I'd like to call the meeting of the DDA to order at
3:16.
Roll call.
Mr. Lucare.
Here.
Mr. Jackson, excused. Mr. McGarris, excused. Mr. Wiegand.
Here.
Mr. Zamora.
Present.
Mr. Klapsch, excused. Ms. Galar.
Here.
Mayor Stone.
Here.
We have a quorum.
Can I get a motion to excuse the absent members?
So moved.
Thank you, Mas. Second?
Second.
Second, Mike.
All in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion carries.
Okay, adoption of the agenda. Can I get a motion to adopt the agenda?
Make the motion.
Thank you, Michael.
Support from?
Support.
Support from Gina. All in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion carries. Audience participation.
Lots of friendly faces in the room.
Good afternoon, board. I would just like to say that if you guys could
name the 8777 Common building, it would make
things a little bit easier for residents who are trying to find the building,
as opposed to just the address. We've had a lot of people reaching out asking for
that, so I would just like you guys to consider naming that building.
Thank you.
Are you calling?
Jason's asking for help.
Okay.
No other audience participation?
Moving on, approval of the minutes.
Can I get a motion to approve the April 1st, 2026 DDA meeting minutes?
Move to approve.
Thank you, Joe.
Support.
Support from Mas.
All in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion carries. Old business.
In April, we took up the adoption of the fiscal 2026
DDA budget. There was some discussion and
an alignment on one of the items. Mark, would you like
to speak to...
Under old business, there's actually two different
resolutions that
have to be entertained separately.
The one on pages
11 to 14 of your packet has to deal with the
budget that we're in right now,
and that the board has never
formally adopted that like we did with the prior year.
So that's got the resolution that we need to
adopt that budget, and that resolution
is modeled after the same one that was prepared for our
previous bond council last year.
So that's one part. The other part has to
do with the handling of the 345
millage, and we have a representative here to speak on that as
well.
Very good. Is there any questions for Mark at this point?
Otherwise, we can bring up our guest.
Well, if we want to deal with the... Well, sure, we can do that.
I think that will affect the adoption of
fiscal year '26 because it was the item that was up in the air.
Okay.
Okay. That's fine.
Good afternoon, Madam Mayor, members of the DDA
board. My name is Ron Lipscomb. I serve as bond counsel to the
city. I'm with Miller Canfield.
And you have a memo with you
in your package that basically just describes the statutory outline and
authority for the DDA and the city to enter into an agreement to
share the Act 345 revenues. This is
fairly straightforward, although the language is not
exactly straightforward, but
this is how we've seen these provisions be implemented by DDAs and
governing bodies across the state.
So basically, what you would do is enter into an agreement with the city in order
to share the Act 345 millage revenues to allow that
to be retained and essentially be removed from the definition of tax
increment revenues under the statute and under the DDA plan, so it can be
retained by the city and used for its intended purpose.
Thank you for that.
Happy to answer any questions.
Yes. I know that
from time to time, departments disagree as to how to interpret
language, and I appreciate having another perspective to
build consensus and bring us into alignment.
Was there any comment from either onto
the advice...
Did anyone want to weigh in? Okay.
Questions or discussion?
I have a question.
Yes, Gina.
We were provided conflicting opinions-
Mm-hmm
... at the last meeting. Is there consensus now
on
that?
Would you...
Yes.
Council has provided a legal path to move forward,
and I'm comfortable with the path presented by Mr. Lipscomb.
So if the board wants to
proceed according to his advice,
there is consensus.
Thank you.
Any other questions or concerns?
So I have another just general question.
And it's really more of a statement than a question.
Mm-hmm.
But we have all kinds of things coming
to us in the budget
and near term, midterm, immediate,
long-term. Has anybody looked
atLike a longer-term projection to
see if this body will be able to...
What is the strategy for accomplishing all of the
goals
and balancing-
Yeah
... competing interests?
Yeah. So, at this point, we've looked at a variety, and there's a lot
of discussion around development.
That's everything from properties in our portfolio
to development of the DDA area, to
broader. Part of that looks at our
bonding capability and kind of
prioritizing what those interests are.
And so we're still waiting on some feedback on
what
to anticipate those expenses to look like, because
you can't spend more than you have.
And then we have to prioritize, like you said, near-term and long-term
priorities and needs of the city before we
can do that. So we need to have adequate financials in order to
make those determinations.
And then the other question that I have is, so we're
basically being asked to adopt a budget, to approve a
budget that is
almost entirely through the year spent.
Does the version that's in here...
When you see the amended budget and the activity in the original budget,
what was
proposed by the department? What was approved by council?
It's not real clear in the... Does this
align with what was-
Yeah
... adopted in the current adopted budget?
Chris, can you speak to adopted versus what has been
actual versus projected for the fiscal
year '26? Because we're getting really close to the end of fiscal year '26 and-
Hi, good afternoon, Madam Chair. I know Gina Kepler from a long time
ago. Hi, how are you?
So we're asking what the difference is, is what the question is?
I'm just asking if what's in the packet is what was adopted by council.
So for sure. Yeah. So what happened-- Yes, absolutely.
Okay.
Because I know it was changed along the way somewhere.
So there was some initial spending that was sent over that
council stripped out, such as community outreach budget.
So, I'm not sure
the final publication, if that would've been listed for fiscal year
'26, since that wasn't part of the adopted budget.
Zero. The budget that we're asking-
So everything is online. I'm not-
... adopted by council.
Yeah.
So the budget is online, even last year's budget.
Yep.
And we have the pages for DDA included in the packet.
Yeah.
So between what the proposed budget was, there were
changes. So what was published as the adopted budget,
took out anything that was removed from the proposed,
or were those just zeroed out line items?
So the pages I have here are for '27, and they show '26, right, where we're
at today with '26. So if you wanted to look at the historical, what
happened last year,
right, you could go online and it's there.
Yeah, I've done that. It just was a little bit confusing because there were
changes and-
Sure
... there's also been some disagreement-
So there are budget amendments that happen through the year
... as to what was approved and what wasn't approved.
Yeah, there are reappropriations and budget amendments that happen through the
year. So, if the board wanted a history of that, we
could gladly combine that for you.
So,
I mean, we've-
The answer to your question is that is the adopted-
Thank you
... budget from council.
Yeah, and the adopted is amended and all that-
Correct
... is where it stands today.
Current, yeah.
Correct.
The amended portion is the reappropriations that were presented to
council for approval, the rollover of money from the prior year.
Gotcha.
As well as, so if we budgeted
DDA to include items and then those were
removed, there was potentially additional revenue that could be recommitted
to a different project if it was not
otherwise
adopted.
Yeah. But all we're asking then is to adopt the budget that council adopt.
Correct. But there is a deeper question on
kind of what was the process? How did we get where we are?
And,
so if there were things that were zeroed out that were part of
that balanced budget, then there would've been revenue that might not
have been committed to a line item or a purchase.
I mean-
Yeah
... but that means that we have no authority
to spend that revenue until
it's included in an approved budget.
And you know I've asked a lot of questions over the years-
Absolutely
... because it's been a very confusing process.
And we-
And I'm trying to just make sure that we follow the law-
Absolutely
... and that we honor our fiduciary responsibility.
And I think this is the perfect time to dig in deep and kind of really
relay going forward what this process should look like and be
repeatable. But we can take to
council in between budget adoptions
if we identify a project, a proposal, and if
council approves it, we can move forward before the next fiscal
year. Is that an accurate description?
On that budget page, on page 12,
the first line, the original budget is the budget as city
council adopted it at the start. The second
column includes amounts that were reappropriated from the
prior year, plus there was a project, I think at the police department,
that was where the budget was amended that was taken to
council and approved as well.
So both lines represent what council has authorized to be
spent.
It is a living document, and one is that-
Yeah
... in stone. Once it's adapted, there's still some, if there's different
revenues.
So if you look at the layers.
Yes.
You have the state statute.
Yep.
Then you have the ordinance-
Local ordinance
... approved plan. Then you have the adopted budget.
Mm-hmm.
And then you have the individual items that
come to this meeting for review and approval,
and all of those have to be in alignment.
Yep.
And so, and I've asked this question before, so when we, as
volunteers, come here-
Mm-hmm
... and expenditures are brought to us-
Yep
... the appropriate-
Yep
... employees of the city have reviewed it and determined that it
is an appropriate and lawful expense.
Yes.
Thank you.
Yes. I have a-
Yeah
... utmost faith in our controller's office, including
budget, including
purchasing, and all the checks and balances, and our audits
support that.
Richard Fox. Madam Chair, I'm confident that
what the council adopted is what any expenditure that comes before this
board has been approved for this fiscal year.
And when we move into next year's budget,
we'll follow that very closely. So I'm very confident that the
expenditures have all been approved by council.
Thank you.
And I think you're getting at some of the actions that may have caused
consternation between the previous administration and the previous iteration of
council have not continued to date.
It's been confusing.
Yeah, and that's fair. Absolutely.
Madam Mayor?
Yes.
Just
for clarification, you mentioned about the
reappropriation of funds when you have funds left over from a project.
Mm-hmm.
And are you saying that you could spend that without going to
council or no?
That is not what I said.
The public does have gone-
That's why I asked for clarification.
Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, I'll reiterate.
If there was funds that were not committed in the adopted budget-
You wanted to use it elsewhere, you would come to council
... we can come and bring it to you and ask for approval before the next budget
cycle.
Okay. Thank you.
As long as both branches have consensus.
