Now calling to order a regular meeting of City Council, Tuesday,
April 28th at 7:00 PM. Please stand for the pledge
of allegiance.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of
America and to the republic for which it stands, one
nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice
for all.
Next item.
Next item is roll call.
Councilwoman Roggensie?
Here.
Councilman Dwyer?
Here.
Councilwoman McGee?
Here.
Councilman Boyke?
Here.
Councilman Lafferty?
Here.
Councilman Noonan?
Here.
Councilwoman Moore is present. We have a quorum, Madam Chair.
Excellent. Next item.
Next item is adoption of the agenda.
Support.
So moved with the... Nope. Adoption of consent agenda, so
moved.
Support Lafferty.
Motion by Moore.
Any discussion?
Hearing and seeing none, I will call to question. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Roggensie is a yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item is adoption of the agenda, so moved with
discussion.
Support Lafferty.
Discussion, Ms. Moore.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Adding as item
11C,
an item regarding opening two money market accounts with
Chase Bank.
As item 11D, authorizing
application for community development block grant disaster
recovery funding.
As item 11E, a resolution in
support of traffic signal upgrades
for federal funds.
As item 12E
is the lease agreement between Urban Seed and
the City of Warren.
As item 12F, override of
Mayor's veto regarding item 12B from the April
14th, 2026 meeting.
And,
moving item
13L to the top of the list. So we would just move
L right before A, if that's
acceptable.
Without objection.
Thank you. Any other discussion?
Hearing and seeing none, I will call to question. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Roggensie is a yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item, calendar of pending matters.
6A, motion to receive and file.
Support Lafferty.
Any discussion?
Hearing and seeing none, I'll call the question. All in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion carries. Next item.
Next item is 7A, approval of the bills of the
general revenue funds, so moved.
Support Lafferty.
Any discussion?
Hearing and seeing none, I'll call the question. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Roggensie is yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item is 7B, approval of the bills of the water and
sewer systems, so moved.
Support Dwyer.
Any discussion?
Hearing and seeing none, I'll call the question. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Roggensie is a yes. Motion carries. Next item.
The next item is audience participation for agenda items
only.
Members of the audience who would like to address City Council this evening
relating to agenda items may do so under the audience portion by filling out a
form here on the left. A reminder, you have three minutes.
There is a timer up front. Again, this is for
agenda items only. First is Sarah Spurgeon.
After Sarah is Gerald Hassbacher.
Oh, hold on one second. I need to turn the mic on.
Oh.
No, check it there.
Yeah. Push the button.
She's on.
Yeah, there we go.
Okay.
She's on.
Hello, and thank you for moving us to a formal
agenda. I had heard some rumors that maybe we're a
hobby gardener, and I can assure you that as one of our
community educators and a state mushroom expert, this is
definitely not a hobby. And so we're working with urban
agriculture, and we're talking about hungry children
and hungry families in South Warren.
And not only am I a lady who picked all of
this wonderful food from South Warren Garden, which was
leased to us, it's completely pristine.
It doesn't need any money. We are way ahead.
This isn't a partisan thing. This is a community thing,
and I'm here to support our mission about urban agriculture.
I'm a teacher,
and I'm a community teacher, and right now
I am missing, all these are flashcards,
half of these are mushrooms that I'm missing right nowOut
in the woods because I'm hungry enough to forage, if
that makes any sense. The cool part about being me is I
can forage. And so yesterday, I went around my
neighborhood, South Warren, to find some organic
food for children.
And outside of this, which was free, they took me to
Shoppers Market, where I would shop as a kid.
By the time I was in sixth grade, I was 200 pounds.
I got to pick up pop bottles and drink soda and eat potato chips
and candy that didn't have any labels. That wasn't my mom's fault.
That was the community's fault. And so at Shoppers Market,
I couldn't even find any organic produce.
So I wasted some more resources. I went to Meijer,
I went to Joe Randazzo,
I went to Aldi, and I couldn't find anything local.
The only thing local I could find is $5 a pound.
If you have Double Up Food Bucks, that's not enough money to feed your
family. And so not only have we lost $10,000
in health department money, you're also missing SNAP dollars,
Double Up Food Bucks dollars, TEFAP dollars,
probably some commodity foods dollars.
And that's really tragic because those kids are hungry.
And when I was in the grocery stores, I asked young families,
"What are you doing right now in this crisis to feed your
family?" And they said, "We think about gardening." Come on.
Nobody said they thought about politics.
So I tried to find some produce close, and that was in Detroit.
He won't sell to us, but he said he's doing like $90 on a
case of
lettuce. And so it cuts really, really close to me
because my entire background is food programs, feeding our
communities, and doing it well. And no kid does good on
industrial food, commodity food, or the trash that's in their cart.
You're at time. Thank you.
Next is Gerald Hassbacher, and after Gerald is Lori Harris.
Hello. I went to visit the East Point Community Garden
before most of this started. Took some pictures,
interviewed some people. It was amazing.
It's even more amazing that that started in the city of Warren.
We've had these people do all this work,
and we want to encourage people to have gardens.
So let's get past talking the talk and let's walk the walk
and fund the garden. Thank you.
Next is Lori Harris. After Lori Harris is Jeff
Matthews.
I didn't expect him to be done so fast.
I'm grateful for the opportunity to come to the microphone, and
I'm grateful to have the opportunity to express my own opinion, and it won't be
popular, but I'm disappointed that you approved on the consent
agenda the $400,000 for Cricket Field.
While I understand the community would like one, that's a million dollar
project. A million dollars, and we don't have
bathrooms that are decent in our parks.
So I'm disappointed that you didn't take it off and at least have a discussion.
And that's pretty much it. Thank you.
Mr. Henley, you can't clap,
unfortunately.
Next is Jeff Matthews. After Jeff Matthews is Annie
Sinclair.
I'm Jeffrey Matthews, current head of South Warren Garden, board member of Urban
Seed. Our beloved
friend, John Hoffman, sends his regards to all in attendance and regrets he could
not be here tonight due to the recent passing of his mother.
In the past two weeks, in light of the mayor's efforts to move the garden or
develop the land, there have been 130 emails of support sent to
the city. I felt this one deeply. To quote,
"The garden is so important to not only myself and my family, but the
community I live in. That lot has sat empty for as
long as I can remember, and I've been here going on 20 years.
There are a ton of other lots that can be sold to developers.
Don't take the one good thing those of us in South Warren have.
Please don't take it away from us. It's like we are being punished on this side of
Warren. It's so sad." End quote.
Two years ago, I first spoke to Tom Bommarito about starting a
community garden in Warren. He was quick to point out that
city-run gardens almost always fail, and independently formed
ones are the way to go.
Our friends at the East Point Garden would back the project, and with their 10
years of experience on our side, we had every chance to succeed.
Yet the mayor's office moved to limit our autonomy, opting to treat us as unpaid
employees,
lab rats they could poke and prod, knowing only how to
take while never even supplying us with a trash can for the site.
While confronted with these facts, the mayor's office and subordinates now
outright lie to people.
These people would drive a car into a wall if they couldn't pick the radio
station. They would fight to be the adults in the room, even
if it killed every last child in it.
This is the America we all face.
Aside from the new lease terms the council was so kind to help us iron out over
the weekend, we ask that they may pass a resolution of
support. Let the mayor's office know that further bullying against our
community will result in council's commitment to no longer just
pursue a fair and supportive lease, but to compel an outright sale of the land
through a reverter clause-You can ensure this garden remains as such or
automatically returns to city ownership.
Send a clear message of deterrence to Lori Stone on what the future holds as
she continues to punch down.
South Warren is an island unto itself that deserves to have
amenities, points of interest, sources of pride, and places to convene with our
neighbors. Spaces that are alive with activity, where we can foster
bonds of friendship and strengthen community, be it a garden,
a library, or the dream of a downtown that has more to offer than fast
food and a Walgreens converted to a fireworks store.
Perhaps this is a dream we can all one day realize together.
We sincerely thank council for their support and hope that their tireless
work will finally put this matter to rest. Thank you.
Thank you. Next is Annie Sinclair.
Good evening, members of city council and all those in attendance who support the
South Warren Community Garden.
Pope Leo views gardens as crucial cathedrals of nature and
symbols of ecological stewardship.
He says, and I quote, "What is urgently needed is the courage
of new visions and an educational pact that gives young people
space and trust."
Space and trust, two things that Urban Seed thought they were
receiving when they were approved for the garden.
Space and trust,
two things that Urban Seed is now needlessly fighting for tonight.
Now that the beds have been built, the butterfly garden established,
the vegetable stand constructed, seating for the community built,
doors knocked on to introduce the garden, people invited to the open
house last year, and neighbors introducing themselves to each other,
many for the first time, talking about how wonderful something like this
urban garden could possibly happen to them.
Does it bother no one that we are being forced to think in terms of being so
undeserving of this garden simply by virtue of the area we
live in?
I assure you, last year there were children in this neighborhood who were fed
fresh, organic, wholesome food they otherwise wouldn't have had,
because fresh, organic, wholesome food from a grocery store is out-priced for
many in South Warren.
I assure you, the little food library established last year before winter
was used all winter by those who needed to eat and could grab
something at no cost and without shame.
That little food library didn't exist before Urban Seed.
Mayor Stone, I will not accept a multi-story, multi-family structure on this
land, and any action by you to rezone the land will bring to glaring
light your interest in advancing your own reputation at the cost of a
lot of hungry kids and their families.
If that is your intention, I will use all legal means at my disposal to
block it. Your efforts would be better suited to removing the river
rat-infested junkyard you've allowed to continue operating on the
northeast corner of Topher and Shaner, or did you not know about that?
There is a beautiful tract of still undeveloped land where Warrendale Elementary
School once stood, and a development would prove to be very
advantageous for future Southeast Warren residents.
The terrific park already there would provide a great space for kids to play,
and our garden would provide a great space for them to eat if they were hungry, and
learn.
Mayor Stone, you have the opportunity to move this garden forward in a
progressive, welcoming, and yes, courageous way to a
community that really needs you to be all three of those things now more than
ever. Simply building more structures doesn't build a neighborhood or a
city. That takes people being unafraid to come out of their homes to
encourage each other in the commonalities that we all have.
The need to eat, the absolute need for all that green spaces and
community gardens offer us, the need to come together and save the
best thing that's ever happened to this street. Thank you very much.
Thank you. You're at time, and that is the end of audience.
Next item, Madam Secretary.
Next item is announcements,
Madam Chair.
Ms. Moore.
I would like to
send our condolences once again to the family of
former
Deputy Commissioner Jeff Rushton and his
family. His wife passed away a little over two weeks ago, or
almost two weeks ago,
at a very young age. They have young children and just such
a tragic life. And
all of us know that we
understand the work of first responders.
The families also are first responders in many
ways. They give up so much of their lives
for their loved ones to be involved in such dangerous work.
It's very hard, and that supportive person is a
member of our community, too. And so we thank her
for her standing behind
Commissioner Rushton for many years, and we're very
sorry for the family that she's lost her life at such an early
age, and perhaps we could have a moment of silence.
Thank you.
Any other announcements?
Madam Chair.
Mr. Lafferty.
Thank you.
To tie into
the same topic,
at the funeral, it was mentioned
that Ms. Rushton gave the final
gift of life
to five individuals
through
organ donation.
I've known two people so far
that received the gift of life
in a similar circumstance, and it is
life-altering for both families
And
so,
I am
a proud organ donor,
listed on my driver's license. And if you have not
considered that,
in memory of Mrs. Rushton and her family,
and the gift that she gave to five people
that were in desperate need, I encourage everybody
to please give that
consideration for
your
family, and make your final wishes known,
that there are people out there on long lists
that sometimes wait years for the right donor.
