Good morning, everyone.

We'd like to now begin the expanded budget finance and audit standing committee for the purposes of our budget hearings.

Today is our first set of budget hearings for today.

When is the day?

March 7th.

No, what is the day?

11th.

My brain.

March 11, 2026.

I've been having computer issues.

I'm doing his all hard copy version this morning.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the road?

Councilmember Scott Benson.

Councilmember Letitia Johnson President.

Councilmember Denzel McCampbell.

Present.

Councilmember Renata Miller.

Councilmember Gabriela Santiago Romero.

Present.

Councilmember Mary Waters.

President.

Councilmember Angela Whitfield Calloway.

Council President Pro Tempera Coleman A.

Young II.

Thank you for putting that pro tempere on there.

Here.

How's the President James Tate?

Mr.

President, you have a quorum president.

Thank you so much.

The way things are going to go, just want to let everyone know.

We're going to have our first two budget hearings.

We're going to have first our port authority budget hearing, then the historical museum public hearing.

And as in the past, we have a morning public comment section as well as an afternoon public comment section.

I will say that the public comment sections may be abbreviated because of the opportunity to have two of those, and we want to make sure that we expedite as best as possible these proceedings.

And we will begin now.

We begin now.

Will the individuals who are here for the Port Authority?

Please come forward.

Before we begin, uh Mr.

Corley, we respect you highly immensely.

Want to know if you have any words you want to say before we begin this uh process, sir.

Thank you, Mr.

Mr.

President.

Good morning, City Council.

I'm excited.

Excited.

This is going to be a good budget process.

So I really appreciate the participation from the public as well.

So thank you so much.

All right, thank you.

All right.

We've got our PowerPoint up.

Uh gentlemen, good morning.

Please introduce yourself for the record.

And the floor is yours.

Good morning, Chairman.

Um, this is Mark Shrupp from the Detroit Wayne County Port Authority, Executive Director.

I'm Travis Jackson, I'm the finance director at the Board of Dorothy.

I've also brought our sustainability manager Taylor Mitchell and our uh executive administrator, Tamura Visi as well.

Well, thank you again for uh allowing the Port Authority to present our budget priorities and thank you for your ongoing support uh over the years.

Uh and we appreciate uh the collaboration that we've had as well.

I'll try to be brief and answer any other questions, any questions you have.

Um we'll go over our 2526 uh accomplishments um and then our strategic initiatives for 2027, um, and then our budget request for the FY27, our projections all the way through 2030.

We have a uh a capital budget request uh ongoing, and then we'll take questions.

Our biggest initiative that we're working on right now is you may recall we received two uh clean ports grants from the EPA in 2024.

One was to replace uh port equipment, uh diesel-powered port equipment with battery electric to help improve air quality and reduce our carbon footprint.

We have uh well we feared there would be some attack on that by the new administration.

We survived.

Uh our money is flowing.

Our project is is moving forward, and we just ordered two electric boats, uh, one for the Detroit Harbormaster and one for the Wayne County Sheriff.

There's a image of the the cool electric boat that you'll see probably in spring of 2027.

Uh it's being built right now.

Um we hope to add more electric boats to the Detroit River over the years.

Below that you'll see a uh a computer image of the wholesome, or I'm sorry, uh the Amrise uh cement plant with a solar array.

Uh that's um computer generated after the pro after the installation goes in, it'll we'll be generating an acre worth of solar uh of electricity.

The facility will receive an electric rail car mover and about five other pieces of electric equipment to replace their gas and propane equipment.

Um we are also working with other terminal operators to replace uh forklift trucks and other equipment that they use in the port.

The other piece of the grant that we received was a planning grant for hydrogen.

And I want to really talk a little just quickly about hydrogen fuel.

The city of Detroit has a hydrogen fuel planning team that we've been working with.

Our planning grant will allow us to put together the plans and specifications to convert uh three types of boats or two types of boats and one piece of equipment to hydrogen fuel cell, which we believe is the long-term solution for heavy duty uh uh cargo movement and heavy duty equipment.

