Prayer booklet or devotional.

And it says in Psalms 121 to 3.

I lift up my eyes to the hills from where will my help come?

My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved.

He who keeps you will not slumber.

Thank you so much, Peter.

Is there a motion for the approval of the minutes?

Motion.

Any objections.

Hearing none, that action shall be taken.

Thank you so much.

There are um no chair remarks.

Um public comment is now closed.

Public comment is now closed.

Is there anyone here in the room who would like to make public comment in person?

If so, please um take the microphone.

When you get there, you can um press the button at the base of the microphone, and when it turns green, you can start.

And good morning, Mr.

Foster.

You have um two minutes.

Um good morning through the chair.

Just wanted to come down first, very nice invocation.

Psalms 121 in this entirety is a good chapter.

I encourage everyone to read the whole song.

Um Mark 325, and if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.

So that goes across the board, whether we are the state of union, uh state of the nation address, legislative body have to be together on one accord with a common denominator, uplifting humanity.

I think that would be the common grounds for all of our legislators, and so um to have so much discord across this nation in this state and in the city, it's not a testament to the government, governor or the president, it's a testament to our elected officials who represent us.

Just hold on, Mr.

Foster.

I don't see the clock um on the screen.

Good morning, madam chair.

Give me one moment Mr.

Foster, we're gonna um you can pick up where you left off, but we're still gonna give you two minutes.

Yes, ma'am.

So I appreciate it.

Um I think it's important.

Mr.

Foster, we have to wait till we can see your time.

Ms.

Okay, Mr.

Foster.

Yeah, so um wanted to just once again say thank you for the time.

But um our legislative bodies have to find ways to work together.

I often say that religion divides people, but spirituality is the uniter.

As a spiritual person, you'd be able to converse and get along with any and everybody from any denomination, any adverse views and things.

And so I think that's a testament to our walks and lives.

Now, as legislators, you all are elected to represent the people.

The policies that's been coming down have not been equitable.

They have been for for greed and for self-glory and for self-promotions and things of those sort.

It's over 10 million people in this state.

600,000 some people in the city.

We have to have a voice.

When we look at the word second-class citizen, as I spoke about before, a lot of people highlight Puerto Rico.

The reason they highlight Puerto Rico is because Puerto Rico do not have a legislative voice.

They do not have anybody that could go into Congress or anywhere to represent them.

And so when I speak about it being a black citizen here in a predominantly black city, I have no black legislative voice.

We've been second class census since John Congress passed away.

I left the the um congressional district.

And so those things have to change across the board, not just fairly, but statewide, legislatively.

They cannot be pushing white agendas that cannot be voted in with a thousand votes in the in the predominant black city that's impoverished in a lot of areas, and then push alternative agendas.

Our elected officials have to be held accountable to represent the districts and the people that elect them, and that's that any house um be divided against itself, cannot stand.

Thank you, Mr.

Foster.

How many callers do we have, Miss Ellis?

Or do we have anyone else in um here that would like to make public comment?

Okay, seeing no one else.

How many callers do we have?

Madam Chair, you have nine callers.

Okay, we'll start with the first one.

Please um introduce yourself, and you have two minutes.

Caller is owner popper.

Owner Popper, you have two minutes.

Uh good morning, and through the chair, may I be heard?

Can be heard.

Thank you, Carolyn Hughes.

Yes, uh, Mr.

Foster.

Yes, we are living in a second class city.

Um the the majority are treated as second-class citizens today.

Um, I looked at the charter, and um the there's some key features in the charter that was uh 2012.

One of them was citizens' rights and responsibilities, and it says it emphasizes the city's duty to provide decent housing, job opportunities, and a clean environment reflecting the city's needs and aspirations.

You guys are falling very short in these areas that the charter is requesting you not to fall short on that you engage in and that you do.

Um there are things called oversight and accountability that was added to the charter.

It aims to enhance transparency, accountability, and governmental operations, ensuring that officials are held responsible for their actions, and you will be.

You at the table, Miss Miller, the new council member heard the um uh LPD say that all three of the PLAs had to be the public lighting authority members had to be put forward at the same time, and that's not what you did.

And you sat there and you and you heard the LPD's um uh uh uh what they said was was within the law.

You all have to operate within the charter, not outside of the charter.

Please hire some an outside attorney because Mr.

Um Matt Mallet is not representing us in a in a in a very good way.

And we we need ethical, we need ethical people that are responsible for the city's finances, and we don't have it.

We need the oversight and accountability.

Please let the ethical committee hire their own lawyer so we can get rid of all of these people who are doing all of these fraudulent things and stealing our money and giving it to people who it doesn't belong to.

Thank you, Miss Carolyn Hughes.

Our next caller is if you can introduce yourself, you have two minutes.

The next caller is Cunningham.

Good morning, Mr.

Cuttingham.