And so please make that consideration in honor of
Ms. Rushton. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty.
Any other announcements?
Hearing and seeing none, we will move on. Next item.
Next item is a public hearing,
10A. Public hearing to receive comments on the proposed application
for community development block grant disaster recovery funds through the
Michigan Economic Development Corporation relating to the federally
recognized storm, tornado, and flood disaster event from
August 2023.
Ms. Tarasenko, can you summarize this
item for us?
Good evening.
In late August of 2023, there was a flood event that
occurred in Southeast Michigan that qualified for federal funding.
And the MEDC is accepting applications for eligible projects,
for those that were affected by the storm.
The city is planning to submit two projects for consideration.
One is a relief sewer in section two, and the other
is a replacement of the water main, sanitary main, and the storm
sewer on Jackson and Rebard Avenue.
So tonight we're just looking for comments from the public regarding those
applications.
Thank you.
I will open the public hearing.
Is there anyone from the audience who would like to speak on this matter?
If you could give your... One at a time, and if you could give your name and
address for
the record.
Hi. Good evening, members of the council.
I am Rose Weiss, and this is my neighbor, John Isis.
We are here in support of the city applying for the
federal grant to fix our sewers.
I wrote a letter for
the application, and I would just like to read that to you.
To whom it may concern. As a city of Warren resident who has experienced multiple
floods and sewer backups during heavy rainfalls, I am in support of the city
council's request for federal grant funding to aid in the construction of
relief sewers in section two of the city of Warren.
Section two has experienced many floods and sewer backups in the past
11 years. During the heavy rainfall of 2014,
considered an anomaly at the time, I personally witnessed a
two-foot geyser of sewer water shoot up from my
floor drain.
Within seconds, there was wall-to-wall contaminated water in my basement.
And within 30 minutes, two and a half feet, leaving brown scum on everything
it came in contact with. In addition, water was falling
down the wall closest to the sewer pipe where the drain tiles around the
outside of my house meet the sewer pipe.
It stands to reason that the sewer water rushing through like a freight
train
in reverse flow through the sewer pipe, left the rain collecting in the drain tiles
nowhere to go but to seep through the basement wall.
Many residents in section two had between two feet and even up to
four feet backed up in their
basements last year. In
2024, I surveyed five streets in my neighborhood and found that
114 homes had experienced between two to five floods and sewer
backups in the past 11 years.
What is greatly troubling is that these events are occurring more frequently
with less rainfall. Between 2014 and 2025,
section two has experienced the following floods and sewer backups.
August 11, 2024. August
13, 2019. August 24,
2023. August 2, 2024.
And July 28 of 2025.
There were two subsequent events
to the
flood of 2023. On average, we ended up with eight
inches of sewer water in our basements after only two hours of heavy
rainfall in 2024. And after only one hour of heavy
rainfall in 2025, on average, we ended up with six inches of
sewer water in our basements. This increase is alarming.
I used to enjoy the sound of rain, but now it has become a stress
trigger. Repeated cleaning, sanitizing,
disinfecting, removal of damaged items, as well as the expense of replacing basic
appliances like furnaces, water heaters, washers, dryers, the increased
insurance rates for claims made, and wondering when will it happen
next, have been a huge burden on both the young and old in
my neighborhood.
Thank you for your consideration.
Thank you.
Anyone else want to speak on
this item?
Sure.
And could you give your name and address for the record, please?
Yeah. My name's John Isis. I'm at 32618 Gainsborough, and
I live kitty corner from Rose here at-Adams at
Gainesboro. So this intersection that she just talked about, we've
experienced these events
prior to 2014 and after, a handful of times.
And myself, 2014, I had 36 inches
of water in my basement. I lost everything.
Hmm.
And so subsequently, there's been a handful of the same kind of events,
six inches of water, four inches of water.
Even the last couple weeks when we had that
long event of rain, we're up all night,
waiting for the water to go up over the curbs.
My neighbors, since we're at the intersection there, we know when the water
goes above all the curbs and into the sidewalks.
I'm going to get texts from my neighbors saying, "Has your basement flooded?"
And sure enough, I hear it coming up.
And it's stressful. I lost a lot of money.
My basement was a nice finished, carpeted basement, and now it's down to
tile.
Totes and everything as I can to get off the floor.
All my furniture has been gone. I've had several
homeowner
claims, and now at the point where I don't know how many more I can
do before they drop my insurance. But it's just really the
stress
of going through these events every time.
And the older I get, it's harder for me to clean this mess up.
And the mess is calling in a restoration crew to
clean it up, disinfect it, and have these giant dehumidifiers in your home for a
week. And then you come in and have a company to clean everything up.
And it takes a week, weeks time after one of these events.
So
I'm looking for something,
a solution that'll help us and fix the issue here. Thank you.
Thank you.
Anyone else want to speak on this matter?
Okay. I will close the public hearing and turn it over to council
for action.
Madam Chair?
Mr. Lafferty.
Is the motion to receive and file comments...
Appropriate? Yeah.
Okay, so I make a motion to receive and file the comments
officially and forward them on to CDBG.
Support.
Support, Mr. Noonan. Any discussion?
Okay, I will call the question. Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Rogan, C is yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item is a public hearing to receive comments
on the proposed fiscal year 2026, 2027
City of Warren general fund and water budget.
Someone from the administration can summarize, Mr.
Fox perhaps.
Good evening, council. Richard Fox, City Comptroller.
So on an annual basis, the mayor has to submit a budget to
council, and the budget
has to be submitted on the second Monday of every year,
which this year was on April 13th, and the mayor did a presentation at
City Hall, and the council got a copy of the proposed
budget.
Since then,
the council, on Saturday, April 18th, had
meetings to discuss with various department heads their
budgets, and it's a detailed meeting, and the council
digs into the budget very heavily.
We also had meetings on Monday,
the 20th of April, and also Tuesday,
the 21st of April.
So today is the public hearing. It's to get input from the public.
And our next step will be that, most likely,
the next council meeting, May 12th, the council will adopt the
budget for the next fiscal year.
And
that summarizes it.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
I will open the public hearing.
Is there anyone who wants to speak on this matter?
Hey, if I'm going to go through the budget, I'm going to
comment on it.
Number one, the mayor's office did not have any goals description in their
budget request. Like every other department, you had to provide
goals for the fiscal year of 2027. And
number two, what do the outreach coordinators do?
If it was my decision, I would can both of them.
There's no job description. If they're so important, perhaps they can
encourage the mayor to do her job. Her office alone
has a salary of almost half a million dollars on a total budget of one
million.
I'm not sure that we feel that she's earning that money.
Number three, there is an alleged error in the library budget.
There's no way the mayor should have increased the proposed
salary of the director. This is a problem that a new
employee just finishing her first 90 days should make more than the city
attorney. That's not right. But Mr.
Fox said he'll look into that. When looking at the budget, the
proposed rates for fiscal year '27, there is a
discrepancy of up to $1,000 or more in salaries, and Mr.
Fox said he would check into that when I was comparing them in
the e-packet. In the budget, there is a veterans
commission
and a memorial fund with $25,000 in the
budgetA nice description of what the
Veterans Commission should be
and how many members it should have.
And there are no members appointed.
And I personally know people who have applied.
And I'm not sure they've been interviewed, but there certainly hasn't been
anybody appointed. And of course,
Spouts didn't appoint the people either.
But this is a new administration, and this should be taken care of.
We are ignoring the people that we need to have.
We have so many veterans in this community that could serve this
commission very well. And families of veterans,
families of soldiers. We have the people here.
There is no excuse. And my suggestion is
that
she is making this partisan, and that's wrong.
This needs to happen.
And in terms of the budget,
I am struck by--
I can't compare
in terms of nursing budgets, which is what I was or do,
but there are people doing jobs that are making a whole lot of money
in this city, and I'm not sure. I think the union
probably helps with that, and of course, nursing was not unionized.
But it's a little bit frustrating to look at these budgets
and see all the money. Thanks.
Thank you. Anyone else want to speak on this matter?
Seeing and hearing none, I will close the public hearing and turn it over to
counsel for action.
Motion to receive and file the comments received.
Support.
Support. Moore, any discussion?
Hearing and seeing none, I'll call the question. Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyki?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Roggenky is a yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item is 11A, consideration and adoption of a
resolution approving participation in the national opioid
litigation settlement with six regional
distributor/dispenser defendants and
authorizing combined subdivision participation
and release form. I would add to that
resolution
the following language, "Disbursement of funds is
contingent on council appropriation and
approval of expenditures."
So moved.
Support, Dwyer.
Any discussion?
Hearing and seeing none, I'll call the question. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes, as amended. To be clear.
Mr. Boyki?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes, as amended.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Roggenky is yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item is 11B, request of human resources to
approve the purchase of time and attendance software
services and equipment from UKG Chrono
Systems LLC, utilizing the Omnia
cooperative contract number
246833 for an initial five-year
period in the total amount of
$214,860,
with options to extend for up to five additional years.
Consideration and adoption of a resolution. So moved.
Support, Lafferty, with discussion.
Discussion, Mr. Lafferty.
Thank you. Through the chair to Mr. Gajos.
Good evening.
Good evening, sir. And I'll start by saying it appears that you have
done what no other HR director has been able
to accomplish.
Thank you.
So if I understand this correctly, the time clocks you're
going to replace in the departments,
what are the other departments that are going to benefit from this?
So we have building maintenance, building, some park and rec.
I think there's water. There's a couple departments.
But we wanted to get a couple more just in case.
You never know when a department's going to say, "Hey, I might want a time clock
for my department just to double check for my employees." They ebb and
flow, so it's better to get a couple more than ever before, but yes.
Thank you. Yeah.
Seeing this on tonight's agenda takes me
back to our first term, '20,
'21, '22. This issue kept coming up with
Cincinnati Time, then it was Ascentus.
We're going back and forth with numerous issues, and it looks
like now we have a unified solution for the
entire city-
Yes
... under one umbrella company, one agreement.
Yes.
And they're going to provide the implementation and
support for you throughout the project, and then you have final
sign-off, correct?
Correct, yeah. I'll work with legal to make sure everything is copacetic.
Awesome.
Well done, sir.
Thank you.
Any other discussion?
Hearing and seeing none, I'll call the question. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyki?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Roggenky is yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item is 11C, consideration and adoption
of a resolution authorizing the city treasurer to open two
money market accounts
and attached investment accounts with Chase Bank, entitled City
of Warren Capital Equipment Bond Series 2026
and Water and Sewer Capital Improvement Bonds Series
2026. So moved.
Support, Lafferty.
Any discussion?
Hearing and seeing none, I'll call the question. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Rogan, C is a yes, motion carries. Next item.
Next item is 11D.
Black grant.
Pardon?
Black grant.
Yeah. Resolution
to consider...
Mary, what is the wording?
It's the application for the C-
I know, but it's consideration and adoption of a resolution
authorizing application for community development black grant
discovery,
disaster recovery funding. So moved.
Support Lafferty.
Any discussion?
Hearing and seeing none, I'll call the question. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Rogan, C is a yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item, consideration and adoption of a resolution
supporting the Macomb County Department of Roads application for
2028 federal safety funds for traffic signal
upgrades at the intersections of
12 Mile and Campbell, 12 Mile at Imperial,
13 Mile at Hayes, and Shanor
at Masonic. So moved.
Support Dwyer.
Any discussion?
Hearing and seeing none, I'll call the question. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Rogan, C is yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item is 12A, which is legal update. Mr. Schroeder?
The next five items have legal implications, so I'll withhold comment at this
time.