And the city is also looking at uh replacing uh buses and other uh and um uh street sweepers and garbage trucks.

And so together we're we're working to try to find solutions to uh tap into hydrogen fuel, which will produce zero emissions at the tailpipe.

So uh we should have some results on the fuel hydrogen fuel planning in the next three months.

Uh we are also continuing to work on our overall decarbonization and air quality improvement plan.

Taylor Mitchell is leading the charge on that.

She works with a community advisory committee as well as a committee of port uh terminal operators to keep moving forward.

Uh one thing that we have done to reduce the port authority's carbon footprint is to put solar panels on our roof.

There's a picture there.

Uh the roof of the Port of Port Authority building has uh an array that is uh up and running, and we're at this moment generating electricity from the sun.

It'll reduce our uh electricity usage by about 18 percent.

Uh we are pushing hard on our biodiesel initiative to help uh transition the existing diesel equipment throughout the port to a lower carbon footprint biofuel, uh, and then to measure our progress and how we're doing.

We uh assigned a uh long-term relationship with Just Air, which is an organization that puts air monitors throughout uh the city and county.

We've got 10 monitors throughout the port, and uh we get uh daily and weekly or weekly reports and an annual report showing uh how we're doing and we can track those peak days to peak activity and try to target ways to reduce uh particulate matter and other things that are happening at the terminals.

Um every year we host a career expo as part of our mission to attract young people into maritime and STEM careers.

Uh last year we had over 175 attendees, 34 employers and institutions.

We do this in partnership with the University of Michigan's Detroit River Story Lab, which uh engages with hundreds of young people every summer on the Detroit River.

Uh this year's uh expo is April 10th, and uh in your packet I've given you flyers to share with young people who are interested in uh careers.

And if there are any other employers that you know of that are looking for young people, uh you can uh share that flyer as well.

Uh last summer we hosted a tall ships festival.

Some of you may have attended.

We had over 15,000 visitors to the riverfront uh to visit uh in and tour some of these historic uh sailing vessels.

It was a three-day event.

Uh the the feedback was very strong.

We had lots of uh media coverage of the event, uh very successful.

Um probably do that every five years.

We have to catch our breath.

It's a very busy, very challenging event to put on.

Um our uh cruise ship work is continuing and it is hitting record numbers.

Last summer we had 69 cruise ship uh dockings with over 220,000 passengers crossing onto uh into Detroit to tour uh the museums and experience uh the city.

We're expecting over 70 visits this summer and uh reference a new ship that's coming to town as well.

Uh the other major initiative that we've been working on is to develop a terminal.

Uh we call it the Detroit Mobility, Detroit Wayne Mobility Innovation Terminal.

At this site, we will be supporting new boat businesses, launching entrepreneurs who uh want to uh bring new technology to the maritime industry.

Uh we have uh begun partnering with the number one Naval Architecture School in the country at the University of Michigan, and they are developing plans to put a laboratory on this site where uh their uh their students who are designing new types of ships and their business partners can test out new vessels, um, unmanned underwater vessels, um, you name it.

Uh so we're in the planning phases of that.

We've raised 2.5 million from the state, and our capital request to the to the city council and to Wayne uh the county of Wayne is 1.5 million each.

We have a budget of about 25 million to restore a former uh cargo terminal that's right adjacent to the uh Detroit uh Great Lakes Water Authority uh facility there.

Uh and uh stay tuned for more.

We're in a feasibility study right now, but by July we'll have announcements about that project moving forward.

Uh uh so for 2026 uh we will continue to work on a number of things.

One thing that we are uh already starting working on is to add a second cruise dock.

We have maxed out our capacity there with 70 dockings.

It's hard for cruise ship companies to uh fit within uh fit their itineraries at the dock.

We also have uh over 35 dinner cruises that launch from the same dock, so we have a need to add uh additional capacity.