Sounds good.
Okay.
Correct me if I misspeak.
No, you said it just right.
Okay.
Yep.
Very good. Any other questions on process
or on our legal advice as to how to proceed
with Act 345?
And Rick, can you just repeat what Act
345 is asking of the DDA?
Sure. So Act 345 is the act that allows
the city to
have a millage that the taxpayers pay, and it's for the police and
fire pensions.
And so with that revenue that we collect under Act 345,
we pay what the actuary says we have to pay for the pensions of the police and fire
department employees.
And the advice we've been given is it's permissible.
Correct.
Any other discussion on the first part, which I would say the
motion is
to...
How would you phrase it?
There's two resolutions. I'm-
Are we adapting a resolution?
Page 114 is a resolution to adopt the fiscal year
2026 budget. That's one resolution.
On page 15 and 16 is the
resolution for the 345 millage.
Do we want to separate discussion?
Does our board want to take additional time to
discuss fiscal year '26 budget
items?
And/or are we prepared to
make the motion for the resolution on Act 345?
Tom, while the DDA board is looking through packets
and looking over, would you like to speak to some of the
accomplishments with the DDA investment for fiscal year
2026
with just about two months left?
Well, yeah, we've been
busy with moving forward with the Chicago
Road Bridge. We got the grant from
SEMCOG. That'll be going in soon.
We've met with Plante Moran, and
we've kind of got some site plans for the
town center area-
Mm-hmm
... and they're reviewing our
Retail study, market study, financial impact study,
and they're preparing a report that we hope to get
early June to be able to look towards
putting out a request for qualifications for developers for this
area.
And the next biggest thing now is our budget, so we can-- Because a lot of
the monies, as you know, we're fixing broken stuff.
And so the community center has been
upgraded, the pool has been upgraded-
Mm-hmm
... the boilers have been upgraded, the elevators here.
This building I think is about 18 years old now, so some of those
things are needing to get fixed. So there's a lot of those kinds of
investments to
keep the building-
Upkeep and maintenance
... up. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
I'll
make the motion.
Thank you, Joe.
Which motion? One is adopt fiscal year
'26.
Yes.
Start there?
Yes. We can start with that one.
Okay.
Joe makes a motion to adopt fiscal year 2026
DDA budget. Can we get support?
Support.
Support by us.
Any discussion or questions?
Roll call.
Okay. Mr. McCary?
Yes.
Mr. Zamora?
Yes.
Mr. Wiegand?
Yes.
Ms. Cavalier?
Yes.
Mayor Stohler?
Yes.
Okay. Budget's been adopted.
Thank you. And now can I get a motion to adopt the
resolution,
to
put the ex-345 millage funding towards
retiree healthcare and pension?
Is that the motion?
So what we're-
Yes
... what we're enacting, just so they know.
So that portion of the tax
will now just perpetually go to the
city to pay that-
Right
... and we just won't even see it-
Right
... or have to deal with it anymore.
That's correct. Right.
So that's the motion we're making, is we're allowing the
city now to take that
385 money, 345 money
perpetually, so we don't have to deal with it anymore as our
budget. So our budget will show that less next year maybe,
but it will be going towards where it kind of was intended to
go. Does that-
That's correct. Yeah. In the last couple of years, we've done it as a transfer.
Right.
That will eliminate the need for a transfer because it won't be considered-
So this board is just making an agreement with the city that we'll
stand down on that portion of that tax.
Year over year, that amount might change,
but that whatever that is collected is-
Yeah, it is what it is
... meets the state statute. So that's
not eating into DDA. That is married to whatever-
That's the one that goes to council
Richard Fox, City Comptroller. Yeah, so
whatever the millage is, that dollar amount now will go directly to
the city general fund, no longer will go to the DDA.
So again, we won't have to be here making transfers each year.
And just to clarify, what we collect meets our statutory
requirement from the state. So that is-
That's correct.
Yeah, that's not changing how much is taken from the
DDA. It is a one-to-one,
it's just what fund it's coming out of.
It's going to general funds at the-
Correct
... the general fund.
Yep. It's going to the general fund.
And Mayor, if I may?
Mm-hmm.
So the motion can be motion to approve the tax increment sharing
agreement. Just to make it a little-
Tax increment
sharing agreement. Thank you for that language.
Any other discussion or questions on this item?
Not seeing any. Can I get a motion to adopt the
resolution
for the tax increment sharing agreement?
I got that? Okay.
Thank you, Joe.
Support?
Support.
Thank you, us. Roll call.
Mr. McCary?
Yes.
Mr. Zamora?
Yes.
Mr. Wiegand?
Yes.
Ms. Cavalier?
Yes.
Mayor Stohler?
Yes.
Okay. Adopted.
Okay. Thank you for that. Thanks for the help.
New business, item A, MDA membership renewal, Michigan
Downtown Association. Tom, what do we got?
Yep. This is just our annual membership to the MDA.
The total is $750. I do like to point out
that the actual membership is 650, and there's an extra
$100 that goes to the advocacy fund to help us
with meetings with legislators to talk about MDA issues.
So the total for this year would be $750.
Motion to approve.
Thank you, Gina.
Support.
Support by Michael.
Ms. Cavalier?
Yes.
Mr. Wiegand?
Yes.
Mr. McCary?
Yes.
Mr. Zamora?
Yes.
Mayor Stohler?
Yes.
Okay, item B, BB Park irrigation repairs.
Jason
Good afternoon. Jesus Pilla, Director of Parks and Recreation.
We're requesting at Beebe Park right now, we have Maddox Irrigation was the
original company who put the irrigation in a couple of years ago.
Currently, right now, three of the valves do not work at the park, so they need to
get replaced. That is about $1,200 to replace the three valves.
And all the wiring currently at the park is corroded,
so it's recommended to replace all that wiring or we're going to have trouble with
the irrigation system there. So, the whole total cost to
replace the irrigation to get it back to working level and replace those valves
is a cost of $2,800.
It's requested to get that thing approved from Maddox to get that
irrigation going and make sure that the grass and everything else is
secured, and the flowers that we're putting in there as well.
Very good.
Any questions or discussion on this item?
One quick question. Was there any timeframe on when Maddox could come out there,
and are they going to, like as soon as this passes, it goes-
They can do this relatively soon. All they're waiting for is my call really.
Okay, thank you.
Any other questions or discussion?
Can I get a motion?
Motion to approve.
Thank you, Oscar.
Second.
Support by Michael. Roll call.
Mr. Zamora.
Yes.
Mr. Wiegand.
Yes.
Ms. Cavalier.
Yes.
Mr. Vicari.
Yes.
Mayor Stone.
Yes.
Thank you.
Landscaping services for Beebe Park.
So let me explain this again. Jesus Pilla, Director of Parks and Recreation.
We are trying to, right now currently, our water boxes that are sitting
with the pavilion do not get irrigation.
So planting flowers in those planter boxes just defeats the purpose.
Every couple of weeks, they die out.
I talked to both Maddox and Landscape Services about
running irrigation to that thing.
Maddox came up with a quote of replace.
They want to tear the concrete out, and they have no way of replacing it.
While Landscape Services will saw cut and get it done very easily.
So, it's recommended to go with Landscape Services.
They'll saw cut, they'll get water generated to our planter
boxes there, so when we plant flowers, we're not going to have them die off in
a week or three weeks. They're going to last the whole summer.
So that's the project of that aspect.
I'm sure the volunteers appreciate that.
Any questions or discussion
around this item?
Look at how happy they are.
Long overdue.
Is that a motion?
Yes.
Motion by Oscar. Second?
Second.
Second by Michael. Roll call.
Mr. Zamora.
Yes.
Mr. Wiegand.
Yes.
Mr. Vicari.
Yes.
Ms. Cavalier.
Yes.
Mayor Stone.
Yes.
Thank you.
Birthday Bash agreement for 2026.
Mary?
This is... Thank you. This is the 2026
Birthday Bash Carnival agreement.
The Birthday Bash and Carnival will take place August 27th,
28th, 29th, and we're leaving an
option for Sunday carnival activity.
We included it in the agreement. The carnival would like to play that Sunday by
ear based on attendance.
Very good.
Same terms as prior years.
DDA receives 30% of profits.
And when we talk about the carnival, we're talking about the rides that are
provided and buying wristbands and tickets.
Any questions or discussion?
Motion to approve.
Thank you, Gina.
Second.
Support by Michael. Roll call.
Ms. Cavalier.
Yes.
Mr. Wiegand.
Yes.
Mr. Vicari.
Yes.
Mr. Zamora.
Yes.
Mayor Stone.
Yes.
Thank you. Birthday Bash entertainment.
You got this, Casey?
Hello.
So this entertainment from Cary and Paul Group is for the live
entertainment for our annual Birthday Bash Festival.
This includes the bands, kid zone, and interactive shows
for throughout the weekend.
Any idea of what
we'd like to offer? I know last year they had
tattoos. They had a cotton candy artist.
We have different-
Magician.
Yes, we do. We change up the shows. I don't like to do the same thing two years in
a row. To make a difference. Some things are the same.
We do have the airbrush tattoos. Those are always a hit.
Balloon artist,
a kids' DJ. We have a different dog show this
year.
Not like the Disc Dogs, a little different.
They do more, and apparently, it's a big hit.
They do it in neighboring cities like Sterling Heights, too.
Magician, a different magician. It's fun, yeah.
A lot of different stuff going on.
I appreciate this.
Yeah.