Okay. Thank you. Next item is 12B, Council Secretary
Mindy Moore discussion in RE: update on marijuana ordinance
amendments and discussion in RE: amendment of hours of operation for
marijuana retailers. So moved with discussion.
Support Lafferty.
Discussion, Ms. Moore.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
As some of the retailers are starting
to get ready to open up soon, it was
discovered that the hours of operation ended at 8:00
PM.
So we have gone through
how many years? Eight years of litigation, and we
finally have businesses that have applied.
They're getting ready to open, and 8:00 end time would
effectively put them at a very disadvantage to make money doing
this.
So my proposal would be that we extend
the closing time for weekdays till 10:00,
midnight Friday and Saturday evenings.
That seems to mirror what other cities in
the area, certainly I think East Point, I'm not sure about Center Line,
but we don't want these people to start out behind the eight ball
after we've gone through all of this time, and they've spent a lot of money.
We've spent a lot of money. And so
I would like them to have that
done. Mr. Schroeder,
how do we go about... Is that a simple amendment to the existing
ordinance that then could be incorporated in the one they're working on now?
So I've had some discussions. Councilman Boyke has been active
with Mary Michaels and myself. We met over a year ago, I
think, on some pending ordinance amendments.
And I think Ms. Michaels is here. I did speak to her about this
particular matter, and I believe that she says that they can
bring this back with the other amendments.
You might want to get confirmation from Ms. Michaels.
Otherwise, we'll have to come back and do a first and second reading of
just these ordinances
at the next two meetings.
So, Ms. Michaels,
because I've gotten calls from several
owners of retail, and they're getting ready to open.
So I know that Mr. Boyke asked for an update. Was it, I think two weeks ago.
Was it, Mr. Boyke?
Maybe a month ago.
It was about a month ago, and then we had a follow-up discussion
a couple of weeks ago.
Yeah. So I'm getting phone calls, so
I need to assure the people I'm getting phone calls from.
If I may, Madam Chair.
Mm-hmm.
The
change to the hours is a very quick fix.
The other issues are a little bit more complex because I think the Construction
Board of Appeals is meeting tomorrow, and they're discussing
the CFO issue.
I'm sorry, the CO issue, and whether it should be grandfathered.
I was going to present the ordinance in a comprehensive
form to address all those issues, plus renewal license
appeals, address the change that council made.
But if we'd like to
move more quickly, we could address the hours first, then
follow up within a month or
promise not more than a month with the other changes.
Madam Chair, that would certainly work for me. Mr.
Boyke, would that-
Okay
... be agreeable to you?
Well, Mr. Schroeder was on a committee, too.
I don't see a problem-
Yeah, but you're our representative
... I don't see a problem with it.
Yeah.
Absolutely no problem with that. I think it's a simple, quick,
easy ordinance amendment that we could probably do in our sleep.
Okay.
So.
Okay. So my motion would be to ask that the
hours of operation be changed, and however you need to do that, do
it.
Next meeting.
Perfect.
Okay, perfect.
Madam Chair?
Mr. Noo-
Thank you, Ms. Michaels
... Mr. Noonan, and then Mr. Lafferty.
Okay. Yes, Ms. Michaels,
the nature of the establishments that are getting these business hours,
how would you describe what they're doing?
These would be the processing... Not the processing, I'm so sorry.
Retail.
The provisioning centers, the ones that distribute and sell.
Okay, and there's no
consumption
At those sites, correct?
No.
There's not.
Okay.
But they'd be selling not only smokable items but also
comestible items?
No, I don't believe that we allow the sales of consumables,
but-
Oh
... we do? Okay. Well-
I guess,
if I may, what do you mean by consumable?
Gummies?
I said comestible, which meant
edible.
Oh, yeah.
Edibles.
Oh, yeah.
Are edibles are sold there?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. That's under state law. Yes.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
So, all kinds of
marijuana.
All kinds approved by the state.
And it's legal.
As a business arrangement, that's necessary.
The idea of people doing these
very heavy marijuana THC products, really-
That's correct
... But that's just my personal thing. It bothers me. Okay, I yield.
Madam Chair?
Mr. Lafferty and then Mr. Boyke.
Yeah.
Madam Chair, one point of clarification
to the secretary. You had mentioned Monday through Thursday, and
then Friday through Saturday. Were we not changing Sunday hours?
I said weekdays. I said weekdays and--
But Friday, no, change. Sunday is the same,
but would be Friday and Saturday.
Okay.
All right. Thank you.
Yeah. Okay.
Mr. Boyke.
I just want to agree with Councilwoman Moore.
We've been getting a lot of calls. That's the reason we brought it up to you.
We don't have many establishments open.
I believe there's two or three right now,
and it's very difficult for them to compete with right over the border at
Centerline with later hours. So,
during our discussions, we were already approving the hours.
So,
we'll go forward with that. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Madam Chair?
Yes, Ms. Moore.
To address Mr. Noonan's comment or question,
if you want to see consuming
marijuana, go by the Burnett Library, and I saw some folks
out there passing a joint. Some of our friends that hang out at the
library. It was last Thursday between, it was about 3:00 in the
afternoon, and then somebody came and shooed them off.
But they were passing a joint, smoking it right outside the door. So...
Madam President?
Yes.
Why would I want to see that?
No, you don't want to, but you made a comment about people
consuming-
Right
... at the establishment.
Right.
But I'm saying they do consume at our library outside, so.
Okay, and sometimes people consume in their cars.
Right. But I'm just saying they're doing it on our city property.
That's driving under the influence,
and I'd like to see
arrests on that, but that's a harder thing. That's a whole another issue.
They do. They do arrest for that, I think.
Okay. I guess usually-
But-
... it's when there's been an accident, they-
Yeah
... they determine that. But anyways, I yield.
But it shouldn't be happening at our libraries-
Yeah
... with the homeless, so.
All right. I will call the question. Thank you.
Ms. Moore.
Yes.
Actually, we did make a motion.
Sorry, we made a motion originally to have the conversation.
Makers of the motion were Ms. Moore and Mr. Lafferty.
You're comfortable with the amendments to that motion, Mr. Lafferty?
Yes, I am.
Ms. Moore, you-
Without objection.
Okay. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
No.
Okay. Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
No.
Roggenkamp is a yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item is
12 C, Council President Angela Roggenkamp, discussion
in re court action and the appointments for the Election Compensation
Committee. So moved.
Support Lafferty.
I will have Mr. Schroeder just add just a brief of color, but just to
give
what has transpired. The city has an Election
Compensation Commission that meets to an odd years to
determine the compensation of all elected officials in the
city. By state law, they have to meet in odd years,
and it's the mayor's duty to appoint those folks
before October 1st of that
term. So in order for those folks to meet in '27, they have to be
appointed
in '26. Correct, Mr. Schroeder?
Yes.
Yeah. In '26 by October 1st, and the mayor has
not seated this commission
for--
This is about principle. It's a law.
It has to be done, and
I
believe it's important that we move forward and
move this item to some court action, and Mr.
Schroeder will talk a little bit about that court action.
Thank you, Madam President. So,
this is according to state law. The City of Warren is obligated
to follow state law. It is in the Home Rule City
Act that the city has what's called the Elected Officers
Compensation Commission, and the state law uses the word shall
in multiple places. We've litigated this word shall before in the
courts, and it's pretty clear that this creates a duty on your
public officers to act. So if you see shall, and it applies
to your mayor, council, governor, whoever-they have a duty to do this.
So it says the mayor shall make the appointments, and that the commission
shall meet every odd year, and this has not been happening.
The council
passed multiple resolutions asking the mayor to do thisIn
2025, ultimately, the mayor did not make the appointments
and has now indicated she's not going to make appointments, and the city sits
in violation of state law. The only way to remedy this is to bring an
action in circuit court for what's called a writ of mandamus, which would be an
order declaring that the mayor has to follow the duties under the state law, make
these appointments, and then the commission can meet and have its duties.
The commission's just required to meet.
It's not required to adjust compensation, but they are required to
meet, they are required to be appointed, and right now, we have a
breakdown in the system where this is not happening.
So, I feel confident in the position on this.
I've advised the council. So, if there's a motion on the
floor,
I would request that the motion direct that legal action be taken, but
perhaps counsel may want to give some time for compliance so we can possibly
work something out.
So, I would modify the motion to
direct legal counsel to draft whatever documents are appropriate
and whatever timeframe that counsel deems
appropriate
for compliance.
You can put the timeframe on the record.
Thirty days, 60 days?
July 1st.
July 1st. By July 1st?
Yeah.
Agree with July 1st.
Okay.
Thank you, Mr. Schroeder.
Yeah.
Any other discussion?
Okay. I will call the question. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Rogan, C is a yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item is
lease agreement between Urban Seed and the City of Warren.
So moved with discussion.
12D, implementation .
Oh, yeah, we skipped one.
Oh, I'm sorry. 12D, Council Secretary Mandy Moore, discussion in
re Civil Service
Ordinance
Implementation. Sorry.
While Ms. Moore finds that, someone want to make a motion in support?
I will make a motion.
Thank you.
Support.
Support, Mr. Dwyer. Thank you. Okay.
This is the resolution, mister?
Yeah.
Okay.
So I will read this resolution.
A resolution directing preparation of Civil Service
Implementation Resolution. Whereas the City Council has
adopted amendments to the city's Civil Service Ordinance
intended to modernize personnel practices and
strengthen the city's merit-based employment system.
And whereas the City Council has been informed that there are approximately
39 political appointees currently serving in city
positions exempt from civil service, a number that is significant
relative to the size of the city's workforce.
And whereas many of these political appointee positions are
operational, technical, or administrative in nature and do not
involve direct reporting to the appointing authority or the
exercise of significant policymaking discretion.
And whereas transitioning appropriate positions from political
appointment to civil service can benefit both the city and
affected employees by promoting merit-based hiring and
retention, improving organizational stability,
preserving institutional knowledge, strengthening succession planning,
and reducing workforce disruption associated with changes
in administration. And whereas civil service
classification provides employees with clear job
descriptions, established qualification standards, and
protections based on performance, which enhances professionalism,
accountability, and employee morale while attracting and
retaining qualified personnel. And whereas the
City Council seeks to review the current structure of exempt
positions in an orderly, fair, and transparent manner,
and to develop a reasoned framework for determining which
positions should remain exempt and which may be more
appropriately placed within the civil service system.
Whereas the Human Resources Department and the Civil
Service Commission shall have to be
very involved in this process. Now therefore, be it resolved
that the City Council hereby directs legal counsel to develop and
present for council consideration at the next regular council meeting a
resolution concerning implementation of the city's Civil Service
Ordinance, including the identification of political appointee
positions and a structured process for evaluating
and transitioning appropriate positions to civil
service. The implementation plan should require the Department of
Human Resources to conduct a comprehensive study of political
appointment positions, and
following such study, to provide
the City Council with recommendations as to which positions
should appropriately remain exempt and which positions should be
transitioned to civil service, recognizing that the growth in the
number of political appointees has occurred over many decades,
and that sufficient time, up to one year or more as
reasonably necessary, should be afforded to conduct a
thorough, deliberate, and well-reasoned review.
So moved.
Support, Lafferty.
Discussion, Madam Chair?
Yes.
Mr. Schroeder, did you have anything to add to this item?
Just that, again, in working with council members and discussing
this matter,
that this would be something that would take place over a period of time, and it
would just kick off the process. The council, under this ordinance,
decides who's exemptWe discussed at length in
prior meetings about how the ordinance had exempt positions that don't even
exist anymore. It was out of date. And so moving forward, the council has to
pass, by resolution, decides which positions are
exempt. This is an opportunity to re-look at what's happened over the
last 50 years, which is there are almost 40 political
appointees that are not part of the merit civil service system, and to
possibly look at transitioning some of those employees who are not high-ranking,
policymaking positions, but rather they're technical administrative and should have
a job description. And again, this just kicks off the process to study it.