We're working on with engineers to design a second cruise dock that will allow more visits as well as accommodate an increasing number of boats that uh charter boats and others that are interested in uh uh you know bringing more people out onto the water.

Uh we're putting in for congressionally directed spending on that, but we'll be raising funds um from uh shipping companies and other developers to make that happen.

Um we will also be working on raising funds for our mobility innovation terminal, uh working with U of M and other partner partners.

Uh we also hope in the next year to uh develop a uh a conversion of two vessels in the Detroit River.

One you may have heard of, the Detroit Princess.

We're working with them to convert their two engines to a hydrogen fuel cell.

And so we're working on the plans and specs for that, and hopefully in 26 we'll secure the funding to convert that so that when you're waiting in line to get on to the Detroit Princess, you're not smelling diesel fuel.

Um let's see, and port redevelopment.

We have also been working uh with our state partners to really focus on in our downriver communities to focus on the 1,300 acres of waterfront property that is no longer in use, no longer employing people.

At one point, Detroit had five or the Detroit area had five steel blast furnaces.

Last May, the last one shut down at the the uh love the um the old um uh Rouge plant, which is run by Cleveland Cliffs, stopped making steel.

And that's the first time in over a hundred years that there's no actual steel making going on in Detroit.

Used to employ a lot of people, but now we have empty uh steel plants on Zug Island in River River Rouge, and so I've been working with MEDC, the downriver communities to to attract different kinds of entities to these sites.

They're strategically located on the waterfront, deep water access for other things.

There's a big initiative to build more ships in the U.S.

And we're uh working with U of M and others to try to attract some of that money here to the Great Lakes to build ships uh in the Great Lakes for the Great Lakes, but also do ship repair for the Navy and others.

So we uh we're continuing to engage with uh potential investors who are interested in uh uh re-energizing shipbuilding here in the Great Lakes.

Um we will continue to work on our decarbonization planning and and implementation to reduce air emissions uh in the port and convert to newer uh cleaner fuels, and we will also continue to promote maritime careers and economic development and uh we'll shift over.

This is our budget request for the year.

They should you should have a printed copy of the the detailed budget in the packet.

Um I don't know if uh we'll shift over to our finance director, Travis Jackson to just give an overview of of our budget request.

Uh good morning.

Our act today is for 300,000, which is on par with uh previous years.

Um I think uh four years ago, uh the poor authority got increased from two 250,000 to 300,000.

Um the three hundred thousand goes merely uh purely to operations.

Um we have a staff of six uh uh of individuals.

This will help us uh keep our staff maintain our objectives that we're doing and also help us maintain our building, uh which uh is very expensive um to to maintain, unfortunately.

Um the building is going on like 15 years old, which is time for some uh repairs that we need to get done.

So um we're asking honestly on the same uh the budget that we have been access for the last probably four years.

Um we continue to look for other sources of revenue, and at this point we're about 600,000 of non-governmental source.

So from our facility, we generate 350,000 dollars from events and our dock revenue from uh cruise docking and uh uh other uh water-based revenue that gets us to about six hundred and fifteen thousand.

We are also able through our uh our grants to shift some of our expenses to those grants that allows us to make more investments in economic development uh and attract in and and uh planning for um uh future expansion.

So um you know, we're our our total revenues in the last five years have gone up significantly.

We were around 1.4 million uh just a few years ago, so now we're approaching we're a little over two million dollars in total revenues.

Our goal obviously long term is to get our own cargo dock and uh generate revenue through cargo and not have to get governmental support.

And um I'm sure that there'll be some questions about that in a minute.

Um our long-term budget projections are are relatively flat.

Some of the the increases in revenue came from grants, and uh uh when those fall off, we will we will not be able to shift as much money to those.

But this is conservative.

Uh we're hoping to implement some of these other boat business ideas and generate a little bit of revenue from those things.

Um here is a breakdown of our Detroit Wayne Mobility Innovation Terminal.

This is our major capital need in the next few years.