And for frame of reference,
staff did some digging and
we were like, "Okay, how does Warren's Birthday Bash stack up
against other communities?" And for frame of reference, Sterling
Fest is about 450,000 commitment in overhead.
And they earn it back, but this is a drop in the
bucket for a community our size. And what
I really recognize as well, families may invest in wristbands.
That can be a hefty investment.
But most residents and visitors can enjoy a lot
of free activity-
Mm-hmm
... and enjoyment by participating.
Yeah, our kid zone that we created, that's in this entertainment
proposal, too. That was new last year, and that's been a hit
because it's free, so they don't have to pay.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
What other questions or discussion?
Madam Mayor?
Yes, Councilman.
I just want to echo what she said. I think you guys are doing a terrific
job.
Thank you.
And every year it's improving. Keep up the good work.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Very good.
Joe?
Have you guys ever looked into pony rides for kids?
Do they offer pony rides?
Our entertainment group that we go through, Carrie and
Paul, have currently stepped away from petting zoos at the moment.
So we
right now, the one we've dealt with, just no longer in
service. So we're going to look at different options.
I was going through the animal route without doing pony rides, like with the dog
shows, and I believe there's a bird show too.
But yes, I can definitely explore that too for the future for the pony rides.
Definitely.
They did slot cars last year-
Oh, nice
... and that was a blast.
Yeah.
It was something I hadn't seen around-
Yeah
... in a long time.
Make a motion.
Thank you, Joe. Support?
Support.
Support from Michael. Roll call.
Mr. Vicari?
Yes.
Mr. Wiegand?
Yes.
Ms. Cavalier?
Yes.
Mr. Zamora?
Yes.
Mayor Stone?
Yes. Thank you. And drone
shows. Who would like to speak to drone shows?
I'll stay up here.
Okay.
So
last year, we booked the Birthday Bash drone show, and then later in the year, we
booked for the tree lighting ceremony.
Our drone show company, by booking both of them at the same time, will give us a
discount of 2,000 per show. So if we book both of
the drone shows right now, the total would be
28,800, and that would be a discount versus
booking them separately.
They've shown to be a big draw for people at our events, and they hit
really well with the public.
It was a nice addition to the holiday celebration.
For sure.
People, I felt, stayed a little longer-
I agree
... endured cold temperatures-
Yeah
... and had a good time.
Definitely.
Yeah. Any other questions or discussion on drones?
I would just say they're all the rage right now, and they're very popular
across the board.
I have to say, I'm a little jealous.
Shelby does their community orchestra
in concert to their drone show. So I'm just going to put that
out there as something to aim towards.
Something to explore. Yeah, definitely.
Yeah.
So when we look at this in the budget, does this go to
contractual services?
Yeah.
Thanks.
Any other questions or discussion?
Can I get a motion?
Make the motion.
Thank you, Michael. Second?
Support.
Tomas?
Mr. Wiegand?
Yes.
Mr. Zamora?
Yes.
Ms. Cavalier?
Yes.
Mr. Vicari?
Yes.
Mayor Stone?
Yes.
Thank you.
Item G, 2026 flowers. Jason, this is
you?
Yes, it is.
And that was the separate packet that you guys were handed, all the backups for
this.
Do you want to explain too
why we had to follow up with that?
Yes. So what happened was we originally went out for bid for this project last
week.
We received one bid which was not signed correctly, which
was not accepted, and therefore, we had to go out and rebid
this project, which we rebid it in the last five days, and we got
the bid back that we actually wanted from the company.
This bid,
we went out for bid on ITBEW 1873 for the
annual floral display
for Parks and Recreation to do. It supplies the
installation of plant and flowers for the stationary containers, which
includes the lamp post planters, hanging baskets, wraparound
posts, as well as associated materials.
This year we had one quote from Cucci Sons &
Limited for $18,540. So it was
recommended to award them right away, so therefore, we can get these
things planted up before the end of May,
and not wait till June. So I am available for any questions you may have.
I just want to say, I always appreciate when we support local vendors.
Motion to approve, and if anybody has not shopped at
Cucci on the local vendor front, it's a family
business that has been here for a very, very long time-
I think 100 years
... and they do such a great job.
Yep.
Over 100 years.
Fresh fruits and vegetables in season.
Can I ask a question?
Sure.
Are we late in getting this put together
this year? Because shouldn't they-
Usually it had gone back in February and stuff.
Yeah, usually in February is when we would put together.
Yeah.
So we were a little bit late, and a lot of transitioning was going on, so we kind
of didn't realize that we had to do this thing.
Because they have to grow them.
What was that? No, they actually already have them.
The planter box is already ready to go.
Good thing Cucci's
got the bid. Cucci's already had planned on doing this last
year, so all the planting boxes,
they're already ready-
Ready to go
... actually to go. So I kind of told them that, "You better give me the bid or
you're going to be tearing out those planters and getting new ones." So, they did.
They got the bid. We're ready to go, and they'll be putting it up there in no time
at all.
Next year we can get on it a month earlier then.
Next year, it would have gone in February. More than a month earlier.
One quick question, if I could, Jason.
Does that include the four light poles in Beebe Park also, or could
those be included?
I can check. I would double-check if those include Beebe Park as well.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay, very good. I have a motion by Gina. Do I have a second?
Support.
Can I amend the motion
to include the Beebe Park planters if they're not included?
Are we good with that?
The language. Okay.
Yes.
Okay. Motion with amendment
supported by Oscar?
Yes.
Okay.
Roll call.
Ms. Cavalier.
Yes.
Mr. Zamora.
Yes.
Mr. Regan.
Yes.
Mr. Kerry.
Yes.
Mayor Scollon.
Yes.
Thank you.
Carried.
Okay, let's do fiscal year 2027.
What questions or discussions are there?
Do you want to give a high-level overview of how
it breaks down?
So, on page 51 of the packet is where
it starts. Actually, page 52 of your packet,
which lists primarily the revenues,
the incoming money on
page 52, and then page 53
is the
personnel compensation.
Page 54 is our basic
budget laid out
from top to bottom, the money that we're requesting to be spent.
And then there's some backup for some of the
items, but I just want to give you the whole overlook.
There is, on page-
55?
Page 59 is the list of
our capital outlays.
And on page 60 is what's listed
typically and what we would spend in general
services,
general contracted services. So, as you go
through it, those are the things that we'll end up talking about in a more
specific manner. And so,
we made a
short little highlight list
just to talk about the fact that right now our DDA
revenue is about $14 million a year.
We have most of our current bond payments, which
equal about $6 million a year,
will be paid off over the next two or three years.
And,
so that's good news.
The other side of that is we're expecting a need to bond
for north of 100 million to finish the
downtown and the court and potential police and some of those
things. So we just want to keep you in...
So there's money coming in. We're flush. We can pay our bills.
We have about 12 million
balance at this point.
But moving forward, as the town center develops and we
look to maybe put in a parking deck for some of those things and
this courthouse and some of that,
what Rick is effectively
called the gravy train in some of the departments is going to have to
slow down. So to answer Gina's earlier question, we
are working with the departments that
our
expendable income is going to shrink as we move forward,
spending those big dollars.
And I do always like to say at this time that because
we have a DDA, the city realizes about
40% more in tax revenue than without a
DDA. We're able to capture certain taxes at the state
level that normally the city can't.
So,
with us doing that, we're able to help those city departments and
help
things active in the DDA.
Can I-
So as you-
... make a comment on that?
Question or-
So that's actually the point that I brought up at the last meeting,
that I think we have an obligation to protect
the
purpose of the DDA and to uphold the purpose of the DDA
because the DDA is capturing
revenue that the county and other taxing-
Right
... authorities have agreed to allow the City of Warren to
use, and
we should be respectful of the purpose of it.
100%. And to that point, you guys have approved
the RFPs ready to go out. We're putting to start a
survey of the DDA district businesses, which is going to lead
into a consultant helping us
re-update the development plan. And the
development plan will then be more specific because
technically all these expenditures need to go back to
the development plan. So it needs to be updated.
So this year, that's our goal is to get the board by the
end of the year to have a new development plan and have the
city ready to move into the next
phase.
Phase.
So yes, I agree.
And so I can run down these highlights because these are the things that are
changes from recommended and some of the things.
The good news is we did a recommended, we went to council,
got to listen to council's feedback, and
spent some time internally doing some follow-up.
And so we have some people here that can explain some of these
expenditures, because I did
highlight. So first off,
Tiffany and I are asking for a raise, and if you look on the
beyond the, I think it starts with
page61,
there's a three or four-page salary comparison, or five pages.
It goes on with a little chart.
The
closest example we can give you is that
Mr. Bonner in Sterling Heights is
paid north of 160,000, and they just hired
his understudy, who used to work here, at
about what I make. And so,
we've done this little comparison, and we think that what we're asking for is at
the low end of the comparison study.
So that's our speech for that.
And I just want to speak to, on page 53, the
increase is a contractual increase.
So appointees receive the
collectively bargained increase of the attorneys union.
And so,
from what is present to what was recommended
is not the requested, but it is the
contractually
agreed to increase.
Are you looking for that, or less or more?
No, we're asking 135 and 85.
Those are our requests.
The next item is on your actual
budget, which is on page
54, under community promotion and
outreach.
We had originally
asked at 150. After meeting with council,
that sounded a little steep, and they asked for some
feedback. So on the following pages,
fifty-
Fifty-five. Yeah, 55 and 56.