Like you said in your resolution, it took 50 years to get here.
We're not going to change it overnight, but at the same time, want to be
well-reasoned about it. So we would come back at the next meeting with a
resolution indicating that all current appointees remain appointees, and that
this study would get kicked off. And there could be some
recommendations coming from the administration, from civil service.
And if there is an ultimate decision, then the Civil Service Commission would
be quite busy
reviewing and approving job descriptions and so on and so forth.
So, I think that
it's probably worth looking at after 50 years.
But council has a role to play here in
deciding who is exempt, who is not part of the civil service system.
And this hasn't been looked at
for decades. So we're trying to take a reasoned
approach here, so.
And just to sort of expand a little bit in,
we're not looking to take away
the mayor's right to direct the
policy and how the city is run. There will
still, under this
revised ordinance,
the
main political appointees will have people under them,
and that appointee
takes direction from the mayor, so that that appointee then
directs the policy of those people under it.
So it's not interfering with the mayor's philosophy
or duty or the way they want the city run.
But as we've seen,
and I think especially maybe with this transition,
someone coming in that wasn't familiar with the city and had never
been involved in the
Warren
government. And you come in and you don't have
certain appointees in place, and it takes a long time to do this.
And this would sort of make the continuity between
administrations much easier, and we would have
job descriptions for perhaps,
I'll just take building department that
certifications or whatever is needed for that are certain.
Because none of those jobs have job descriptions.
There might be some, but most of them don't have job descriptions,
and we probably should have those for those sort of jobs, so.
Mm-hmm.
Madam
President, after Melody?
Ms. Moore, anything further?
No, I'm fine.
Ms. McGee and then Mr. Noonan.
Jeff, I just want to make sure just for everyone to hear
that we're making it clear that we're not taking away the
responsibilities of civil service.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
No.
Are you?
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
So,
this is going to help improve the
merit-based performance or hiring of
people and performance criteria.
And it's not a gutting of the civil service.
And also,
as the council has created this ordinance, the council can also, I'm assured
the council can change it if like a year from now we find out that things
aren't going as planned.
We can improve on it. But this
ordinance was based on several other cities have
created a similar ordinance,
major ones.
Jeff, can you tell me which ones those were again?
So,
they're usually the union stronghold cities, Detroit, Flint,
Saginaw, Bay City, Wayne County,
have similar provisions where if you're in a union
bargaining unit, some of these union contracts are, I don't know, 100
pages long. It protects the employees.
And those who are in civil service have the civil service system.
This particular resolution, after the study is done,
you could end up with a whole new class of civil servants
that
we don't have here. But yeah,
you see this in those other larger union strong cities.
And so we're following what they've done there.
And when it comes to appeals,
the
workers who are covered by union contracts
have arbitration that they can go to.
Well, there's grievance procedures-
Grievance procedures
... that ultimately leads to arbitration.
Arbitration's very rare.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Grievance procedures. That's what that-
There's grievance procedures.
Yeah.
You've approved these contract-- Council
ratifies these labor agreements, and you get copies of these labor
agreements. They're very long, and they protect the employees,
and they have all of their due process rights are covered
by their collective bargaining agreements.
We know that the union's attorney sent a letter
supporting what we're doing here, representing a number of the unions.
And so I think that this is going to be probably good
for labor harmony, I guess-
Mm-hmm
... within the city. But
we're
not going to rush. The proposal here is not to rush into it, but
to study it, get input, get feedbackAnd also
involve the Civil Service Commission.
What was the timeline that you were thinking of again?
Her resolution, the resolution language we just read said
about a year, but we're going to come back with a more solid proposal
at the next meeting after we have further discussions.
And the timeline is not necessarily a hard timeline, but we want to
give a soft timeline so that council has a chance in the future to
review this and possibly implement it during this term.
And it'll also help to provide a sense of job security
for many people who would worry
when there was a change of the mayor, that the new mayor might
throw all these people out who have
institutional
knowledge and are important for the city for that reason.
Correct.
I asked around, for example,
I originally thought it was seven.
I guess the county executive has four or five
exempt employees at the county level.
Yeah.
And that's serving the whole county.
Warren has grown to 39 over the years, and they're great
people. It's the rules that are a little bit different
because none of these positions are part of civil service.
They can get fired for any reason or no reason at all, right?
Mm-hmm.
They don't have the job protections.
But you do need to protect that top layer for the elected officials.
The clerk has a deputy, the treasurer has a deputy, council has a
deputy. The mayor has a whole staff that reports to her.
She has
top department heads that she needs to trust, and she needs to be able to
remove them if they're not meeting her expectations.
So we're not trying to get rid of that, but there needs to be a better balance
between 39 exempt
positions-
Right
... which has grown over the years.
And by the way, the ordinance says that council has to approve all
these employees from being exempt, and this ordinance has been ignored for
years. So we haven't been following the ordinance or the rules.
So this brings us into compliance with what council's role is in this
process, which is to decide which positions are exempt
and which ones are not. And then the administration can then take it from there.
Very good. I yield.
Any other-
Madam President?
Mr. Lepretre.
Mr. Schroeder, I know that you mentioned the county executive and other major
cities. One data point, the President of the
United States has 15 appointed members of the cabinet.
And we have almost 40 appointed members of
the administration. So just that data point alone
is very good. I do very much
appreciate moving to a merit-based system.
You employ people,
and the more they feel that they have
security in their job, that they're
rated and rewarded for performance on
the job, they're going to perform better.
And that's a clear indication to me that we need to do more
of that and promote that so that we have better service
to the people that pay our salaries, the
taxpayers.
There you go. Yeah.
At the end of the day, this is a very good move ahead.
Thank you.
Okay.
Question. Ms. McGee.
Will this nullify the charter
without approval?
Absolutely not. The charter says that the
city has to have a civil service system, and actually what this
is doing is coming more in compliance with the charter, especially this
implementation resolution, because we're taking
employees who are specifically exempt from civil service
and putting them back into the civil service system.
So, the charter basically says that there needs to be a
system of civil service, which we have. It's on the books.
It's been amended, and this next step really
would-- If you end up putting at least half of those employees back
into civil service, 39, so let's say it's 20 or 19.
Even if you get half of them back into civil service, you have more employees on
the merit-based system than when we started this process.
Mm-hmm.
The charter itself does not require a civil service commission.
It requires a civil service system, which we are
continuing to move forth. But keep in mind and that when
the charter was drafted in 1956 and approved in
1957,
government employees weren't in labor unions then. It was auto workers.
It was other types of employees. And over the years,
most of the city workforce that's not appointed has collectively
bargained. They have organized. They're in a union
and under PERA, the public employee, the state law
governing unions,
that supersedes to your charter, your ordinance.
Anything that's an effective bargaining agreement supersedes that, and it has since
the '60s or '70s. So,
we're bringing more civil service and more merit-based
employment to the city, especially if this piece is implemented.
Mm-hmm.
Any other discussion?
Madam Chair.
Ms. Moore.
Just a comment on political appointees.
I remember,
not
even in my recent term, but back in the early 2000s and
when Mayor Steenberg was
mayor,
many people had a problem back then because no appointees even had
job applications on file. They just got
appointed. Nobody had a resume on file.
There was no job description.
Mm-hmm.
And
I do believe a mayor has the ability to create positions
that work for their philosophy and the way they want to do things.
And they should be exempt from civil service, just like
somebody in Ms. Camp, who's the
deputyThere's certain things that you want
kept confidential, and things that we're talking about, a policy and stuff like
that, and they shouldn't be civil service.
But I think this really adds a layer of transparency, and I
think that we're certainly not going to remove anyone
that's in a position right now. Absolutely not.
That's not the intent of anybody that's an appointee right now.
This is-
You said you're not removing anyone from any position-
No
... at this time?
No.
Okay.
Absolutely not.
That's not the intent at all.
Good.
We're not going to go around and say, "Show me your qualifications, and we
think you should be out." That's not anybody's intent with this.
This is just to make better going forward.
Ms. McGee?
I have a question for Jared.
Are
you currently working on the appointed positions'
job descriptions, or do you have job descriptions?
So as mentioned in the past, a lot of cities, whenever they have an
appointee or someone that's exempt, they usually don't come with
job descriptions. So I know previously, before I came in, they started that
process. Mayor Stone was very pro creating
job descriptions for pretty much any position we could.
But there are a lot of positions that don't, that are exempt or
appointee positions. Because you'll see that in the past, whenever a
new mayor would come in or a new council, they would just want to pick someone
like, "Hey, this is my best friend.
I want him to be in charge of X, Y, Z."
But then now with this system, I see what you guys are saying with creating a job
description to more align with qualifications that would meet that
role. You see it all the time in a lot of cities.
That's why you have five or six people who are brought in that don't really
meet qualifications that they normally would if they were in a merit-based system,
because they're exempt from all of that stuff.
So there are job descriptions that exist for some of the appointees,
but I couldn't name off the top of my head who that would be.
And you are working on those?
Yeah.
So we've started that process a couple of months ago.
I know my staff has been trying to get through who is who.
The union has been reaching out, asking, "Hey, do we have a job description for
this department head?" "No." "Okay, well, what are their qualifications?
Let's work with you to figure that out." We have a mid-management kind
of exemptions for appointees that they ask questions about,
just so they know themselves how can we interact with them as a
appointee versus exempt versus not exempt.
Okay.
I guess my only last question is,
Attorney
Mary Michaels, I know that you and
Jeff have talked, and so you guys, are you on one accord
as far as the
civil service?
Other words, I'm trying to say she has an understanding of what we're doing.
Yes. If I may, Madam Chair?
Yes.
The charter does provide for a civil service system and plan,
and I don't think that has been--
The board's role has been diminished, but not
the civil service system.
The board still will serve a function.
I know I've spoken to Mr. Schroeder, and there are areas where the
board's role can be expanded. But the civil service system
itself, it's not negated by the
ordinance. That's not the way I see it.
Okay. Thank you.
Any other questions or discussions on that?
Okay.
Can we restate the motion? We
were discussing the civil servants.
We're-
This is to direct Mr. Schroeder to create
the ordinance-
Resolution
... a resolution to implement the civil service-
Exemption rules
... exemption rules.
Okay. Thank you.
Did you get that, Ms. Camp?
Okay, I will call the question. Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Bolkey?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Rogensee is a yes. Ms. Camp, did you have both of them as the
makers in support of the motion? Okay.
Yeah, I have two different ones.
Okay. Thank you.
Motion carries. Next item.
Next item, finally. 12E, lease
agreement between Urban Seed and the City of Warren.
So moved with discussion.
Support Lafferty.
Discussion, Ms. Moore.
So after months of frustration and little meaningful
progress, at the urging of certainly Mr.
Bolkey and Mr. Noonan,
and Ms. Rogensee has been involved for a long time, and everybody on
this council has been very supportive and interested in
getting this moved. But we just decided
it was time to take action. So the legal affairs subcommittee, which is Mr.
Lafferty and myself, and our council's attorney,
Jeff Schroeder, along with Jeff Matthews and John Hoffman, on
Sunday, I think we met about three hours on a Teams meeting,
and we hashed out the agreement point by point by
point. And then after, when I think
we got to a pretty good place where everybody was in agreement with
all of the provisions, Mr. Schroeder then worked the rest
of Sunday and part of Monday to get a final document.
Unfortunately,
Mr.
Hoffman's mother passed. We're very sorry about that, and sorry he's not here.
