement between the road and the sidewalk. Rodgers said so replacing the ones you’ve taken down? Smith said so replacing trees such as yours that was just taken down, so yes. And there are some that the trees were taken down 3, 5, 10 years ago and never replaced. So, there is kind of a backlog of requests. Smith has asked that they look at new and different varieties of trees, the silver maple that are throughout our city, and if you saw your [Rodger’s] tree – Rodgers said it’s hollow – Smith said it is this big around and this much of it was hollow (gesturing). There’s really only a band of about four inches all the way around the outside, and it was just an accident waiting to happen, literally. And so, we’re so grateful we got that down, but you think what about that silver maple? And that silver maple? It’s very concerning when we continue to set monies aside for tree removal, but then we should back it right up with tree planting. So that’s why that’s there.
Fuller asked what does it cost to plant a tree? He doesn’t have any idea. Smith said the cost of the tree itself is usually around $100, depending on how you get it (gesturing), and then the planting is probably another $130, $150. With fertilizer and transportation, and it’s probably around $300 total. Fuller said far less than he thought.
Rodgers said and since Smith brought up trees, the tree that was taken down was like, literally dead. It was so hollow in the middle, and Turner was the one that took it down. Fuller said he saw them outside there. Rodgers said they did not pay somebody, which that’s like $2,000-$3000, because they had that easily. Fuller said $2,000-$3,000. Rodgers said yeah. Yeah, she had one that was not that big that was deader than a doornail in their backyard that they had to take down and it was $2,000. Fuller said he climbed up in that tree and took it out. Rodgers said while traffic was going, he didn’t even stop. Smith said he didn’t climb the tree, but Turner is certified, and the manlift, harnessed in of course, and he wanted a shot at this tree. He was just so anxious, so excited about being able to take this tree down and show Smith his skills, and he nailed it. Fuller said well, he can understand. He would love to do that. Rodgers said he saved us a ton of money and he did it very well. Smith said he did it all safely; nobody was harmed or injured in the filming of this.
Wylie asked if anybody else on council had questions about the budget.
Fuller said no, sorry, no.
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- Public Comments for Public Hearing (Video time mark 0:2:10:39):
Wylie asked if anybody in the public had questions about the budget.
Wylie recognized Pardee.
Pardee said he’d like to make two comments. First, to council, he apologizes to them for being harsh in this past budget year. What he learned in this budget go round was the $98,000 of ARPA money wasn’t really reflected anywhere. It was in a separate account, OK. And so, in his mind, when we established the budget last year and he’s thinking, OK, it’s there. It wasn’t. Wylie said OK. Pardee said so, he was crying wolf when he shouldn’t have.
Pardee said the other thing is that they’ll feel him moving a little bit, changing his emphasis, and his emphasis will be with Smith completing the budget, do the tasks in the budget, and the reference is that in your packet, it said that our capital project expense for the current budget year was $164,000 and we spent $12,000. Wylie said right. Pardee said and so, really relates to what it is that Smith works on. And so, Pardee’s encouragement to council is don’t give him additional tasks. (Laughter.) Wylie said her guess would be also the fact that we lost a clerk in this past year probably had something to do with that. (Smith nodded.) Pardee said that Smith knows – Wylie said she knows – (continuing), Pardee said that in the last few years, we’ve underspent the capital project budget.
Wylie thanked Pardee for his apologies. Pardee said so, his encouragement is to help Smith in any way that they can by not giving him additional tasks. Wylie said good idea.
Wylie asked if anybody else in the public had any comments. She said she guesses she was supposed to read this. (Wylie read the rules for public comments.)
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- Adjourn: Public Hearing (Video time mark 0:2:12:53):
OK, hearing none, Wylie said she was going to adjourn the public hearing and it is adjourned at 9:12 p.m.
Agenda Item #12, Adjourn (Video time mark 2:13:04):
Wylie said she needed a motion to adjourn the meeting. That’s for this council meeting.
Motion by Rodgers; second Fuller.
Wylie asked if there was any discussion.
No discussion.
Motion to adjourn the meeting passed by unanimous voice vote.
Wylie said we’re done at 9:13, see thinks. Delorge said 9:13.
Wylie said thank you, everybody. Good night.
Resources:
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- Link to video recording:
http://216.11.46.126/CablecastPublicSite/show/4166?site=2 - 05-22-2023 city council packet
- Link to video recording:
I moved to the Village of Clarkston in 1980 and moved out in 2021. In all those years, traffic and parking have been an ongoing concern. I am amused that the discussion continues with no real solution, they will deal with it later, ignore the ordinances that exist, make no new ones, and now just let the City Manager do whatever he wants.
Why have a Planning Commission, ordinances, this ad hoc committee, and anyone present to the council if the council is only going to let the city manager do whatever he wants?
More importantly, the city schedules the required hearing on the budget, only four of the seven council members bother to attend, and only one member of the public has any comment. Why bother? Just let the city manager do whatever he wants because in the end, that is all that is going to happen.