The next two or three pages, there's a list, and then the last
one is summary of community promotions.
So to promote the Birthday Bash, the Restaurant Week, Harvest Treats,
some of the seminars we're doing, the informational seminars,
or outreach we're going to need, so
forth. So that's closer to 50. So we're actually
asking this board to consider lowering that request that
we send to council to 50,000.
Yeah.
Is there a page that puts all of this together?
Yeah.
Which page is that?
In front of you is just an overview, the bullet
points.
That is, but in your packet, it would be page-
54, Gina.
Thank you.
For the-
For the community
... expenditures, community outreach expenditures?
Yeah.
No, I just meant for the whole budget, because there's a bunch of highlights, and
this is changing, and that. Like, is there a-
Yeah. So the whole budget is the page that we're
talking about-
This bulleted page that was handed out
... on page 54. That is our-
Pulls it all together.
Okay.
Page 54 is our budget.
So it includes
where we're at today. Based on what you guys vote, we will then
have what you approve for us to forward to council.
So you're not adopting this budget.
All you're doing is giving me an approved budget that you've discussed for us
to forward to council
for them to be able to formally fund.
Once they formally fund, then in July, I'll be bringing
that back for us to adopt our official budget.
Do we have the ability to discuss and approve the
budget in parts, like in sections?
So
you could still propose changes at this point.
If there's consensus to amend or change anything
that we want to take back to council,
that's where this discussion would happen.
We can take it in sections and
keep a tally for proposed
changes.
Do we want to
break it out, or did you get to-
Yeah. No, I wanted to do the overview, but-
Yeah
... yeah, so we could take it as we go.
But
page 54 is our budget. But on this budget, it
says capital improvements,
$6 million. So we did-
Tava invited some of our partners
in-
Right
... where this money is going and why, how it benefits the city, so.
And so that's how we broke it out on page 59,
is all the capital improvements. And those are the questions that
go back to this big number on page 54.
So we could start with pay, and then we could go to the community
promotions, and then we could go to the general, if you'd like to do
that.
So do you want me to make a motion to approve the salary
request separate from everything else? I'm just a little bit confused.
We can start there.
No.
Yeah.
I, understanding the market-
You want to speak to this item?
... and looking at...
And I understand that you have to do things in increments.
I would propose a 10% increase this year,
different than
what is in here.
Towards?
Towards DDA staff.
Got it.
I think it's important for DDA staff to be-
Competitive
... compensated appropriately. And in my opinion, and
based on the data that we are provided, I don't think that even gets the staff to
where they should be.
Is there any discussion around the compensation study
discussion?Does
it feel accurate to your experience
in the field?
Yes.
Reflective of?
Well, it feels like it's still a little low.
Yeah.
Madam Mayor?
Yes.
Since we haven't decided, the council hasn't decided, looked at it yet, pending
the
passage of the budget here.
Mm-hmm.
If there's going to be amendments, we'd like to get something,
just justification like for the raises.
It's in the packet.
Okay. Well, you're asking for... It's already entered at 10%?
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
So-
Any amendment changes that we get, update.
Yeah.
And while I got, just real quick on that.
Yeah.
The outreach here,
this wasn't presented to council at the budget, was it?
No. He-
If I may?
Go for it.
So, we didn't have that, and council asked-
How about Freda here, how about give that to council
... So I called council secretary and said our hope was to get
approval to forward
the budget we would like
to council, and all that backup will be with it.
Okay.
Based on the discussion that was had as part of the administrative
hearing-
Yeah
... the department took that feedback back and said, "What are they
asking for that they didn't receive, and how do we provide that to you so you
have it for your consideration going forward?"
But it's very important to us that if any member here makes an amendment change,
that we know about it, so we can make a decision.
Yeah.
It'll all come to you in the packet.
Okay.
Yes, sir.
Would it be possible, Chris, will you generate these pages
based on
this discussion?
Can you speak to process?
Poor Chris, she's like, "Done."
Yeah, no.
"Done."
Hi, Madam Chair again.
What would make sense?
So the packet that I prepare for council
are the pages 53, 54. Okay? So that went to
council already. So anything that is discussed here and
approved here would be like an addendum or an
additional,
however you want to correspond.
Just a resolution?
Like, no, just a correspondence.
Okay.
They just need something in writing, specifically laying it out.
And then they can consider that and include it in their final changes
and resolution that they provide back to me.
So I hope that helps.
Okay. Just trying to picture what you're going to get and what we're
handing off.
Just to reemphasize.
Mm-hmm.
How about pages 55, 56? Has that been presented to council
yet?
Yeah. So, the pages council's already received
are the right-hand corners, 51, 52,
53,
and 54.
And I'm going to ask about 55-
So those are the pages council has
... and 56 as well.
That's from my budget-
Yeah
... book.
I think what the councilman is asking for would be backup.
Right.
Yes.
Those would be included as backup as part of the packet.
Does that
fit with how that would go over? Okay.
If there's recommendation, yes, the
supporting documentation should be sent.
Okay.
And Councilman, just so you know, page 55, that section
was made after
you guys were 50/50 and Tom got feedback from you guys. So yeah.
Oh, it's very informational. I just want to make sure the council gets it.
That's all.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
Okay. Thank you for that clarification.
Mary, would it be appropriate to vote on these
proposed changes
as items and then compile them into
a
recommended?
We do that. I like the
concept of approving the salary increases separately-
Mm-hmm
... because that might be a separate item for council based on the way our
ordinance is drafted.
Okay.
DDA appoints and sets salaries subject to council approval.
For the budget, it could be an overall
approval with amendments, as opposed to
deciding line by line.
That sounds reasonable.
Any questions or discussion on... Well...
I would just like to say that I don't know of any other DDA
directors that wear as many hats as Tom does, and
obviously
that filters down to Tiffany too, and I'm certainly in favor of them being
compensated for that.
Good.
Appreciate it.
So do we vote on this?
If Mary Barr can make 30 million a year-
Very good.
So is this a separate vote or is this just you guys
agreed, and we'll just start going down the-
Is this a motion?
Motion?
Mary, that's up to you.
To set the salary level?
Mm-hmm.
That would be a separate motion. I recommend separate motion.
Okay.
Mayor, can I make a motion to establish the salary for
the upcoming fiscal year for the DDA staff
reflecting a 10% increase?
Any discussion or questions on that?
Can I get a motion for support?
Joe.
So motion by Gina, support by Joe.
Right.
Roll call?
Okay.
Or just-
No, that should be roll call please
... acclimation. Okay.
Ms. Cavalier?
Yes.
Mr. McCary?
Yes.
Mr. Wiegand?
Yes.
Mr. Zamora?
Yes.
Mayor Stone?
Yes.
Okay.
Thank you, guys.
We got one step.
The next is on the general,
page 54,
is the
community promotion and outreach.
And our recommendation is for the board
to recommend that we lower that to 50,000 with
the backup that's provided
So the question that I have on this, if I may, is
we just approved almost this much for the Birthday
Bash
that technically is in August.
So how does that
work in we may have just gone above that?
So what we approved is our fiscal year
'26 budget. We're contracting with them
before July 1st.
But the service is being provided in August.
Those will be 2027 expenditures.
Yeah, those are contractual services.
But that's
typically charged out of contractual services.
So they have separate line items.
So you can go to page 60 in your packet,
and on page 60 is the list of what
we've presented as potential
contractual services. And you'll see that we
have the Birthday Bash entertainment listed
as a potential item,
the drone show, the holiday drone show.
All of these are actually less than what we had in this
page 60 of the packet.
So those would not fall under community outreach programs.
Correct. Those are paid out of contractual services.
So in our budget on page 54, the top
expense under the expenses, after you get through the employee stuff and
office supplies, is contractual services at a million bucks.
And so we broke out that number
into some of the examples. Now you can see there's a
contingency there of about 250,000.
And so,
we went over this with council. They know that that's what's
there, and it's for these other things that come up.
Something breaks that was not expected, something gets damaged
that was not expected, unanticipated.
And then what's the process for allocating the contingency?
That comes to us. So when a department sees fit and
asks us to support it, comes before us, we let
council know. They
approve it
or disprove it, and then it moves forward.
Is that accurate?
Okay.
And I know I'm asking a lot of questions, so-
You haven't seen me during a budget cycle
.
This says too, on page 60,
I think it's page 60-
Mm-hmm
... it's zeros on council approve because council hasn't considered it yet?
Correct.
Yes.
So that'll be the 12th. The council will provide their proposed
changes.
So when we met-
Or adopt changes
... when we met for the conference with council, they
preferred that this board deliberate on some of these things so
they were confident as a city council that this board
had made these conscious decisions and
was behind what we're sending.
And so they're expecting some of these
amendments, if you will.
So Mayor, if I can make a motion regarding page
60.
Mm-hmm.
And I think it's page 58.
So 60 is contractual.
And then 58 is the summary of proposed
community promotion-
Mm-hmm
... outreach. I'd make a motion to
approve that.
At the 50,000
level?
Yes.
Do we have support? Motion by Gina, support by Michael.
Roll call.
Ms. Cavalier?
Yes.
Mr. Wiegand?
Yes.
Mr. Zamora?
Yes.
Mr. McGary?
Yes.
Mayor Stone?
Yes.
Okay.
But there was also the...
Because it's more than 50,000, there's the
contractual services. Are we taking that separately?