But I'm sure he'll be very pleased that
we've
worked out the critical
details collaboratively.To have a
workable lease agreement. And really it was through
focused negotiation and good faith collaboration and
a shared commitment to practical solutions. Mr.
Schroeder carefully modified the lease language to ensure it became
acceptable to all parties involved. This productive effort...
I lost my place.
I left my mouse today, so I can't--
I lost my place. This productive effort demonstrates what
can be accomplished when community leaders, residents, and legal counsel work
together with a common purpose, prioritizing progress
over politics. From the very beginning, this project has had the full
support of every member of the Warren City Council.
Ms. Roggensie started last year in very support
of getting this up and running and has been working
on the actual ordinance-
For a year
... for a year.
And she was frustrated as well, I think.
So,
as I said, Ms. Roggensie played an important role with working with the city
attorney's office to draft a broader community garden ordinance,
further reinforcing council's long-term commitment to supporting and
protecting these important neighborhood assets.
Our collective goal has always been to create a sustainable path
forward for the South Warren Community Garden.
This agreement marks an important milestone toward preserving a
cherished community resource and ensuring the South Warren
residents can continue benefiting from its
positive impact for years to come.
And I do really want to commend
my colleagues for their interest and
support of this,
Mr.
Lafferty and Mr. Schroeder's time this weekend of
working with this, and to Jeff and John
for being very agreeable, and I thought
it was a really good negotiation. It's one of the best I've ever been
involved in, and I learned a lot.
And I come away with a very positive feeling about the
entire
process. And before I move off and let
other people talk, I would like to know, and perhaps you can tell us,
and we can get word out, what it is you need from the public,
how the public can help you be more successful, what we
can do as a council, how we can promote and
ask the community what you need to make you more
successful. So maybe we can do that in the future.
You can let me know. And maybe we'll even
think down the line, maybe doing a little fundraiser or something like
that. I think we can all work together on something like
that.
So thank you for being so agreeable and a pleasure to work
with. I commend all of you for being here and your
support and how long you've been working.
I love that sign, "Give peas." I understand it's probably a
chance or something. I can't read the whole sign, but I like it.
So that's for me, and thank you to everybody.
Madam Chair?
Mr. Lafferty.
Thank you. And thank you, Ms. Moore, for your work
as well.
On Sunday, we absolutely had a very good
negotiating session. And as Ms. Moore said,
both parties came together. We worked through the details, and it was
exceptionally productive, and we now have a working
lease agreement, a very positive and productive one that
we'll demonstrate here in just a couple of months as the
sprouts grow. Everyone will be looking forward to seeing that.
So very excited to be a part of that and
look forward to more gardens to work off of this template
as this program can now expand, especially under the ordinance.
As we described a couple of weeks ago, the lease agreement was the
short-term solution. Get this up and running, and we'll work on the
ordinance as the long-term solution going forward for the entire city.
Thank you.
Any other discussion?
Okay, hearing and seeing none, I will call the question. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Most definitely.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Roggensie is a yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Next item.
Next item is 12F, override of mayor's veto
regarding agenda item 12B of April
14, 2026.
Motion to override.
Support.
Dwyer.
Dwyer. Rock, paper, scissors.
I'll defer to Mr. Dwyer.
Thank you.
Motion by Ms. Moore. The motion is to
override the veto.
And support was Mr. Dwyer.
Is there any discussion on veto overrides?
Did Mr. Schroeder want to-
He can.
You can. Okay. It's not excluded. Mr.
Schroeder, anything you want to share about this legally?
I'll let the council-- I'll wait for council comments.
Sure. Go for it.
Okay. So this was item 12B from
April 14th,
the comprehensive civil service ordinance amendment.
And the council doesn't have to give a reason to override a veto
under the charter, but I thoughtFor clarity's sake, we can
discuss one of the procedural issues here, which is
the mayor's veto was sent by email
to the clerk's office on Saturday
afternoon, April 18th, when the clerk's
office was closed. And the clerk's office did
not open that email until Monday the 20th, and I believe they
printed it out and stamped it at that time.
And so, for the following reasons, the mayor's veto is legally
ineffective.
First of all, it was not filed in the office of the city clerk.
Sending something to an email inbox is not filing it in the office of the
clerk. Yes, we do have an old charter,
and it may need some updates, but certainly, we have to follow the charter as it's
written until it's amended.
And no ordinance provision authorizes the filing of
vetoes by an email. It was sitting in an inbox.
It wasn't received and filed. What's important with a legal filing, and I
think most people at some point in their lives have had to file
something, it's a legal document. It needs to be done within a certain timeframe.
And if it's filed late, it's not considered
to be on time if there's a deadline.
So there's key elements in what is involved in a legal filing.
It's not just delivery to the proper office. It's not just sending it.
You could slide it under the clerk's door. You could send it to the fax machine.
You could get a drone and deliver it to the clerk's house.
But it has to not just be delivered, it has to be accepted and
placed on the official record. That's how an official filing is done, and that's
how the charter is written. Even with Freedom of Information Act, I know
a lot of folks like to submit Freedom of Information Act requests to the city
or FOIAs. The city's policy establishes that documents received by
email or fax are deemed to have been received on the following
business day.
So applying this principle, the veto was not received until Monday, April
20th, which is after the deadline.
Certainly, if we tell residents that if they're going to use
email to exercise their right to obtain
official city records and documents, that it's not counted until the next
business day. They might decide to go in and have that
into the office and have it personally received.
We did have the example in the prior administration,
Mayor Fouts, he did file a veto on a Saturday, but he called the
clerk ahead of time and arranged for the clerk to open the office and had the veto
received and filed in the office of the clerk.
And so that veto was timely filed. This was sitting in an email
inbox. I've also advised the council that
there are times and places where electronic filing is allowed as a
method of filing. I know our Macomb County Circuit Court allows electronic
filing, but you need to follow their process.
I'm a lawyer who practices in the Macomb Circuit Court and many courts in Michigan,
and I can't just send an email with my documents. I got to follow their process.
And my stuff can't just sit in an email inbox until the clerk comes in Monday
morning to put it in the file.
So ultimately, emailing something to the
clerk on a Saturday is no different than sliding it under the office door or faxing
it to an unattended machine because in each case, the document has
been attempted to be delivered, but it's not been received and filed the
way official documents have to be received and filed.
So
I believe an override of the veto would put this legal issue to bed.
Thank you.
Any other discussion?
Yes, please.
Mr. Noonan.
So I'm hoping that you might,
on behalf of the council, send a letter just
making sure that this is clearly enunciated in writing.
And I think that if you filed it perhaps with the clerk,
that that might show how this is done.
I will follow council's direction as such.
Okay.
Thank you.
I have a question.
Anything else, Mr. Noonan?
Are you-
Okay. Ms. McGee.
Just to be clear,
even though the clerk had received it on
Friday, she... No.
Saturday.
Saturday. She received it on Saturday, and it was stamped on
Monday. If the clerk said, "I received it on
Saturday," it's not enough to say that.
You have to-
Well, I don't know that the clerk received it on Saturday.
It was sent to an email.
It was sitting in the clerk's email inbox.
And I believe the clerk came in on Monday and retrieved the email on Monday.
That's what happened.
Okay. Which makes it late.
Yes.
Madam President?
Mr. Dwyer.
Yeah, in regards to that, yes, it was sent by email on a Saturday,
but it was not received and acknowledged until
Monday, which was outside the timeline.
So really, it was not valid.
That's all I have.
Madam President, again.
Mr. Noonan.
So to Mr. Schroeder,
it's not acceptable to email it in at
any rate. We don't have a procedure for emailing
in a veto.
Correct?
There is nothing that allows for email of veto. We have emails of FOIAs.
We have emails of other documents, but email of a veto isn't there.
I'm not taking the position that if the mayor emailed an
attachment of a veto on Wednesday, and the
clerk received it on Thursday and received and filed it after she printed it out,
that's sort of a different set of facts.
Oh, okay.
Okay? I don't know. We're not looking at that.
Okay.
But there certainly is no electronic or email filing contemplated in
our very old charter. But it says it has to be filed in
the office of the clerk-
Right
... which is why I think the prior mayor, Mr.
Fouts, went to great lengths on a Saturday to-
round everybody up and get them at City Hall so he could file that thing on time,
and we looked at it at the time and said, "Well, it's a clerk open the
office. It was received and filed.
At least at the moment, it was a proper filing."
The council could change that in future-
Yes
... but we haven't done so yet.
Correct.
And therefore, that's not allowable.
Correct.
And-
Madam Chair.
Yes, sir.
Go.
Anything further, Mr. Noonan?
So a court would
probably go with us on this.
That's my position, yes.
Great. Okay. I yield.
Ms. Mohr.
Yeah. Just to go back to the last
term, when the mayor would file a veto,
no matter what day it was,
the veto was stamped filed,
and we received the veto from the
clerk. So the mayor would give the
veto to the clerk. They would stamp it filed received.
They would send us that copy with a letter informing us
of veto. This is the first time I've seen an email
that went to the clerk copying City Council.
It's always come from the clerk's office.
Mm-hmm. Thank you.
Ms. McGee.
I just had a question, Jeff, that Attorney
Mary Michaels was aware that it was supposed to
be filed within that 96 hours, and she
was aware that it wasn't.
I'm not going to speak to what Ms. Michaels knows on this or
not. I don't know. I think the communications between Ms.
Michaels and the mayor would be privileged, just as our conversations-
Okay
... just as our conversations in closed session, which we had today, are
privileged.
Mm-hmm.
So I wouldn't want to breach that.
Yeah. Okay.
Any other discussion?
Okay, I will call the question. This is to override.
Ms. Mohr?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Rogan sees a yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item is...
Am I on 13L, Mr. Lafferty?
You are-
13L, request to approve the appointment of
Herbert Heide to the Planning Commission with a term
expiration of June 30th, 2028.
Motion to approve.
Support Lafferty. Gladly.
Any discussion?
Madam Chair.
Ms. Mohr.
I just want to say, a few months ago, Mr.
Heide was before us for an issue, and it was so nice to see him.
I hadn't seen him for a long time, and I was happy to see his
appointment come over. I think he will be just a fabulous addition to the Planning
Commission, and we're looking forward to great things
from you, Herb.
Clarifying this is a new appointment, correct?
It is.
Okay.
Mr. Noonan.
Sure. Jonathan, you didn't want to go?
Oh, I do, but you called first.
Oh, I did. Okay. Well, I just wanted to say that I've heard
good things about you. I met you before at Liz Tranquida's, my
friend Liz Tranquida, and I just wanted to mention her.
And also,
former county commissioner and current planning commissioner,
Andre Dugi,
has supported you with an open heart
and 100%, so
I haven't heard anybody say anything against you.
Did you want to say something real quick?
Not really. I just came up here to see if there's any questions.
Oh, I don't have any questions, but thank you for showing up
tonight.
Thank you, Mr. Noonan.
I yield.
Thank you, Mr. Noonan. Mr. Lafferty.
Thank you. And Mr. Heide, it's great to see you again.
You and I go back, I think now, more than 30 years.
Your high school days.
Thank you. It's great to see you. I'm very happy to see the appointment come over,
and welcome aboard.
Thank you, sir.
Do a good job.
Thank you.
I will call the question.
Ms. Mohr.
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Rogan sees a yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item is 13A, request to approve amendment to the water and sewer rate
ordinance to reflect rates and charges incorporated in the
2027 mayor's recommended budget. First reading. So moved.
Support Lafferty.
Any discussion?
Hearing and seeing none, I'll call the question. Ms. Mohr?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Rogan sees a yes. Motion carries. Next item.
13B, request for the 37th District Court for a line item transfer of
funds in the amount of $78,500 to cover the
increased cost of interpreting services, office supplies, and to
cover the first-year license and service agreement, contract agreement to
VMware server virtualization platform
consideration and adoption of a resolution. So moved.