Uh we're uh we'll be applying for federal grants for the for the bulk of the cost, but we've uh got 2.5 million from the state, and we'll be seeking from the city and the county 1.5 million each and then uh 500,000 of Port Authority retained funds.

And just a reminder April 10th is our youth career expo.

Um there's a QR code to easily register for that.

And um it's on a Friday, so we encourage you to come on over and see some of the young people who will be uh looking for work in the maritime world.

And I think that's it with questions, but I know one of them is about the MCA.

So you might as well go ahead and just so for five years we've been very close to having that uh that 100-year agreement uh uh canceled and grant the freedom that the Port Authority desires for our new members of council.

Um I can I'll send over a memo that summarizes it, but short answer is in 2005 the Port Authority entered into a 100-year agreement with the Ambassador Port Company, which is owned by the Ambassador Bridge folks, and it it basically gave them control over a former city of Detroit cargo dock that was transferred to the Port Authority.

Um we receive two and a half percent of revenues, but that is offset by the interest that we pay on a loan that was made by the ambassador port company, and so in the last 20 years under that agreement, we've generated zero positive revenue, and it only has covered interest on the loan.

We still owe two million dollars.

Five years ago, we signed uh entered into an agreement to tear up that agreement and get our freedom from them.

Um it didn't move forward.

The previous uh administration didn't want to move forward with it, and we stand ready to continue making that happen.

We hope that with the new administration there'll be some movement to uh get us out of that agreement, which will free us to enter into new cargo arrangements with other entities and hopefully uh generate sufficient income so we don't need government support.

Okay, thank you.

Just uh a follow-up.

Have you had any conversations with the current administration about that potential um getting involved in the process?

Um and I I know it's one thing to wait for them, but have you um initiated any of those conversations?

I have not.

The uh ambassador port folks have said that they have had those disc starting those discussions, and our uh board leadership is taking the lead on on that right now.

So it sounds like they're only having conversations with the ambassador uh bridge folks, not this the city, not the new administration.

Maybe I'm here now.

No, no, the Ambassador Bridge folks, I believe have had conversations with the new administration, at least since November.

Okay.

I would encourage you as well.

I mean, as the executive director, um we we you've done a great job, you and your team with the funds that you've been provided, but it's always good to hear from the person who's actually running the ship.

Yeah, I'll I I will ask for the green light to start those discussions.

Uh I have a board.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

My other question is I know we you have the uh the uh youth career expo that's taking place on the 10th.

Um it's on a Friday during most of the time where the youth are in in school in class.

How are you getting young people down there?

I mean, from 10 until five, the majority of that time they should be in school.

So in previous years we did it on a Saturday, and we weren't getting the attendance that we had hoped.

And uh the recommendation was that if we did it during the week, we could get school groups to come as a group.

And so we have offered bus transportation, and we actually are seeing positive results.

We have at least five or six classrooms have signed up to to be there.

I think we're we're over 200 registered students coming on that Friday.

So I've been visiting high schools, uh, uh King, Cass, Western, ECourse, River Rouge in the last few days, and several of them have already signed up with bus groups, and I believe um Southeastern and Osborne may have a classroom that's already signed up.

So Detroit River Story Lab has very strong relationships with educators throughout the city, and so through those relationships, those teachers have actually signed up their classrooms.

So I would I thought like you did, but I get we got the advice that if we did it and and it offered bus transportation, that we would get school groups to come uh high school groups to come to the event.

And we do go it till five o'clock, so there will be opportunities for those who don't want to miss class to come uh to come later in the day.

Okay.

The young folks that we want to work with you on.

Okay.

Both DPS CD as well as charter schools to increase the numbers of in in young folks who are uh have access to this opportunity.

And we are seeking young people up to 25 years old, so it's uh there are jobs available right now for you uh if you want to join the merchant marine.

Uh there are our employers today who will sign you up without college background.

So my second my my follow-up uh to that, question number two, because we don't have two questions uh in this round is what's been the results thus far of of the previous uh career expos.

I know they haven't you haven't had as much uh participation, if you will, because you indicated Saturdays, yeah.