Yeah. So I believe your motion was both 60
and 57. To approve-
Contractual services and-
At that rate
... 60,005
And the community outreach at the 50,000, and we're all-
Or we can do that separately if that's easier
No, I think we just vote. We had a proposal. We had support.
But the contractual services, it's already there. It's already at a million.
We don't have to. We're not changing that.
We're just expressing support.
Right. So what we'll do when we're done with this is one vote that just
expresses support for us to forward all this to council.
And I think they're just,
because this is a lot of buckets-
Yeah
... making sure that we know that we're all discussing and in
consensus on what we're doing moving forward.
Yeah.
And so I think that brings us to-
Page 59
... the capital outlay.
Is that the last bucket?
Yeah.
Okay.
So page 59
is the capital outlay, and some of this is just for
clarification purposes. Some of it, either the council had
asked a question about it, or one of the board when we met asked questions.
And so we
have some people here that'll explain this,
and then we can make the final call on these things.
So if I may, Mayor, the first one-
Mm-hmm
... we have the REPI program, which
Shannon and Hunter have been working on.
Shannon's with the armyHunter's with our economic
development department. It's a project for infrastructure
fixing
to help with flooding at the Detroit
Arsenal, at Kuka, at General Motors, at some of the
housing in that area.
It has to do with buying the land on 12 and Mound.
We have a grant from the Army for a million and a half
dollars to start with purchasing the land
and site plan.
And then when the work
actually gets bid out, the
Army would then fund that at a 90%
grant,
is our expectation. So it's a big deal for us to
mitigate
flooding. It's a big deal to our main driver of our
defense corridor is obviously the
base. And so Hunter, I think you'd
appear just a little.
Would you both like to step up in case there's discussion around this?
And before you jump in, I do want to point out something because I know
sitting through some of the hearings, there's questions.
So a lot of these asks come over, when you see
sanitation, parks and rec, and different items, come over as part of
department requests. And then in the department,
it looks like they're zeroed out because we've exhausted our general
fund. And so our controller's office is always looking for,
okay, based on priorities and needs, where there might be
additional funding, and then comes back and asks,
which of these items that would otherwise be zeroed out because there's no more
general funds be allocated through DDA funding.
And so it often looks like they've been
eliminated, but you have to flip to the back of the budget to
say the funding is no longer coming from general fund.
It's being asked of DDA to fund equipment and
capital improvements. So it's just one of the observations I've
seen in conversations with department heads, with council,
and so just want to make sure
how that gets there and why.
And I want to point out that Hunter and Shannon are speaking to
under DDA, Downtown Development Authority.
It says Readiness Environmental Protection Program, first
line item. It is abbreviated to REPI,
R-E-P-I. So if you hear people saying REPI, they're talking
about this program.
And so you have a little packet that kind of talks about the readiness and
then some color photos,
and it's great.
So do you want a motion to express support of that or-
They're going to give just a little high-level overview of the work that has been
going on for over a year at this point
that has gotten us where we are and also perhaps what doors this
opens next.
Yeah.
Please.
Good afternoon, DDA board, ladies and gentlemen. Appreciate your time today.
So the REPI program, I'll start with a little bit of history here.
This was established in 2003 under the National Defense Authorization
Act.
What it seeks to do is really build up partnerships between the Army
bases as well as cities and act
to prevent
incompatible developments as well as protect from
disasters such as floods, which we've faced in a much higher amount than
other areas of the country.
So in partnership with the US Army garrison here my friend
Shannon Burt, she's from there, has been working alongside me.
She's been a great partner. We submitted an application through the REPI Challenge
program to receive funding to protect not only our core military
partnership, as Tom had mentioned,
but the manufacturing base of the city that comprises more than 20% of our
workforce.
The REPI Challenge application was highly competitive with 46 Army
installations submitting applications with their partner organizations.
The City of Warren's application was ranked as the top priority
for funding through the program by the Pentagon.
The city-
Congratulations.
Thank you.
So the city under the rules of this would have to be the applicant
and steward of the land moving forward.
There's also a preliminary version of an expanded cooperative agreement
being drafted, which would act as a foundation for future cooperative agreements
between our two organizations. I like to think of it kind of as we're building
the tree trunk and then any agreements that we have moving forward would be the
branches off of that.
So, the Detroit Arsenal has been researching flood mitigation strategies
since 2014.
Their current projects are coordinated with the University of Michigan, the Army
Corps of Engineers, Macomb and Oakland Counties, Southeast Michigan
Council of Governments,
Red Run Drain Commission, and Idaho National Labs.
They've determined that our stormwater infrastructure is severely under-equipped to
deal with flood events in the region.
Vehicle and technological research and development that occurs on site also
faces threats of incompatibility with any potential development on the
neighboring parcel targeted for acquisition, which poses a serious
danger to national security more broadly.
Many of these same partners that they've been working with,
and more, are now beginning to be brought together to form a coalition that can
create solutions to the regional flooding dangers that we face with Warren acting
as the model and the leader for proactivity rather than reactionary
response.
With federal efforts accelerating to expand private sector participation in defense
manufacturing, including active coordination between the Army and General Motors,
Warren has a clear opportunity to lead here.
We must display our commitment by strengthening our Arsenal alliance and advancing
partnerships that directly address the operational and environmental challenges
facing this critical sector, ensuring its continued growth and resilience
here in our city.Shannon also, I'm sure, has a little
bit to add here as well, and we'd be happy to take any questions that you might
have afterwards. Thank you.
Thank you.
Good afternoon. Shannon Burt, US Army Garrison Detroit Arsenal.
Pleasure to be here with all of you. Thank you.
So, what I'd like to do is talk a little bit about the history of
how we got to this point. So we have been partnering with
Macomb County, and then also with Oakland and Macomb County, and we've been
doing extensive regional flood
studies. And so, right now what we've done
is we are working with both
Candace Miller's office and also with Jim Nash.
And, we have actually got both counties now who have
opened up all of their,
they're called H&H models. So basically, it talks about everything that goes
through the pipes, everything that goes over land, and what our risk for
flooding is.
This is pretty significant because this area has not been modeled in
over 50 years. So we didn't fully understand what our risks were.
We took those models, and then what we've also done is we've done
comprehensive modeling of all of the utility infrastructure in the region.
So now what we're looking at is what our risk to utility infrastructure is,
in addition to our risk to flooding.
In addition to that, we've taken a look at not only what it does to
the defense manufacturing base, but maybe some critical infrastructure that you
have here in the area.
For example, the ITC corridor, so all of the lines that supply the
electricity to the area, and also the City of Warren Wastewater Treatment
Plant. Those are things that we've identified as potentially at risk.
So that was kind of how we initially started.
What we did do is we identified this project where
this is a 50/50 fund, where through the REPI program,
we can procure land with a partner.
And then from there, there's another
step. And so that's the Defense Construction
Investment Program. That's a 90/10 grant that
Mr. Bommarito was referring to. And so the goal is,
once the land has been acquired, we would actually put
in an application to do all of the environmental assessment work, any type
of nature-based solutions, anything that needs to be done to the
land. So ideally, what would happen is, the initial
land procurement is a 50/50 split, and then all of
the work that happens after that is 90/10.
So, for example, if you had a $10 million project,
then community partners or whoever was found to be
an appropriate partner would come up
with $1 million, and the additional money would be funded through
federal grants.
So from a
protection,
it not only protects your manufacturing base here in the area, so
over 20,000 employees at GM, we've also been talking to
Dana, KUKA,
and it protects the arsenal.
You have some additional protections that happen to your electrical
infrastructure and your wastewater treatment plant.
So we've got protection of your defense manufacturing base
that we're looking at as part of your DCIP project.
The fact that we were ranked number one
for this project is incredibly
impressive. I cannot tell you how difficult and how competitive these
projects are. And so in a few weeks, we'll be doing a
briefing to our leadership,
and then also they are tracking this up at the Pentagon
levels. And so we anticipate with
the increased interest in the
big three from a defense manufacturing posture
that this project for DCIP would probably
compete very well. And so when it comes to follow on
projects in order to make the investments into the infrastructure,
we feel that there's probably a fairly high likelihood of success.
So if you have any questions for me, the nerd-
That was a very high overview.
Yeah.
Very quick.
Very good.
Many, many hours have gone into-
Yes
... preparing and researching and-
Yeah
... and justifying
and coalition building.
Yes.
I
sit now,
Ms. Miller asked, I sit on a flood task force with
SEMCOG. There's actually two different regional task force that we sit on now, and
we're working to build regional partnerships, and we're also looking to find
folks to help shoulder the financial burden of a DCIP
project. So we wouldn't simply just come to the city and expect that
that would lay at your feet. We are looking for other partnerships
and other places to find that would directly benefit from these types
of investment projects.
Just so that you're aware, this is actually part of a
SEMCOG 2075 flood study plan. And so this
is not just looked at as an individual plan, but we'd be
part of a greater regional flood mitigation strategy as
well.
Very good.
And just really quick, if I remember the numbers correctly, so the first matching
one is up to 1.5-
Yeah
... to acquire the land.
Correct.
And with an additional, phase two would be up to
20 million-
Correct
... with a 2 million match.
Correct. So it-
But that's down the line.
Correct. It's 50/50 match on the first one.
So we applied, we estimated at $3 million.
Mm-hmm.
And then the next phase for DCIP is
90/10 split.
Mm-hmm.
And so as part of the DART V2, so the
study that I have going on right now, looking at the flood risk for the
area,
one of the requirements is that they have a project developed
for that parcel of land so that we could have an idea of what it would cost so that
we can go out for a DCIPUm, project.