Support Lafferty.
Any discussion?
Hearing and seeing none, I'll call the question. Ms. Mohr?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Rogan sees a yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item is C, request of the 37th District Court for an increase of
award to provide certified foreign language services retroactively
for the current period and each subsequent annual period from an annual
amount not to exceed $80,000 to an annual amount not to
exceed $120,000. Consideration and adoption of a
resolution. So moved.
Support Lafferty.
Any discussion?
Hearing and seeing none, I'll call the question. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Roggenklep is yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item is 13D, request of human resources to increase the loss
fund contribution of impressed account with CompOne
Administrators in the amount of $60,000.
Consideration and adoption of a resolution so moved.
Support Dwyer.
Any discussion?
Hearing and seeing none, I'll call the question. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Roggenklep is yes. Motion carries. Next item.
13E, request of the Parks and Recreation Department for a line item
transfer of funds in the amount of $17,413
to cover the increased costs associated with the purchase of maintenance
supplies, consideration and adoption of a resolution so moved.
Support Lafferty.
Any discussion?
Hearing and seeing none, I'll call the question. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Roggenklep is a yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item is 13F, request of the Parks and Recreation
Department to increase the award ITBW-1544
for janitorial supplies in the amount of
$10,224.60 to be split
between Armorux and Supply Den, Inc.
Contract total is $25,000. Consideration and adoption of a
resolution so moved.
Support Lafferty.
Any discussion?
Hearing and seeing none, I'll call the question. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Roggenklep is a yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item, 13G, request of the Parks and Recreation director for
an adjustment in budgeted revenues and appropriations in the amount
of $400,000 to account for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources
Grant award for Shaw Parks Playground and Cricket
Field with a project match of
$585,200
for a total project cost of $985,200.
Consideration and adoption of a resolution so moved with discussion.
Support Lafferty with discussion.
Discussion, Ms. Moore, and then Mr. Lafferty.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I see Mr. Spiller is in the audience coming
forward.
Good evening, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Council.
Hi, how are you?
Good. How are you?
Good.
Is a picture of
the proposed out in the hallway?
No.
We don't have one of this one?
Not of this. This one has not been developed yet.
This is a grant that we received in 2024 that we went out
for. It was actually just awarded to us recently from the Michigan
State Natural Trust Fund. So we're right now in the planning phases of this
design phase.
Okay. So we'll have some renderings.
Hopefully soon. It's going to be broken up in two projects.
The ADA requirements for the bathroom and the cricket will be one section, and
the playground is the second section.
The grant calls for three deliverables, which is a cricket court,
ADA improvements to the restrooms, as well as the pavilion,
walkways, and a new playground structure.
Okay. So,
this has been sort of in the works for a long time to put a cricket field at Shaw?
Yeah, this was put in in 2024 for Michigan State Trust Fund grant, and we
were awarded that. And it calls for these three items to be by the
grant eligible. We have to
commit to these three items.
Right. I do remember in the last term
actually, the last administration, we did talk about
Shaw, and that was actually the preferred spot for cricket
fields. From those people that played the sport,
they said that the ground and soil
conditions and whatever configuration of that park was probably the
ideal place to put cricket fields.
It is. Where the
old baseball field is, is a perfect size and we have a
pathway that walks right around there which encompasses it pretty well.
Yeah. I think it'll be nice. We have a large population that
plays cricket now.
And this will be a professional cricket court, so it will not be-
Yeah
... this will be done right, the correct way.
Very nice. Thank you.
Question.
Mr. Lafferty, then Ms. McGee.
Thank you to Mr. Spiller. Congratulations on the award-
Thank you
... first of all. And what I imagine and what we
envisioned when we talked about the development at Shaw
was
pretty much, I think, very close in
size to Helmich Park.
We know how large and how many people
Helmich Park serves, and we needed,
for a municipality our size, a second
large park that had many different amenities.
And this is going to be,
I don't know any cricket references, but the only baseball
reference I can say, this is the diamond of the
southern
section of the city. That another wonderfully
large park with all of these amenities that we're putting in,
and what I believe, as we discussed before, this is only the
beginning. We have other plans. There's potential
expansion and other acquisitions.
And I know that we have baseball diamonds from the
school that are a potential option there
as well that we still need to explore.
So there's more to come here and certainly
parking and other
things, but I definitely look forward to groundbreaking and certainly the opening.
So well done, sir.
Thank you
Thank you. Ms. McGee?
Question regarding the cricket parks.
From what my understanding is, is that you can also
use the cricket park for other sports.
Am I correct?
You can. The biggest thing about a cricket field is the pitch, which is
their
basically how they throw the ball. That's a very protective area.
You can do other things on the field,
but we're going to keep it... You can do other the games stuff,
soccer and stuff, but we're going to keep it mainly for-- We're going to keep it
professional and make sure the grounds are leveled and
attentive. So, any sport that goes on there will be
professional. The biggest thing about a cricket court is that pitch.
We'll have to keep people off that, use that only when it's being used for cricket.
Oh. I was told that it could be used for if you wanted
to, when they're not there to do it, use it for
sports like soccer. You could also use it.
Yeah, except for the pitch that's in the middle, a cricket field is 500 feet
long. So it's a large area. You could put multiple soccer fields in there without
even damaging or worrying about the pitch at all.
I will hope in the future, one of the things that I'm concerned about
when you bring this type of activity at the parks,
that maybe those who don't know anything about it, they have children, that
they can do some type of a training
for those type of sports.
Actually, now Parks and Recreation is offering cricket classes right now for youth.
Oh, great.
We're offering them right now as we speak.
Great.
Any other discussion?
I just wanted to say thank you. This has been in the works for a couple of years,
and I'm happy to see it come to fruition.
Mm-hmm. Thank you.
I will call the question. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Roggenky is a yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item is 13H, request of the police department for an
increase in budgeted revenues and appropriations in the amount of
$84,481.91 to
account for the receipt of a grant from the Michigan Office of
Highway Safety Planning, and the reappropriation of the
2025 grant funds, consideration and adoption of a
resolution. So moved.
Support Dwyer.
Any discussion?
Seeing and hearing none, I will call the question. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Roggenky is a yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item is 13I, request of the review panel to
approve the award to design, fabricate, and install two custom display
cases for the fire department to Division 6
Manufacturing and Installation in an amount not to exceed
$24,500, consideration and adoption
of a resolution. So moved, with discussion.
Support Lafferty.
Discussion, Ms. Moore.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I was actually on this
RFP. These are display cases at Station
5 and 1, so to put memorabilia
and things. I was kind of shocked at the price, but that's the way things are.
So, I'm in favor of it.
Good enough.
Any other discussion?
Okay, seeing and hearing none, I will call the question. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Roggenky is a yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item is request of the fire department to waive the bid process and award the
purchase of four Striker Expedition powered stair
chairs to Striker Sales LLC in the grand total amount of
$68,871.80, consideration
and adoption of a resolution. So moved, with discussion.
Support Dwyer.
Discussion, Ms. Moore.
Commissioner,
I'll let you think about this on the way down.
This is a little different than the
hydraulic
gurneys.
They're actually pretty cool.
Somewhat.
They can handle .
They're powered.
Just
in the same concept that the gurneys are powered to go up
and down, the stair chairs will actually climb stairs
and descend stairs and eliminate the need
to... It's a chair the same way, but
instead
it'll make it easier so we won't have to lift and carry
people up and down the stairs.
Two-story house, well, that's perfect.
Yes.
That's a really good idea.
Will they be on engines or squads?
Squads.
There's room for them in the squads?
Yes.
They don't take the place of the
current?
Yes.
They do take the place.
Yes.
So they're multipurpose.
Well, they'll replace the
manual stair chairs on those four squads first,
and then next fiscal, we plan to buy three
more for the other frontline squads.
We just didn't have enough funds in this fiscal year
to purchase all seven. But they're
a little bigger than the manual stair chairs, but yes, they will
fit, and they will be on the squads.
Eventually,
we'll probably
get them to every
apparatus because our engines are ALS non-transport units.
Right.
But that does not mean they couldn't be on a call where there's a need
to move a patient from an upper level to a
lower level, to ground level, or from a lower level to
ground level also.
Yeah.
This,
I'm sure, makes itQuicker?
Safer-
Safer
... for both the patient and-
That saves our
firefighters' backs and knees and those kind of things-
Yes
... which,
we want our patients to be
safe.
Yes.
That's number one, and our employees.
But this will also save money in the long run for the city because we have less
workers' comp
claims.
You hit everything on the head.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Madam-
Happy to support this.
Madam President through the chair.
Yes, Mr. Dwyer.
About the chairs.
And they can handle up to about 500 pounds, correct?
Yes.
Okay. That's huge. That's great.
They're rated to 500 but just like the cots-
Mm-hmm
... they will exceed that also,
but they're rated to that amount.
Okay.
We don't take a scale with us. We'll use-
Right
... and we'll assist because two operators or essentially
two firefighters will have to be one at the top and one at the bottom
to assist and guide to ensure the safety of the patient
being transported on the chair.
Sure.
So yes.
Okay. That's all I have. Thank you.
Madam Chair, one more comment.
Mm-hmm.
And
maybe the public should realize this, that oftentimes when a
call comes in to 911 dispatch,
certainly in lift situations, the family calling or
the person calling often will give the weight of the person
to give people a heads-up if it's someone that is 6 or
700 pounds or-
Yes
... that you know that you have to have extra manpower or
whatever you need to do-
And we-
... in that situation.
And we thank our residents for that because that allows
us to request additional manpower to assist
with the lift and to prevent injuries and the safety
of the patient also.
Okay.
Absolutely.
It is great that they offer that. It's not easy for a lot of people to
call and ask for help.
Right, and-
And I've talked about this lift assist for a long time because I've had
friends and people I've known over many years that got in the
situation where oftentimes, the
wife and husband that she can't pick up and
they feel badly about calling and I remind them, and your
guys remind them all the time-
Right. And there's no charge.
Right.
There is no charge for a lift assist.
We have
people that have called multiple times, and they're so
appreciative. And I know at one
time there was a rumor out there, that
started in other communities that assuming that Warren was going
to follow suit in charging but no.
Those people paid taxes-
They pay taxes
... all their lives. And this is not like nursing home where people are in a
nursing home-
Right
... that come from all over-
Right
... and they're paying a price and, you know.
A nursing home is a different situation.
There are people there who are paid to do that job, and they should be staffed
adequately to perform lift assist.
But to our residents, our homeowners, our renters in our city,
they pay taxes-
Right
... as part of the bill of living here.
And they're entitled to assistance in their golden years or if they
have a disability or whatever issue it is that's
preventing them from being able to be mobile enough to move from a
chair or a bed to a wheelchair or vice versa.
And they are appreciative, and I think they're super
appreciative of how they're treated by the guys and Peyton.
Yes.
I have to start... I can't say guys anymore.
Not just guys.
The guys and Peyton.
Yes.
So yeah.
She doesn't like to be singled out but-
Well-
She is-
She's one of a kind here
... she is one of a kind right now. And hopefully we'll have more
women firefighters in the department.
Yeah, we just got to get them on that CPAT.
Yes. That is the big challenge. Although
Peyton did it. So-
I've looked at her, I go, "Girl, I don't know how you passed it."
Well, she comes from a line of public servants.
Her father and aunt were both police officers, so
she is a chip off the family tree.
Yeah, but that's way easier being a police officer, right?
Right?
She made the right choice. Let's say that.
I'm not sure about that. Let me think about that one.
Oh, my God.
Just kidding.
You guys do make better chili.
Yeah.