But what has been the the outcome uh seeing that you had now multiple years of this opportunity?

The the employers have said that this has been a very valuable thing for them.

We we haven't tracked actual employment, and we we're working on finding a way to to get that kind of feedback.

But the the employers are continuing to come back, and it's also uh building awareness uh for young people about the maritime careers.

That's more of a long-term process of of just uh sharing new information about what kinds of careers are out there.

So we have universities, we have the Great Lakes Maritime uh Academy, which is a four-year program.

They continue to come and uh they've said that it's it's it's been useful.

Uh but we want to get clear examples of of young people who have gotten hired and or who have gone to college programs that they learned about at the at the event.

So we need to approve our our metrics or our feedback loop on on that.

We'd definitely like to see that uh in the upcoming year.

So we'd like to can I get a motion to um send to executive session a uh tracking mechanism for the uh youth careers that uh spring about as a result of the career expo and other um programs within the see no objections that action shall be taken.

Thank you so much.

We'll again, as I mentioned, two questions per colleague.

Uh and we'll start off with uh Pro Time Young.

Thank you, Ms.

President.

We're gonna be joined by Mr.

Jamie.

Good to see you.

I was wondering where you were, sir.

Um excellent.

Uh I just want to say thank you so much.

I I really am excited about what I'm seeing with the Detroit Wayne County Mobility Innovation Terminal.

And I had a whole bunch of questions I want to ask you.

But then I saw this, and I got a whole bunch of new questions I want to ask you about this.

And so I just wanted to say um first and foremost, I wanted to ask you, are you partnering with the chief mobility uh innovation officer in transportation as well?

Is is is is this planning on being intermodal?

Are are we talking about uh autonomous submersibles here?

Are we talking about you know you coordinating with the um with the with the God I forgot the drone corridor in Michigan as well?

And the reason why I was saying that is because if you have an autonomous submersible, you just the inspection aspect, the security aspect, the environment in terms of what's on the ground is just tremendous from what you're doing, but it's also the jobs, the economic opportunities.

And so I just want to know I just want to know just to kind of explain to me, I know I'm asking a lot in a short period of time, but but what does that entail?

Is it gonna be intermodal with the rest of transit?

Are we talking about mobility as a service?

We talk about you know, um, I know Member Calloway would talk a lot about um about like boats.

Go to fair, excuse, I'm sorry, thank you.

Thank you.

Uh ferries, is it gonna be intermodal with that?

Yeah, so we we called it mobility instead of maritime innovation terminal because we we do want to have connections with intermodal, and it's really focused on the innovation side.

And yes, we do plan to connect with the city um mobility office.

We are at the very early stages of building the organizational structure of the terminal.

Uh U of M has come on as a anchor partner in this with their school, but we are also in discussions with new lab uh because they operate a uh innovation center here in Detroit, and this will be more of a uh uh an ex it could be an extension of a lot of the work that they do to incubate new businesses and entrepreneurs uh on the on the land side.

And so um, but absolutely um mostly it's it's looking at commercial vessels and and commercial movement.

Um we have a potential rail line that would be extended to the terminal so we could test innovation on moving cargo from rail to shore to ship and back and forth.

So uh it's we're still in that development stage, and we have consultants who are advising us on what's the proper mix of of uh technologies that we would be focusing on at the terminal.

Okay.

Sure.

Uh Mr.

Jamie answer that.

Thank you.

You sir.

Thank you.

Um I just want to say that the U.S.

Coast Guard is actively engaged and all the drone technology when uh with regards to the water, and I'm actually attending a meeting and I think it's two weeks where we're gonna address the issues of drones.

Uh they have flying drones, they have sailing drones on the water now, and regular boats on the water, and it's a big it's a big deal with the Coast Guard and navigation and technology.

So hopefully what we can do is integrate what we learned from this meeting with the Coast Guard and implement it with what we're doing at the innovation terminal.

No, excellent, I appreciate that.