You have two minutes, sir.

Pulling over to the side of the road for safety purposes.

Three one three more, Mr.

Cunningham, Mr.

Cunningham.

Are you still there?

I pray for council.

I pray for honorable and great mayor, and the first gentleman Jackson as well.

I pray for all those that are by my quiet live.

But I was disappointed, the honorable and great.

Uh the church.

All the way up to the church.

Not break to the back.

And uh other ailments that are not all.

Thank you, Mr.

Cuttingham.

Our next caller is you have two minutes if you can introduce yourself.

Next caller is William M.

Davis.

Mr.

Davis, you have two minutes and good morning.

Good morning.

Can I be heard?

You can be heard.

Okay.

I like to start off by saying I think the citizen advisory councils are a poor reflection of what I used to be the co-chair of University City A citizen district council.

And we actually had power.

We had assistance.

We had um we had a budget.

You know, like I said, dinner time, and I was the citizen co-chair for the University City A.

I was the youngest person, of course.

This is back in 1980.

I was a Wayne State student.

And but the main thing I want to say is the fact that we need to do better than what's going on.

These uh community advisory councils have no power, no real influence, have no budget.

Uh back during the time when I was the co-chair from University City A, uh, we got one third of the state allocation for community involvement because we actually worked and we actually pushed things.

We had community economic development, we had planning, we had a number of groups that assisted us.

You know, today it's like nothing really is going on.

Nothing should be, everything should be working towards the development of the community.

You know, we did a number of developments to still stand during the time I was on there.

Also, separately, I like to say that uh it should be a policy and a procedure that the city's not going to demify or represent people to violate city policies, the to do illegal acts and you know, and immoral acts.

You know, take for an example, let's say if an officer shoots a book, a white officer shoots a black woman five or six times after she asked for a supervisor, you know, that should be no reason that we should be supporting that person.

Anyway, yeah, I have a good day.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Davis.

The next caller is you have two minutes if you can introduce yourself.

Next caller is Betty A.

Varner.

Ms.

Varner, you have two minutes and good morning, ma'am.

Uh good morning, uh, honorable council member uh Callaway and to all the council members and to all within the sound of my voice.

I'm Betty Barner, president of the Soda Ellsworth Black Association, advocating for uh black clubs, associations, 501c3s, asking the uh council to uh consider in the budget a fund to assist uh organizations when they have to go and present uh or go to the land use hearing to uh ask for permission to uh do whatever is needed that is for their projects for us.

It's uh we want to have playground equipment on the um vacant lots that we have uh purchased to expand our park.

Uh I was told this fee is uh $1,500.

That is reaping havoc on our um association, and I'm quite sure it would harm other small uh black clubs.

We don't have that type of money.

We're doing what you're asking us to do, buy these uh vacant lots, beautify them and make them useful for our neighborhood and for the residents who live in our area.

So I'm asking to please consider uh a fund to assist us and with other projects, and I'm asking the administration to work with you and consider waiving that $1,500 fee for um black clubs.

And uh we know it might be some stipulations or whatever, but I'm just asking humbly, uh it's a start.

Assist us to be successful in our projects, and we're still looking for help for our Finkel corridor.

We're getting interest, new businesses are opening, and we need help, monies.

Thank you for that.

Thank you, Ms.

Varner.

Our next caller, please.

Next caller is phone number ending in one, two, four.

Phone caller ending in one, two, four.

You have two minutes, please introduce yourself.

Yes, good morning.

May I be heard?

You can okay.

I didn't hear Mr.

Cunningham.

I think you should let him speak again.

Um, but thank you for the two minutes.

Um I'm glad Mr.

Foster and you know brought up the topic of uh uh second class citizens.

Uh clearly the way the city treats people is is different.

You know, there's disparate treatment of people.

Um and uh you know, some people get help, some people get responded to it public comment, and some people uh get ignored regularly.

Um new members excluded, you're learning about this, but anyway.

So uh here's the problem too.

There's very disparate treatment in blight tickets.

Um of these favorite developers get to have blight, get to mow over garbage, and nobody's bothering them, even though I let member Sheffield's office know and other people know about this.

And then um now the uh I I learned that I had two blight tickets for like grass allegedly too long.

The way I learned about them was getting a collection notice in the mail.

They did not properly serve me.

And yesterday the deputy district manager said, Well, if it gets the collections, there's nothing they can do.

Well, uh, but the resident, the only way I found out about them was to getting the collection notice.

Uh, I asked Member Sheffield's office, can they get proof that I was served?

She said she would.

The staff person did, never did.

And so uh it's real easy.

Introduce legislation that if they cannot prove and they've got the technology to prove that somebody they've served somebody properly or not, then it's got to be automatically dismissed.

I shouldn't have to spend inordinate amounts of my time petitioning government for redress of grievances when the favored developers get to have blight, the land bank gets to have blight.