I did hear that.
Thank you for the information. I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Oh, you might as well stay up here, I guess.
Crazy.
We got one more?
Yes.
We got to vote on this one.
Any other discussion?
Hearing and seeing none, I will call the question. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Bolky?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Rogan C is a yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Next item is 13 K, request of the review panel to
approve the award to design, fabricate, and install stainless
steel shelving and storage cabinets for fire station number one and number
five to Stafford Smith, Inc. in a total amount of
$49,549.26.
Consideration of adoption
of a resolution, so moved with discussion.
Support Lafferty.
Discussion, Ms. Moore.
I didn't look this up, so my question is, what budget is this coming out of?
Out of the fire department budget.
Oh, not the construction budget, out of the fire department budget.
Yeah. We just dis-
There's not,
Mr. Fox advised,
at least two months ago that the construction
funding was near zero and would not support any
additional-
Right
... expenditures from that bond issue.
Yeah.
So therefore, it was important enough,
umJust like people move into a
brand-new home and start making adjustments to the home, once the
guys and woman, because Peyton is stationed at one of the stations-
And Peyton. Austin Peyton, right?
Yeah. They decided after living in it
that they didn't have enough storage space and for in the
kitchen and in the
day room portion of the area, as well as the EMS
supply room, to safely and securely
store items in the EMS room, as well
as in the kitchen and day room area.
I haven't been over to the new station.
I'm going to have to pop by one and see, make sure they're taken care of.
Please wait until the cabinets-
The shelves are in
... the display. So that'll pretty much-
I've been in there, but just not, I haven't been there in a few months.
Right.
So.
They've made significant adjustments.
It looks completely different than the first days
because they're living in it now.
Right.
I
did see that they
moved in.
Yes.
It's obvious they live there. So.
Yes. They've created an additional living area.
They've made some modification. They've personalized the spaces.
Yeah. I get it. All right. Thanks, Commissioner.
Mm-hmm.
Any other discussion?
Hearing and seeing none, I'll call the question. Ms. Moore?
Yes.
Mr. Lafferty?
Yes.
Mr. Dwyer?
Yes.
Mr. Boyke?
Yes.
Mr. Noonan?
Yes.
Ms. McGee?
Yes.
Rogan, C is a yes. Motion carries. Next item.
Thank you. Madam Chair.
Thank you.
Before we start in on audience, if I could just make an announcement.
This is the last meeting we will be having in the auditorium.
Starting next meeting, we will be meeting in a conference room
that's just around the corner. We've recently renovated the room,
and we're hoping there's enough seats in it.
This is just temporarily while we make ADA modifications.
The slope of this room has to be changed.
All of the seating is going to be changed.
So, we will offer-- There'll be a
CCTV outside the room,
and we'll have seating, and just in case we get
overflow at times, we're trying to accommodate everyone.
It might take us a little
time to get it all right. But we're not sure how long it'll be.
I think certainly through the summer.
And we're going to do the best we can to try to accommodate everyone.
We might not have room for signs because it is a
much smaller area, but you would certainly be welcome to have
signs outside in the hallway that people could see as
they walk into the building. I think that would be fine.
And also, happy anniversary to Tony and Dorothy
Baker. It's their 47th anniversary today, so
congratulations to them. So now we can go on to audience
participation.
Thank you.
For general.
Thank you. Members of the audience who would like to address city council this
evening may do so under Audience by filling out a form.
There is a timer. We have three minutes.
First up is Sarah Spurgeon. This is for general
topics. Anyone can speak about anything.
And after Sarah is Gerald Hassbacher.
Sarah, when you come, if you're still here.
Sarah still here? No. You are, yeah.
You need to give your address for the record. It's not on the form.
I just moved to Sterling Heights, so I'm still not quite sure
of my numbers. But I know where I live, I assure you.
Okay. All right.
I just wanted to thank you very much for extending also your
cannabis hours until 12:00 PM. Not everybody
on your panel is a cannabis professional.
I am a national scholar for cannabis manufacturing.
And so many of the places are suffering now because Gretchen
Whitmer put a 24% wholesale tax upon
our retailers. And for my friend Hal, it's the same
thing as me wanting to go buy some Miracoip at midnight.
If people want to come to the city of Warren and buy a regulated
substance that's in your metric system, that's for your
recreational stores, I feel like that's a good thing
because cities who fail to adopt these things, the
shops from another location, they have 30-mile delivery
ranges. So if you want to keep your business in
Warren for a regulated and safe substance, then you're going to
want to make sure that you give them every incentive to operate legally
and effectively, so that way you're not giving away your dollars to
other municipalities.
Out in the rural parts of Michigan, those that did not put their shops
in, all the other counties took their money.
And so we have people who've been working on this a very long time, and it can be
regulated by cannabis professionals such as myself.
I'm also an American cannabis nurse. I don't sell drugs. I study them.
It's about people, and it's about politics, and it does have a civic element,
but it requires a lot more nuances.
Also, thank you for considering
all your plants here and all your plant people in the city of
Warren. We're a $300 billion
industry, and there is a lot of individuals with a lot of passion and a lot of
integrity in it. This week, I am
going to be interviewing for an extraction technician.
Don't worry about the high THC. And if someone's smoking in
the car or they're utilizing in the car, that's a criminal issue.
And so it's a big convoluted thing.
When it's regulated effectively, it's healthy and good for your communities.
Thank you. Next is Gerald Hassbacher, and after
Gerald is Annie Sinclair.
Good evening. I'm here to talk about funding the Climate
Action Plan, and I can't believe that the city of
Warren would be climate deniers. I'm not
sure. Or think that your constituents wouldn't
understand what the changing weather is doing.
As the third largest city, we should be leading the charge,
and yet we're falling behind much smaller cities.
So
I hope we can get that passed. I have a few points to make about
it. That
Climate Action Plan helps limit future extreme weather such as
tornadoes, storms, and floods, which was on item
1110A.
Would help limit events that destroy crops
and raise the cost of food and the availability of
food. Lower the availability of food such as coffee,
cocoa, olive oil, seafood, citrus fruits,
and beef and dairy.
It would limit the increases
insurance and utility bills and transportation, and
it would limit poor health outcomes from
heat-related illness, respiratory issues from poor air
quality, water and food-borne diseases, malnutrition,
vector-borne diseases, and mental health disorders.
I don't know what we're waiting for, and I hope I see that on the agenda, and I
hope it gets passed. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Next is Annie Sinclair.
After Annie Sinclair is Lori Harris.
Thank you for hearing me out once again.
I just want to say thank you to every single member of this council
for the support, for the action taken on Sunday, and
everything that you have done to bring together
the residents of South Warren and that community garden.
I've been in that neighborhood. I was brought home as an infant.
I have seen so many changes, and not one in
many, many years as positive as the one that all of you
have stepped up and helped us. Thank you really from the bottom of
my heart.
Thank you. Next is Annie Sinclair.
After Annie Sinclair-- Was that? That was you. Thank you.
Lori Harris. After Lori Harris is Pete Sutliff.
Hi. Sorry that I thought that
the cricket field was on the consent agenda.
I wanted to talk about a respectable and elected official
of a mayor, and it's very disappointing that
she does not want to appoint the persons to the Elected Officials
Compensation Board Commission as required by
the state law,
and is willing to be forced by a court action.
I'm not sure why you gave her until July 1st.
She's already been informed. She's already heard this come up
at the table.
This is not news to her, but she's refusing, and that's
very disappointing.
It's very disappointing, but I'd also like to challenge Mayor Stone,
and I dare you, Mayor Stone, to totally
stop your slideshow of photo ops at your community
check-in on Thursday night at Burnett Branch of the library.
I want you to just sit and listen. I want you to pay
attention to the residents and not be
trying to tell them what they should or shouldn't do.
I want you to listen. And they shouldn't have to sit through half
an hour of photos of your photo ops from the
last five months.
And I also want to talk about the Asian... Let's see.
Is it Asian Pacific
Women's Conference or presentation here at the community
center? That's being sponsored by the city
and the mayor's office, I'm assuming like it was before,
and it's not appropriate if that's what's happening.
If a group wants to have a celebration, let them do it,
but the city money should not go to it.
So if city money is going to that,
then city money needs to go to a Polish festival or a
Ukrainian festival or a
veterans celebration.
But I think the point is that that one
organization should not be getting city money just for their
celebration.
And
that's pretty much it. Have a good night, you
guys.
Thank you. Next is Pete Sutliff. After Pete Sutliff
is Carl Henley.
Good evening, Council. I did not know that Urban Seed was going to be on the
agenda. I would've spoken earlier.
But we all appreciate
the encouragement and efforts you've made to support the South
Warren Community Garden.
The garden is a much needed activity in South Warren.
It has really helped knit together the community while
also filling a need for nourishing food as grocery
prices rise while wages remain stagnant.
In fact, the food grown in this garden is better than the food most people
can afford from a supermarket. Organic food used to just
be called food before industrial agriculture adopted the practice of
spraying all kinds of chemicals on it to grow it more
cheaply.Compared to food grown without chemicals.
To end it,
calling it just a pilot project harms the community that developed around
it.
That is like at the end of a lab experiment, euthanizing all the lab
rats and calling the experiment a success.
This pilot project is a success and should be applauded,
sustained, encouraged, and reproduced elsewhere in the city.
Again, thank you for your efforts to do just that.
Now, on another topic related to community health, I would
strongly encourage the council to remove from the table and vote on
the proposal to develop a climate action plan.
I wonder what it would take for that to happen. Tornadoes?
Plague of locusts? Parting of the Red Run?
Or some other biblical event?
You've been given many, many reasons to vote on this proposal.
Jerry Hasbecker just gave you about 15 or 20 more.
You unanimously voted to approve the request for a proposal
for companies to bid on in the first place, and then the RFP committee
unanimously approved BlueStrike Environmental as the
winning bidder. So what seems to be the
problem? It certainly is less costly in the short run to do nothing,
but that is also shortsighted and will cost far more in the long
run.
I thought council had some vision for the future when you sent this proposal
out to bid.
In a decade, none of you will be on council anymore, but your
legacies will remain.
Vote to pass this proposal and leave a legacy of caring for your
community, not only in the present, but well into the
future.
And I guess I will just leave it there. Thank you.
Thank you. Next is Carl Henley.
After Carl Henley is Jeff Matthews.
Council President Rog NT, it's good to see you healthy again, ma'am.
It's good to have you up there.
Under Michigan constitutional law, amendments to a city
charter, including civil service, require a vote of the people.
While a city council can pass ordinances, those cannot
effectively nullify specific charter provisions regarding
core civil service functions without a public vote.
Warren City Charter, October 27,
1957, signed by G. Mennen Williams.
The city charter is sacrosanct. No city ordinance can eliminate,
supersede, or nullify our constitution, the keystone
of Warren, the Warren City Charter.
Theoretically,
a city ordinance passed, vetoed, and overridden, if it's in conflict with the
Warren City Charter, that city ordinance is invalid.
Times may change. The city charter does not.
After President Grant left office in
1877, the United States was reeling.
Graft, corruption, political cronyism, bribes,
salary grab, nepotism, the spoils system, the Tweed
Ring, and Tammany Hall.
In 1881, James Garfield won the presidency on a clean up
politics campaign. He was assassinated by a political hack
hoping to get political patronage.
Chester Arthur took over with merit-based federal
vision for hiring and for firing.
Congress subsequently came up in 1883 with the
Pendleton Act, which created the Civil Service Administration and Commission.
The Pendleton Act guaranteed federal employment on the basis
of testing for hiring and promotions.
It abolished the spoils system and granted hiring and promotion
based on merit. Nurturing civil service was Big Steve,
Grover Cleveland. Every president from Teddy Roosevelt
to Barack Obama has supported civil service.