And so, the OLDCC, the Office of Local
Defense Community Cooperation, has been notified.
They are very aware that we are going after a DISA project.
So just for context, I have been working on this project since
2018.
So this has taken a while to get us here, and so they are very
supportive of this, and they are aware that this is coming.
And so when we wrote the grant, we were very specific.
I did take sections of the City of Warren's master
plan. So anything that dealt with your gray water infrastructure, anything
that dealt with your parks and recreation, any risks that you have to not just
manufacturing capabilities, but also your neighborhoods, were all put
into this package so that we were sure that we gave
a comprehensive overview of the benefits, not just to
the army, but to the city as a whole.
And so, I also felt it was important to tell you that, that we're very
mindful of your fiscal responsibilities, and that
what this financial outlay would mean for you, but that it also
does quite a bit to protect. Because I know financially what the
army incurred-
Mm-hmm
... in that flood in 2014,
and I also know what GM incurred, and I can tell you
based on the models that we're doing now, we can expect to see more
of that. And so our hope is that this provides you with a space
where we can have intentional stormwater detention,
but it serves dual purposes.
And so, I just want to make everybody know also, my
information is on that package. And so if you have any technical
questions or any additional questions or concerns, I'll be more than happy to
answer them for you.
So in summary, it's a win-win.
Yes, ma'am.
It's a win for the military.
Yes, ma'am.
It's a win for the city. We would acquire one of the largest
tree lots left in the city. Green spaces, tree canopy, which would allow us
to preserve that for stewardship and to help
mitigate water runoff.
Yes, ma'am.
Yeah. Questions?
Question. In the 2014 event-
Yes
... and since then, when we've had storm events, we've
had significant sewer backups
throughout the DDA and in surrounding neighborhoods.
Would that be something that is attempted to be addressed
here also through this? Because you said the electrical and the
wastewater treatment plant.
Yes. So we are building models, and so
what we will do is when we start to develop strategies to
mitigate the risk,
what happens is when you get large storm events,
Red Run
fills up and Bear Creek can no longer empty into Red Run, and it starts to
back up.
So what we're hoping to do is take that piece of land and take the water
that's pushing up against GM and the arsenal and hold it
intentionally in a spot instead of it just running wherever it's going to
go, because that's what water does.
The hope is that it would be a controlled release,
which would help with flooding. I can't speak to
where specifically in the system
that you're speaking to, but what I can tell you is there are
places that we know for a fact that we could protect.
And then there's additional land that we are looking at that the army owns, that
we're also talking to the city
for some additional flood detention.
So, I have been speaking with the DPW and the engineering
department, so this has not been something where we're
doing this in a vacuum where... I work in the DPW, so I
understand that sometimes the good idea fairy isn't always as good as it
seems. And so it's important that we work to make
sure that you have something that is engineered properly
and that can be properly maintained and serves its intended purpose.
But from a financial perspective,
this does a lot to protect.
The hope is that we don't
have not only the loss of
infrastructure or damage to properties, but you don't have loss
of time. So lost man-hours or anything like
that.
Kind of in summary, big picture.
Big picture, yes.
Part of a lot of moving pieces here.
And this is part of a greater strategy with the Red Run Drain District, right?
So we're working with our partners at Macomb and Oakland County to look at other
strategies for how water's being released in other detention basins.
So again, this isn't one small
little project. This is looked at as a greater
project, and hopefully all of those strategies help to
protect the area.
One quick question.
Yes, Oscar.
It sounds really good at first blush.
What my question was,
aside from the work out here by 12 and Mound on the Bear Creek,
is REPI looking into the possibility
of somehow-- Are you interested in just moving the water
expediently and safely, or is something going to
be done about treating the water? What I'm getting at is the raw
sewage that comes through Red Run, and it doesn't stop there.
Obviously, it ends up in Lake St. Clair.
Sure.
And they end up closing the beaches.
Is this something you're looking into addressing, maybe?
Is the release of their-- When we get a heavy rain, they release
out of Oakland County, and it all comes down Red Run?
So-
That's a great question
... I don't have the authority to speak for Oakland County, but what I can say is
that this project helps to
relieve stress on Red Run. And so what we are doing,
though, is we are working with both the counties.
The fact that this area hasn't been modeled in over 50 years,
there's a lot of opportunity spaces that we're looking at as part of
this project.
UmWhat I can tell you
is,
what it will do is it's going to hold the water back, and it's going to
allow it to run down through Bear Creek and enter into
Red Run at a more controlled pace.
So the goal is when it's designed, that it helps to
mitigate that. Because right now, for
example, this year, the state of Michigan, the entire state
of Michigan was under a state of emergency for
flood risk. And that's the first time that's ever happened.
And so based on the modeling that we're doing with the University of Michigan,
we anticipate that we're going to see more
increased flood events like that.
There's a lot of things that were paved over.
There's a lot of things that get paved over in outer ring suburbs that
impact how things happen down here.
So what we're trying to do is mitigate that risk to the
best of our ability, not just for now, but moving forward as part of a regional
strategy.
Thank you.
And Tina Getcha, city engineer, has been at the table through many
of these discussions-
Yep
... and looking at-
Yes
... how do we engineer environmental-
Yes
... solutions to water, water runoff-
Yes
... detention.
I'm actually supposed to go up to her office when I leave here.
Very good.
Gina?
Is there an opportunity as through the
mitigation that we're looking at to incorporate
public recreational
activities and opportunities throughout?
For example, I had the opportunity this weekend to
visit Buffalo Bayou in Houston, which
is basically a beautiful park that is a storm
water-
Mm-hmm
... mitigation project, and that would be wonderful to have as an asset
in this community.
You want to speak to that, Hunter?
Yes. So that's definitely an option that we would be exploring.
That would be, you could call it phase three.
Phase two, building the detention infrastructure so that we can treat the
excess water, and that is something that came up very early on that we
were kind of excited about. And so that would be a phase three that we would piece
together and give people more access to nature
and what exact form that would take, we're not sure yet, but that's something that
we would very much so like to do after
these initial efforts, so.
Mm-hmm.
It is a tremendous opportunity, arguably a once in
a lifetime opportunity-
Arguably
... years in the making.
Yes.
Yeah.
Good work.
Thank you.
Madam Mayor?
Yes, Councilman.
I just want to thank you.
The council just recently passed a resolution supporting
the cleanup of Red Run, recited the damage that was done in
GM and
the military facility.
I was privileged to see some of the pictures of GM.
Suffered a lot of damage. I didn't see yours, but I'm sure there was
a lot.
Yes.
Presently working with Candace Miller's office, and I guess there's a
report that's coming out very shortly, I guess the Army Corps of Engineers
is coming out with a report that's supposed to be significant.
It'll help us.
Yes.
I don't know if you aware of that. I'm sure.
So the one project that we're doing is actually working in tandem with the Army
Corps of Engineers project as well.
Great. Thank you.
Long time coming.
Yes, sir.
I think there's a couple other items on our agenda that we want to speak to.
And so, is there any other questions or discussion?
Appreciate having
our experts to respond.
And if there is anything extra, you can reach out to either Shannon or myself.
We'd be happy to answer any more detailed questions.
Is this entirely the next fiscal year
or is any part of it needing-
Yes
... to be approved for this year?
Well, this is-
So the ask is for the acquisition phase one, which is the up
to $1.5 million, and that would be acquisition.
In future years, we would handle the DCIP and construction, which
would be separate from this. So this ask is simply
for the initial phase.
But what's the timing of it?
So they're cur-- Sorry to jump in, but there's properties on the
map-
Yep
... that there's currently discussions on acquiring, and
so those set into motion...
And so it takes having this money in order to be able to finalize
those.
So,
I have been working with the Army Environmental Command on a cooperative
agreement, and so I let Ms. Michaels know that we will be sending that over.
And then once conversations begin with the family, the
expectation is,
through the
accounting processes that need to happen at the city, as soon as the cooperative
agreement is signed, the expectation is that the money would be sent down to the
city. So the goal is to have this done
as quickly as the cooperative agreements and
negotiations with the parcel owners happen.
Coupled with a commitment for funding.
Yes.
Yeah.
And then once this is solidified,
we are working with other partners to begin the next phase.
I'm actually writing that grant up now, actually.
Terry?
All set?
Okay.
Just a follow reading question.
What is Hunter's position in the budget here?
Hunter works for economic development.
He's not on city payroll. Oh, okay.
So he's in the community and-
We can't lose him. Good employee.
Oh, okay.
Very valuable. Thank you.
I was going to say, DDA only funds the two positions directly.
Okay.
Yeah.
What other items?
Well, so-
Thank you
... we did some of the other things, and again, on page 59,
just to highlight it,
we did have
the police lobby renovations was listed originally to
council at 94,000And we found out from
the police that actually they're looking for $120,000
to finish that. And then there were some questions
on the Critical Connect and Tyler Technologies.
But we did ask the
policeman to come and kind of give us an update on what those are.
Captain?
How are you doing? Captain Brent Chisholm, police administration.
I guess the deputy commissioner is going to sit down.
He has every faith in you.
Yeah. Any questions that you have about any of the projects that we've requested
from the DDA, we'd be happy to answer.
One of the first things that you'll see is the lobby renovation.
Many of you probably haven't been into the police department
recently. The police department was built in the 1970s and the lobby reflects that.
So we'd like to bring the lobby to match the
pavement that the DDA funded on the outside.