Thank you, Ms.

Warwick.

The next call is the next caller is next caller is call in user one.

Next caller ending in what what's that?

Um the last three digits of that phone number.

Call in user one.

User one, you have um two minutes.

Can I be heard?

You can be heard.

Yes, ma'am.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Um, I would like to know when will the council start doing the following.

Start enacting um more policies to protect elders and disabled in many of these apartment complexes when somebody complained to the full body of council, they have to be retaliated.

Um for complaining to city council as a whole.

That needs to change.

And we need to bring some better vocational skills like electrolysis, eyelash training.

Not everybody is interested in construction or medical or truck driving.

I like to see the full council as a whole implement these and start holding landlords accountable.

Let's not forget Tatiana Williams, who lost her children a year ago this week.

And good as foreigners fight for their communities as a planet in the U.S.

We need to do this here in Detroit and fight for the resident as a full body, not just one district.

I appreciate you.

This member uh Callaway, correct?

Yes, ma'am.

I'm glad to hear for you.

I'm glad that you are a part.

I hope that you will implement some laws to protect residents, uh, so it's no more Leland houses and others uh where people have to be displaced after paying their rent constantly.

You can't contact right to council unless you're getting some type of court notice with 36 districts.

Thank you so much.

Our next caller is next caller is Sahira Ahmad.

Good morning, Ms.

Amad.

You have two minutes.

Good morning.

Thank you for two minutes.

Um Reverends of Black History Month.

I'd like to highlight because a lot of uh of you wonderful city council members uh always open with a Christian invocation.

Um I'd like to open with uh my form of spirituality, and it's not Christianity.

Uh my my leader is Dr.

Yosef Ben Yakinan, who is a prominent African citizen historian uh who brought many of us over to Egypt.

Kemet is the correct uh word for Egypt.

Uh it was stolen.

Uh Kemet was by Arabs and others.

The people you see there in the in Kemet, Egypt are invaders.

And Dr.

Ben, who's a spiritual uh historian that took us over millions, millions of black people over there, believed that the first deity uh was feminine is part of a broader oral based uh spirituality that he taught.

And he said that heaven is between the African woman's legs, because this is perhaps his uh famous, albeit uh that mother goddess concept being argued that the earliest divine concepts of ancient Egypt were centered on the mother goddess or feminine creative force.

The reason why we have so much problems now is because the um the invaders uh worship a masculine uh force and uh that's why they we got problems today.

So I think we need to maybe open some of uh our our meetings with some different concepts of spirituality that encompass uh more holistic.

Thank you, Ms.

Ahmad.

Our next next caller is you have two minutes.

Next caller is phone number ending in 199 phone caller ending in one nine nine.

You have two minutes if you can introduce yourself.

Yes, can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Yes, thanks for taking my call.

Yes, ma'am.

Is there anything available for Detroit City retirees who were uh affected by the bankruptcy, uh, who chose to remain in their home in the city of Detroit after retirement?

Uh a lot of us need help with repairs in our home.

Some of us uh who have remained, have very little money to do repairs, and we do not qualify for the hope application.

Money received from so-called 13th check was appreciated, very much appreciated, but most of it the retirees will tell you went to offset bills and anything else that uh home repairs.

I will be 80 years old this year, thank God.

And uh I've been retired 20 years, and my pension check is less, uh, mainly because of the uh bankruptcies uh and they keep taking off uh something for my insurance.

Please help us with any information you have.

Um, I hope the rest of my time you could respond or give me some kind of information I could use.

Uh a person to call so I could get help with repairing my home.

Thank you so much for before you hang up, ma'am.

Before you can hang up, um, what's your zip code so we can find out who your councilperson is?

My zip code is 4828.

Okay, 4828.

We'll make sure your councilperson uh is that Mr.

Denzel uh McCampbell.

Yeah, I voted for him.

I like his beard.

Yeah, okay.

All righty.

So what we'll do is um if you could call my office at 224535, we'll um share some resources with you with for home repairs, and you can also come um call my office and we'll make sure that you get your council person's contact information, okay?

All right, the next caller is thank you.

Oh, you're welcome.

The next caller is you have two minutes.

The last caller, madam chair, is iPhone.

IPhone, you have two minutes if you can introduce yourself iPhone.

Okay, iPhone.

We you can call in or send your um comments to the clerk or to my um email at councilmember callaway at Detroit Mi.gov.

We cannot hear you.

We'll um ask you one more time.

Are you on the call?

iPhone okay.

All righty.