Today, three million federal employees enjoy civil service.
Add state and local employees, it's 19.8 million in
America. Just because it's old, 143 years, it still
is the best system, removing, eliminating favoritism.
It still works. I'm a strong proponent of civil service.
You should be, too.
In November of 2023, I was elated when I saw the
seven of you elected. I was also elated when Mayor Stone came into
power. 16 years of bickering and infighting was
replaced with hopes of better days, more cooperation, and better
conflict resolution. Constituents wanted change.
Yet, a year and a half later, we're still not quite there.
My favorite track event is the high jump because you never lower the bar.
We have issues with the commission appointments, the budget, and of course, civil
service. Warren government is now in the news for all the wrong reasons.
Warren residents-
Mr. Henley, you're at time.
Thank you.
Next is Mr. Matthews.
After Jeff Matthews is Caitlin Donnelly.
I just wanted to come up here and
thank all you members individually for your contributions.
Mr. Boyke,
you've called me personally several times, and you've really looked out for your
constituents here.
I've been relating that to them, and I cannot thank you
enough for taking this on and really helping to push it
forward. Mr. Noonan, you are our largest
individual donor to the project, and without you, the beds that are there right
now probably would not exist, or they would've come out of my own pocket.
Ms. McGee,
you have been a fantastic supporter, and you are always there to talk with us
and to really try to push this forward.
We appreciate it so muchUm, Councilwoman Roggen sees,
um, your efforts across these past few years, uh, have been nothing
less than Herculean. And, um, I really can't fully express it,
the things that we've gone through, the frustrations, uh, and the ups and downs.
So it feels very good for this to finally hopefully be put to rest.
Uh, Ms. Moore, um, I can't thank you enough, especially with the birth of
that young child to come on a video call with us
on a Sunday and take a lot of time to go
through some stuff, um, and let some cooler heads prevail,
and hopefully things will just work on out, and, um, we can just
really enjoy the literal fruits and vegetables of these labors.
Uh, Mr. Schroeder, you as well, uh, taking the time
and just really, you must have just been at your wit's end there on a
beautiful Sunday having to write and rewrite these things.
Um, I really appreciate it. Um, Mr.
Lafferty, I cannot thank you enough for being such a champion and as a
fellow gardener, uh, knowing and pointing out the
logistics hurdles and the specifics that, um, I think
only a fellow gardener would know.
Um, a lot of the rewrites you did on the lease, um,
and just like your attention to detail was outstanding, and, uh, I very much
appreciate it and appreciate the time that you all took, especially you three on
your Sunday, to come together and to help us push something across the
line that is reasonable and I think will really, really boost and
bolster, um, the possibilities for more gardens in the future, hopefully.
And Mr. Dwyer, you have done nothing but support us throughout every meeting and,
uh, your vote and your voice is always appreciated as well.
Um, I want to let everyone know that I will start construction immediately on, um,
tripling the size of this garden, um, and hopefully getting an auto watering
system put in so that we can really start leveraging, um, people's
time in a way that maximizes yields and starts making some
amazing differences. Uh, you've made the lives of a lot of South Warren people,
a lot of North Warren people, and supporters in the surrounding areas,
um, much better today. Um, I cannot wait for the community to
show you what this place can become now that it is free to
operate as, um, the program at East Point has proven for 10
years. And it is just such a jewel of that community, and I hope we are the
same to you. Uh, really, again, take your roses.
You all deserve such thanks today. Thank you.
Thank you. Next is Caitlin Donnelly and then
Zachary Carrick.
Hello, I'm Caitlin Donnelly, uh, Urban Seed volunteer and former
board member, and I am just so elated
to be able to continue to go to work in the
South Warren neighborhood that we're in. So thank you all so much.
And I know many of you have been out to the garden, and you've seen everything that
we've been up to, and I would like to extend an invitation again.
Um, our workdays are Sundays. Right now we are starting around
noon. Um, so again, if you want to have a sleep in, if you want to go to
church, uh, you can still join us. You don't have to get your hands dirty if you
don't want to. Um, you can just come out, meet the community,
sit down, have some great conversations, or
if you're like me and you are still recovering from having mono twice in
the last eight months, we can find a sunny patch of grass and pretend
to be lizards and take a nap. So thank you again.
Um, it means a lot to our volunteers and our community.
Have a wonderful evening.
Thank you. Mono twice in eight months sounds brutal.
Uh-
You're having that good of a time.
Zachary Carrick and then Matthew Stafford.
Good evening, council. A longtime listener, first time caller.
Uh- ... I'd like to first commend Officer Rob and the other officers that watch
over Bunert and pull over all the frequent speeders.
Uh, Officer Rob, uh, engages with the neighborhood kids, including my own,
uh, which is the kind of community engagement that should be encouraged for all
officers.
Uh, second, I'd like to express my disappointment with the city
administration. Warren cannot be a city that professes support for green
initiatives and community building, uh, while working to dismantle both in an
area that sorely needs it.
Uh, and finally, a commendation for the council as well.
Uh, we've seen your support throughout the long process,
uh, and it's greatly appreciated.
Uh, while South Warren is still a bit underserved, it gives me faith
that the problems can and will be solved, uh,
given that we have a council that not only recognizes issues but works to
actively address them.
I'm hopeful that, uh, this effort may begin to, uh, bring more life
to, uh, the city and create a more, uh, equitable city for,
uh, all the residents border to border. Thank you.
Thank you.
Next is Matthew Stafford. After Matthew Stafford is Gloria
Sanker.
Good evening, Council, and, uh, thank you for being here and letting me speak.
I'm Matthew Stafford, one of three Republican candidates for State House, uh,
District 11 for Southern Warren, parts of Detroit.
Um, I was out today. I was canvassing, talking to
our residents about how
things in their life are going and what they expect from their elected official.
And the main thing I got over and over again was
where their next meal is going to come from.
They're
struggling and finding a good meal.
And today, earlier today, I was at one of the churches handing out food,
donating and giving out food. And I had a
very old, older lady came up to me-Broke my
heart. She hugged me. I was helping her get her stuff to the car.
She hugged me and just couldn't thank me enough for helping her.
And I think, first commending you guys on work you've
done and work you continue to do,
amazing. But I think we can do more.
Taking these stories, taking these experiences from these,
our own community, our own constituents, I know we can do more.
There's a lot to be done with
programs like the church I was at and funding
these community programs where these residents can
come and get the help that they need, whether it is food, whether it is
mental health, whether it's other things going on in their life.
We need to
make sure that that is taken care of, and I plan to do that.
So thank you for your time for letting me speak, and you guys have a great night,
okay.
Thank you. Next is Gloria Sanker.
Everyone should have the right to vote.
Who is an American citizen?
American citizens pay taxes, fight wars,
serve as jurors,
and are loyal to the United States Constitution.
You are either born a citizen or you're naturalized.
Each has the same responsibilities.
ID voting makes common sense. If you have open voting
and don't require identification, you invite
terrorists and people who want to harm America,
and you can vote into office socialists,
communists, and others whose ideals are
not compatible to upholding our Constitution.
It's like opening your borders to anyone.
Does this make sense?
Is anyone so tired of being free that they are willing to
let anyone vote, regardless of ideals and
intentions of destroying our freedom?
These people who want anyone to vote without showing ID,
would they open their door to let someone in without, one,
finding out who they are, and two, what is their
purpose?
Identification is not a new idea. You need it to buy
beer, cigarettes, driver's license, to draw
money from the bank. And in New York, where the
socialists are against ID for voting, they
required ID for people to get a job to shovel
snow in their winter snowstorms.
Don't open our country to people who are not citizens.
We need to keep our country in a place of
strength. There are consequences you would not
like for letting unknowns vote.
Requiring no identification to vote is a way to
derail our liberties. Voting is a privilege
we have in choosing our government, and to preserve our
Constitution to maintain freedom.
Anybody can vote.
If not born American, you can get naturalized.
However, requiring no ID gives an individual a
right to cheat and lie to vote. It's a way
to buy an election. All have the right to vote in
elections. You only have to prove who you are.
Otherwise, it is a risk to our freedom, and
freedom is too precious to gamble.
Be proud to show your identity. Be proud to vote.
Be proud to keep America free. Thank you.
Thank you.
That is the end of audience.
Next item.
Oh,
yeah.
Next item is response to audience.
Right.
Mr. Noonan.
I'm ready with some response.
When it comes to commissions,
I would really like to see the Veterans Commission get filled with
appointments. It's time. We really do have
a lot of veterans in Warren, and they could be
better served, and I stand for that.
Also, the Communications Commission
should be filled, and there are other commissions that
aren't either up to full speed or maybe not
even functioning at all, like the Communications Commission
and the Veterans Commission.
Congratulations to the South Warren Community Garden.
And
on the topic of BlueStrike writing the action
plan, I
am still fully in support of that. I just found a little
tiny essay here.
John Cheve on April 23rd, 2026, wrote,
"What could become the world's first massive deadly heatwave on a new scale
and intensity in our new warmer climate regime is building in
Southeast Asia now in Thailand and neighboring countries where we have already
had in some areas weeks of
43 degrees centigrade, which is 109 degrees Fahrenheit, and
44 degrees centigrade, which is 111 degrees Fahrenheit,
actual temperatures with high humidity that makes it far more dangerous in
April. Even a high elevation mountain village in Laos
today tied its hottest ever recorded temperature for any day of the
year at 35.5 degrees centigrade, which is
95.9 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat indices are predicted
to reach 55 degrees centigrade, which is
131 degrees Fahrenheit in some locations in Thailand through
May."This is not survivable without cooling.
The electrical grid will likely fail.
About 72 million people live in Thailand and 55 million in
Myanmar. Over 62% of households in Thailand do not have
air conditioning. This percentage is far higher in Myanmar.
The high heat indices are due to rising sea surface temperatures and
intensifying marine heat waves. Airflow from these marine heat waves,
high rainfall in some areas-
Mr. Eden
... and changing circulation with global warming.
It's important to understand that only a slightly warmer climate in areas of
the tropics and even subtropics, including South Florida,
already near the limits of habitability at times,
can tip them into
unsurvivable no man's land.
Like the
thousands that died in Thailand last year, expected to be many, many
times more this year.
Mr. Eden.
I think likely severe, life-threatening, I'm almost done.
Life-threatening heat waves will even reach South Korea and Japan this summer as
they did last year when Japan shattered its all-time national high
temperature record, but could be significantly worse this year with the death toll.
It could easily soar far higher than the 2,000 plus that were killed in Japan last
summer. Notice the intense marine heat wave already building around Japan.
Mr. Eden, how much longer is this article?
It's almost done.
This is not-
In the upper right of the first image.
Yeah.
It is only a matter of time before heat waves kill millions in single events, and
that time could come this summer, and that could be here
in the US. So, we don't need to necessarily have a plan, but it
might be a really good idea to have one. Just saying. Okay.
Yield.
Thank you.
Ms. McGee.
Again, congratulations to the South Warren Community
Garden. I would like for you to tell us the address.
I'm getting people texting me, said they don't know where the
location is. So if we can have an address of where it's
located. I think it's
13690
Topher. 13690 Topher.
Just west of Shanor.
West of Shanor. You can check us out on
urbanseed.info.
urbanseed.info is the
website.
Or Facebook. Or Facebook. Thank you.
Any other response?
Very near our new library.
Okay. Next item. Next item is adjournment.
Just remind everybody,
two weeks from now or whenever our next meeting is, we're right around the corner
in the conference room here. Thanks, everybody. Motion to adjourn.
Support Dorr.
All in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Nay.
We are adjourned. Thank you.