That outside of the building looks very good.
We're finishing up that private plan for some nice landscaping outside.
We'd like to bring the lobby up to date.
So that's one of the big renovations that we're excited about.
If you have any specific questions about any of the items, we are happy to discuss
them.
Can you give just a brief description of what Tyler Technology
looks like
for policing?
Yeah. So Tyler Technologies is a computer-aided dispatch product.
And so police officers respond to calls in a car, but they have a
laptop computer that's in there. It's a rugged laptop.
And what computer-aided dispatching does is it provides officers with information
about that call that they can see. Tyler Technologies is an advanced
product that allows them to understand trends,
things that are going on in that area that they're responding to, and can help
really integrate with videos a- and provide the officers with a lot of
information that they can use when they're responding to a call.
One of the most impactful ways for police officers to respond
effectively to calls is to have a lot of information before they get there.
Tyler Technologies is the CAD product that we believe will
deliver that information ahead of time while the officers are responding
so they can make informed decisions on the way there and when they get there.
Very good. Any questions about how these impact
PD?
Gina?
I just have two comments.
I think we need a new police department, not to continue to invest
money in the old one,
because we're seeing a lot of
upgrades that are needed to a very, very old building.
And number two,
my just general request is the next time we have a
police and fire millage, I think that we should really look
at-- as a voter,
when I vote for a police and fire millage, I'm supporting
things like technology that the police department needs
to do their job. And I would love to,
back to the how are we looking at all of this comprehensively, it would be
great to understand how all of that fits together
instead of just, "All right, let's push a renewal through." I think that
the voters would be very interested in supporting the police department and
the fire department and the needs that you have departmentally.
Yeah.
Speaking to the first question, I think we were quoted about
120 in bonding capability if we were to max out,
hit the bullseye.
And gauging by combined
justice centers, I think Lansing is the most current.
That is
gauging about 178 million.
Yes, ma'am.
Which
in concert between courts and PD,
that takes us past our bonding capability
for that, and that would exhaust everything from the public
investment for a DDA district. Is there additional
infrastructure investment we would need for parks or
recreational building? And so that gets at the heart of we're looking for
real numbers and real values because these are going to take
important decisions and prioritization on where
these dollars are committed to because it's going to tie our hands to what
other choices we can make. So trying to get real dollars
so when that decision is before us, we have it.
And just to gauge, when it's 60 million over
our bonding capability,
one of the realistic questions is how long and how do we make
it last in the meantime? So just to kind of add some
context.
When the city does that assessment, could you
also include in the assessment the long-term
operational implications-
Absolutely
... the operational costs?
Yes.
I think that would be really helpful for-
Absolutely
... the decision making collectively.
Any other questions to these two items?
Is there any more-- Do we want to do any discussion around those?
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
So Mayor, the next one we have the capital improvement refunding
bonds. I think, Rick, you were going to
just explain what that is. We had a couple of the board wondering what that-
Communications.
Yes.
Yep.
Yeah. Richard Fox, city controller.
That item, communications
in their budget process,
revenues for their
department have been going down steadily each year
because of streaming. So-
Mm-hmm
... in order for them to get through this budget
yearI'm putting the bond
payment for them, that's the last one that they have for the community center,
and requesting the DDA pay for that in order for them to survive for
another year.
And for clarification, the community center is part of our
DDA.
They-
It's within the footprint.
They are. Yes.
Any questions or discussions?
Okay. Any questions from the floor on that, Gina's?
So Rick, you're also
here. At council, Ms. Moore had brought up maybe the
library would be able to pay this HVAC unit, so I did
leave an item here for-
Yeah.
So yeah, I believe the library will be able to pay that, so we can deduct
that or take that out of the...
I have a question on a different item.
Yes.
So for the replacement of the windows,
with the removal of the library, maybe
equipment to maintain the windows might be added
to the
capital budget.
Dave, do you want to speak to that?
Can you give us a historic look back at
how and what this
looks like?
Good afternoon. Dave Mosier, the public service director.
Actually, yes, that is
our intention. Years ago, the cleaning of the windows was removed out
of the budget. Unfortunately, after years of neglect of not getting
cleaned and not getting cleaned, the windows have become etched with that
dirt. We've had multiple companies come out and say that they could clean it.
They couldn't.
So we've had some that even came out, tried it-
Mm-hmm
... and stopped mid-window, said, "Nope, it's way worse than we thought it
was." Jeff has made a lot of
calls with different window companies.
We think this is the best course of action.
And yes, we
actually, I don't know if you've seen this technology before, but we've used it
over at the water department and it worked fantastically, and I know we brought
drones up multiple times this evening, but
we use drones. They had a truck with a drone attached to it, and the
drone goes up, sprays it with soap, goes back and comes again
with clean water and cleans it, and we can clean our own windows anytime we
want. So that way we don't have to worry about it, and we'll clean them.
And we can also market that as a drone show.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
We can even-
It's a water-
We can use it at parks-
A water
... and rec for the foam show.
Can we-
We can shoot foam
... can we use it over the-
Yeah. Yeah.
... the fountain?
Now, that 75,000, is that strictly windows or does
that include that drone technology?
That does not include the drone, and that's not all of the windows on the front
either, I believe. I believe he wants to do it in two sections.
We're going a row at a time?
I believe he's got it mapped out into two sections because he thought the
cost was going to be too much to ask for at one time.
So...
So perhaps we can amend it to do the job, to
get the job done.
Do we...
The 150,000?
I think another factor in, and again, I
apologize for not being well prepared, Jeff kind of got called away at short
notice.
There was a question on this specific type of glass is very hard
to get. They only manufacture it when needed.
So there was another call that they might not be able to make enough glass at
one time.
So that was the other thing about getting it to us.
When we broke one of the windows over in the library, that took us
four months to get one piece of glass.
So, that might have-
From up through Cure Video
... might have also gone into the consideration of only doing one section at a
time.
So a two-phase?
Yeah.
Dave, can I, how long would it take?
Because if we're talking about '27, the whole year doesn't even start.
So to Gina's point-
I just wanted to throw that out there
... if we ask drones for the front end-
If we get the money, I'm sure we could do it over the time.
I don't know what Jeff's calculations were.
Like I said, he asked me to just show up and speak on his behalf kind of last
minute. So I only had the brief overview.
But that's why he said he wanted was the cost was his concern.
He didn't think you guys would approve the 150, so he wanted to go phase by,
phase it in.
I can't emphasize enough how meticulous
our department heads are as good stewards of tax dollars, and they
try to be conservative and conscientious with
how they implement projects to be cost-effective.
And those, if you notice, the top windows are way worse than the bottom
windows. They're all bad.
I'm not going to sugarcoat it. They're horrible. It looks bad.
And actually, cleaning it made it look worse.
And if half of them are new, the other half are going to look-
Yeah
... so... It's going to be like painting half of a room.
Yeah, I agree.
So, I-
If we commit the 150,000 and we contract for
it, it will follow it-
Yeah
... even if we can't get all the supply chain-
Like any other supply and-
In one
... if any other supply and demand, if you tell them that you want these, they'll
make it, you know.
And if you only get half done, we can always do it-
Half in the spring, yeah
... in an appropriation and just move it forward.
But if we can budget for it, we can at least try to get it done.
Any questions or concerns to that-
Yeah, I-
Support of?
My
input would be
I'd prefer to get the whole job done and also have a plan to
properly maintain it.
Do we have an estimate on how much a maintenance drone or
contractual services for that would cost?
The drone was actually surprisingly cheap.
It was literally only like $8,000.
That didn't include the truck or the box, but that was minimal cost, too.
The drone and the hoses were like eight grand.
Can you give us a ballpark if we were to do the whole setup, where that
would put us?
We could probably use it into one-
Thirds?
... of our existing pickup trucks.
We could probably get the whole thing accomplished under 20
Reasonable?
So maybe we also add $20,000 for the
drone equipment?
What is that?
Equipment.
Round it off to 175?
So I could change our suggested amendment to
175 with the
notation for council on what that's for in the process.
Is anyone in controller's office putting their hands up?
Is that okay?
Not a problem.
Okay.
Do we have consensus on board that these are-
Sounds brilliant
... in agreement?
Okay.
Okay. The next one I don't have. The next one,
Mayor, that we have on here that I didn't highlight, but we did have
some question about was the generator for City Hall
here.
Shimon's here?
But I think Shimon had some-
Or-
... concerns about-
Both of you? Come on up.
Can you-
Can you speak to the infrastructure we currently have?
Correct. So the
building was built to have three generators.
The controls that we have are constantly looking for the other two generators.
We only installed one when the building was built.
The thought process was that we were going to add the other two eventually.
20 years later, we still haven't added the other two.
The problem is now this generator is not enough to carry everything that's
in this building. The controls are failing because they're
constantly looking for the other problems.
This generator is at its end of life.
We have spent the engineering money to have the engineering study done for a
new whole building generator.
So we've started the process. This money is to
finish the process and actually buy the generator and get it installed.
Shimon, did you want to speak to the technology component of
how important the generator support is?
Good afternoon. Shimon Hakim, information systems manager.
From an IT perspective, so upstairs we
have a UPS that allows us to run our
servers and the computers within the IT department for
about two to maybe about six hours, in that range, depending on how
many devices we have plugged in.
It's like a battery?
Yep. It's basically a big battery.
So,
in the past when the power have gone out,
the generator will kick in and the UPS,
it prevents brownouts and things like that.