We cannot hear you will um ask you one more time are you on the call iPhone okay all righty um please um send your concerns or your comments or questions into councilmember Callaway at Detroit Mi.gov and also to the clerk um is that our last caller Miss Ellis Yes Madam Chair that was the last caller um thank you so much Miss Ellis and now we will move back to our agenda we have a discussion for the 2026 executive organization plan um is anyone here for that discussion and right after that we have public um a public hearing member miller I remember you saying you want to make a comment I did okay all right um before we start that 1020 um discussion as they take their seats um I'm going to defer to um member miller member miller good morning everyone I just wanted to say regarding the gentleman owner of Papa he mentioned the interviews for public lighting you are absolutely correct we were it was indicated that we should bring the three forward but there were two gentlemen that did not wish to be interviewed they said it in writing for a withdrawal for that particular position but our chair once we receive the additional applicants that will choose to be interviewed they will be um brought before us in a whole so that is not happening yet but is up to the administration to fully uh commit with the submission so we're waiting for the additional applicants um we and that particular day for me there was only one person so he was here and it was only appropriate that we not waste time but we are intending to address three apps once we receive the additional applications or the applicants for those positions thank you very much thank you so much member miller okay now we'll go over to our discussion for the executive organization plan if if you can introduce yourself those who will be speaking with us this morning if you turn the mic on is at the base and once it turns green is activated Kristen booth the law department David Bowser Chief of Staff good morning Tanya Stademaier CFO good morning okay we'll start with you miss Staldermeyer okay or who did you whoever's gonna start can start I didn't know if we wanted to kind of start with law to just kind of give you an overview of what the process looks like.

Okay all right so um we are holding the public hearing today uh as of now the um EOP the executive organization plan will go into effect on April 7th so from here we will take any comments and it will then be turned back over to the mayor's office so David would you like to kind of explain the overview of the department before we get there excuse me if I can just kind of Miss Daldermeyer yep through the chair if I could just kind of give you a quick overview and then David can kind of give you the details on the departments because that part I don't know but again I can kind of give you an overview of what we're doing here.

So the proposed amendment to the executive organization plan would establish one new department which is the department of human homeless and family services it would also create changes to three existing departments HRD the mayor's office and DPD so that's kind of in a nutshell what we're doing here I've also indicated in the past that it will have no net impact on the budget and that's because as a city we have hundreds yeah hundreds of vacancies and uh we're actively recruiting for most of those vacancies but there are some vacant positions that will be reprioritized you know based on the mayor's priority so we'll do some changes with those positions and that impacts just the fiscal year 26 budget and that's kind of all we're talking about here what we're thinking about doing as far as what the department will look like for uh HRD and uh HHFS is that keep in mind that there's a 90 point six million dollar budget for HRD.

That budget is going to be split between HRD which will be about 45.9 million dollars HHFS which will be about 41.4 million and then 3.1 million of that 90.6 million will be part of the OCFO budget as we will be responsible for financial uh compliance monitoring can you give those figures again I got the 90 um for for HRD they have a 96 million dollar budget of that 96 million dollar budget three million will go to the CFO and then you said 21 million for H A H HFS I can repeat the entire thing okay so if you discussion Madam Chair I I'm glad that you're verbally giving us these numbers do we have that document that we can actually see these numbers graphically while you describe them if you need a minute to get those we can um recess through the call of the chair uh so uh through the chair we have approximations of what the numbers will look like and what we're working on now is a crosswalk so what we have now is subject to change

I can repeat the entire thing.

Okay, so if you discussion.

So uh through the chair, we have approximations of what the numbers will look like.

And what we're working on now is a crosswalk.

So what we have now is subject to change, but I think, you know, only within maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars per department.

So uh, but we can provide you if you would like it after this meeting.

Um, I can provide that.

So for my I'm I'm a slow swimmer.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to see it while we're describing it.

Do we have a document that we can follow along for this conversation discussion today?

I do have a document with me that I don't mind sharing, as long as you understand that it's the approximations.

I would just like to have it while during the discussion.

Um chair, that's fine.

Okay.

All right.

So even before you go on recess, madam chair.

Do we have the most up-to-date ELP?

I know there were some documents earlier to say made change.

Um and then there was an actual org chart that showed where departments were going to be located.

Do we have that document today for this conversation?

Uh, through the chair, I think we you all have the most recent version.

I don't think we've made any changes.

Okay, and then what about the org chart?

I don't know if there have been any changes to the org chart.

Okay.

Did you all bring hard copies of those today?

Through the chair, there's an org chart.

The only additional.

Oh, sorry, David Bowser, Chief of Staff or the Mayor.

Um there was a breakdown of the Human Homeless and Family Services Department org chart that uh should have been sent.

But if it hasn't, I can we can get that to you as well.

Okay.

That'll be great.

This we had hard copies of those items.

Um to my colleagues' point.

Can we get that information as well, Mr.

Bowser?

When we recess to the call of the chair?

Absolutely.

Okay.

So we'll take um a recess to the college chair till we get the necessary documents to follow along this presentation.

Um, so we'll take a two-minute recess.

Okay.