In addition to
that power, we need power for all of our door
access,
security cameras, and obviously all of our servers.
Those are the three main thing that needs to
have power at all times. The UPS upstairs, again,
depending on what we plug in, gives us up to about six hours of
power. So this
backup generator is critical in terms of IT
infrastructure.
And this would bring us to two of the three generators, getting us closer
to the capacity and demand.
I'm assuming. I'm not exactly sure about the number of generators, but-
Dave?
We only do one whole generator. We replace the generator that's out there and make
one generator that would power the entire building.
So it's a bigger capacity generator.
Correct.
But it would meet our needs.
Correct.
Is it gasoline-powered?
Thanks, Shimon.
Natural gas.
I believe there's two different proposals, whether it be natural gas or
diesel-powered. It depends on the cost factor and the
proposal. The engineering study is
studied for both, so when it goes out to RFP, we
would see which one came back, which one was better.
I just recall that the one... Because the power never goes out
here, or rarely. The one time it did, when it was
half the country was out,
my recollection is that the concern was the wastewater treatment plant and
getting enough fuel for that as opposed to running City
Hall or-
There-
So if it was a generator, it might not have been used.
So I would encourage you to look at the natural gas
option.
Yeah. When we did the one with the full building generator over at PD, that was an
option over there. We already had the diesel tank literally right next
to where we put the generator, so it-
Gotcha
... kind of made sense. And we can get a long
period of time through that generator with that tank.
The one out at Wastewater, that's literally an old train
engine. That generator takes a lot.
So they've got a lot of redundancies out there, too.
So yeah, I think natural gas makes a lot of sense on this
building just because
even the generator we have now, we have a 500-gallon fuel tank, and we
have to get that polished every once in a while because we don't go through all 500
gallons unless we have major power outages, which have been becoming more and
more lately.
I would say we've had, since I've taken office, at least two power outages
to
City Hall complex annually.
But what the community doesn't understand, they don't always realize
is the City Hall, for the most part, continues to operate
because we have generator support.
So we don't have to close all our departments just because there's a power outage.
I appreciate
Shimon Hakim's explanation. I think that spending millions of dollars
to keep City Hall open with the occasional
power outage probably isn't the best use of money, but understanding that
there are other implications-
Correct
... makes a whole lot more sense.
Right.
Yeah. And the power outages areEven though, like the mayor said,
even though you don't see them, I get the calls in the middle of the night, and
we've lost quite a few squirrels and ducks in this neighborhood that have caused
this power to go out, and-
That happened at Cousins Mill High School not that long ago.
Yeah.
So it does happen more than you think.
It's just a lot of people don't notice because we try to make it as seamless as
possible.
Mm-hmm.
Madam Mayor?
Mm-hmm. Councilman.
On the topic of the generator, so you have one now
that is old, but it works?
It does. It's at its end of life, though.
I'm under the understanding that our courts does not have a
generator, and we've had multiple shutdowns this past
year of no power there. Are there any plans
where the need is greater there than here?
So that was tossed back and forth about, there was a potential
of doing an engineering study to attach it to the police generator, because that
one's so much bigger than what was needed.
Was the redundancy large enough that it would handle that building?
Then there was a study, well, if we're going to be building a new court, why would
we put the money into buying a generator for that one?
Then it's not just as simple as hooking up a home generator.
You'd have to buy a switch gear. You'd have to get the switch gear wired in, then
you have to run the cable to the switch gear, and then the cable to the generator.
So you're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars just to get that
accomplished. It's not just a matter of plug and play.
So they operate in the dark, and their servers to the state don't work, and-
Yeah
... stuff like that.
Yeah.
If we were to invest in a generator there, I'm sure
those can be moved to the new facility once it starts.
They're not specific to a building.
They're a generator for-
They're specific to your power needs.
Correct.
And I would imagine that a generator for a new building, judging by
the size that they want with six courtrooms, is going to be a lot bigger
than the needs of this building right here.
You're talking about a generator the size of-
I'm sure they'll have multiple generators
... the police department has.
So, it would be the size of that
building, it's a 12-cylinder diesel engine.
So, moving that from one location to another,
you'd have to recycle the switch gears, and then you'd have to
redone all the cable. You're still talking another hundreds and hundreds of
thousands of dollars.
Okay. Thank you.
And if I remember correctly, only one of the
closures at the court was power outage.
There were a couple other technical issues.
Yeah, we had some problems with the HVAC.
Mm-hmm.
And just to that point, too, when we got the new
generator at the PD,
the old generator there worked as well, but we made it into the
price that when they sold the old generator, it was
at a discount into ours. We had no use for it, because
we couldn't afford the cost to add it to any of our other buildings.
Thank you.
I appreciate the time and energy everyone's taken
to dig into this budget into more detail probably than has ever
been done before.
And I respect
in order to have quorum for a vote, are we comfortable with
voting on the fiscal year '27 budget with the
discussions we've made? Are there any concerns about what we
have not discussed yet?
I don't support all of the individual line items
of the capital budget as proposed, but I understand
that those items come to us
again.
So I think in the interest of moving it forward,
we should vote on it.
So what we're asking for is not adoption, we're just asking for
approval to make these recommended changes
and forward it to council, for
they adopt it first, and then it
would come back to us for formal adoption.
And each project would then, as it's-
Yeah
... contracted out, would come before us.
Can I get a motion to...
What is the language you'd like us to use?
Propose? Adopt?
Approve the proposed budget.
I think all we have left is the capital portion of it.
Do we need to adopt it in its entirety or just capital?
Just approve it in-
Entirety
... sorry, in entirety.
So-
Can I get-
To city council
... we went through-
To authorize the budget.
Yeah. Madam Chair?
The general, the contractual services in all of the
capital. So those are the main changes.
The
rest of it is all boiler plate stuff.
Rick, what would you like-
Madam Chair, so-
What would be helpful for you?
The motion would be to adopt the fiscal '27 budget
recommendation to the council.
With recommended amendments.
With the recommended amendments that were talked about today.
Are you
comfortable with that?
Motion to authorize the budget?
That's fine.
Because I cannot adopt it until council approves.
Yeah, we can't adopt it until-
That's right. You recommend it
Yeah, that's fine.
Approve the-
Approving the recommendation.
Is the word approve, authorize?
Could make approve the recommended budget.
Approve.
Yeah.
Consensus?
Yep.
Okay.
We've discussed what changes and amendments.
Can I get a motion?
Make the motion.
Thank you, Michael. Second?
Support.
Support from Oscar. Roll call.
Mr. Wiegand?
Yes.
Mr. Zamora?
Yes.
Ms. Cavalier?
Yes.
Mr. McCary?
Yes.
Mayor Stone?
Yes.
Pass.
Thank you.
If you have the... Yeah.
Thank you
Oh, approval of list of bills. Joe, one more. One more.
We'll get you out.
We got list of bills.
Can we spend the money?
We've got to pay the bills.
The late meetings are late.
I apologize.
Can I get a motion for approval for list of bills?
Want to make a motion?
I'll make a motion.
Thank you, Joe.
Mm-hmm.
Can I get a second?
Support.
Support from Oscar.
Okay, Mr. McCary?
Yes.
Mr. Zamora?
Yes.
Mr. Wiegand.
Yes.
Ms. Cavalier.
Yes.
Mayor Stone.
Yes. Okay, this time-
Yeah?
... you're dismissed.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you for your patience, and thank you for also
expediting that.
That leaves us with good of the order.
I just have one
request. So we approved the International Downtown
Association membership.
Membership.
But it was only implemented for the DDA
staff, and we have requests coming
from all the departments. So I would ask you to
consider looking at that membership for all city staff
as opposed to just the DDA staff.
Does that change-
There's a lot of... It changes the amount, but there
are so many professional development opportunities, and even just
some of the purchasing resources that we're looking at, the holiday
decorations.
Yeah.
It just seems like a missed opportunity not to open that to everybody.
We actually have a Zoom scheduled, too, with the administrator there to help walk
through some of those benefits.
Do we have to change the amount of approval?
It's something that can come back later.
I just would-
Okay
... encourage you when you
talk with it to look at the-
Ask them what the appropriate, or look at the number of staff, and
ask them for what the appropriate amount is.
Because the cost is based on the budget.
So the DDA budget is obviously-
Versus the city budget?
The city budget puts
you at the top tier of membership,
which is just like a couple thousand dollars difference.
Considering-
Okay
... the amount of money that we look at-
So we can get that-
... seems like a missed opportunity
... because that'll be like a contractual service.
The council members, you're on the
DDA-
Absolutely
... but everybody could be a member for the upper tier.
Oh, absolutely. And we need to make sure controllers for anything that's relevant-
We're 100 a member
... and/or HR-
Part of that, for sure
... community development. Absolutely. Thank you for flagging that.
Okay.
Stevens Road Greenway community engagement meetings are happening.
May 11th is the next one, so if you haven't had input,
come participate. We have our park and recreation
survey is being launched. We're working towards our master plan.
Please contribute.
Warren Concert Band and Warren Symphony Band are both performing May
17th. You're going to may have to make tough decisions.
Both phenomenal. Up next, learn about rentals
during Empowering Civic Engagement, and the next community check-in will be
May 28th. Any other good and welfare for the
city?
Anything coming up?
Happy Mother's Day.
Happy Mother's Day. Thank you, Oscar.
Motion to
adjourn.
Okay. Motion to adjourn.
Motion.
All in favor?
Aye.
Motion carries.
Thank you.