And then you were talking about um hydrogen.

Uh I just wanted to ask you is that blue hydrogen or is that green hydrogen?

Our goal is white hydrogen, but green for sure.

Okay.

Um the blue is natural gas and like green is like take electricity from the water and the molecules.

One thing that is sort of energized us around hydrogen was a geologic study that was released uh last year that showed that Michigan is actually uh sitting on hydrogen, natural hydrogen underground throughout the state, a very high concentration of it.

Um lots of investment going on right now how on how to extract that safely.

But if possible, if that happens, that will be uh green hydrogen at and and drive down the total the cost of operations.

That's been the big challenge for hydrogen.

We've had hydrogen for a long time, but the cost is three, four times the cost of using diesel.

So if if natural hydrogen really is um accessible in Michigan, that could bring it down on par even better than the cost of diesel.

Okay.

Excellent.

No, I appreciate that.

And um Mr.

Mr.

President, I'd like to I'd like to take time if I could to uh make a motion to put to executive session the uh 1.5 million dollars needed to invest in the mobility innovation terminal.

Colleagues, there's a motion on the floor.

Any objections?

Seeing none, that action shall be taken.

Thank you.

Thank you, President Dun.

Member Waters.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

So good morning.

Good morning.

Um first of all, I I just want to say I hope that you will give out the website address so that if the community is listening, uh so that they can tell their children or grandchildren how to apply for the career opportunities.

I was looking for it in here.

Um so my question is um I just want to know how you evaluate uh the return on investment from the city support in terms of economic development, job creation, increase uh commercial activity along Detroit waterfront.

You know, we've been voted the number one waterfront in the last couple times, and so that's pretty exciting.

So if you could just share with us uh those things, please.

Sure.

Um from cruise shipping alone, we estimate about two million dollars is is invested or uh is returned to our local economy.

Um I would say maybe 25 percent of our staff resources are devoted towards uh you know handling that cruise ship activity.

Um we have uh received uh 25 million in uh grants from the federal government in the last two years.

Uh we uh have also received congressionally designated uh uh grants um of 200,000, 800,000, and we recently received one for the uh Detroit Windsor tunnel uh around 2 million dollars.

So we we uh we believe we're bringing millions of dollars in return to to our region to invest in uh community programs, our our our decarbonization planning was uh one million dollars from the state of Michigan, and that has really jump started a lot of the work that we do now that that positioned us for the EPA grant.

Um so um we believe that uh you know in the coming years you're going to see a lot more investment on the riverfront.

Uh we hope to uh receive the funds to add that second cruise dock.

Uh it won't, you know, the docking revenues don't uh you know directly pay back that investment.

Our facility uh was built uh and our our cruise dock was built with federal grants of uh totaling over 20 million dollars.

However, uh these are things that governments do.

There's lots of federal grants available for port development, and so we are actively involved every year.

We're submitting uh more requests.

We have a pending $10 million grant request for uh the Nicholson uh e-course dock.

And so every year we will be continuing to apply for grants and and seeking that kind of investment.

What the other piece of it was about job job creation.

You know, just tell us how many Detroiters currently work with the port authority, yes.

Um we we have seven employees at the Port Authority.

Uh the port of Detroit, uh the cargo terminals are responsible for around 900 million dollars of economic activity, and 6,000 jobs in the metro area are directly tied to the movement of cargo in the port.

Um they're working for private entities, but we're the the face of the port of Detroit and seeking those kinds of investments.

Okay, I'm gonna come visit so I can learn a little bit more about it.

Um the the second question has to do with the Gordy Howe Bridge.

Uh is will there be an impact on your revenue streams uh when it opens?

Um I not a direct uh impact, I guess, to the extent that the Gordy Howe Bridge keeps Detroit uh the center of automotive production and jobs than uh those manufacturers who are working building cars need raw materials brought in and it keeps our economy strong, and then that draws more cargo to the port.

But most of the cargo going back and forth is short distance, and it really it doesn't take away from our cargo or add to it, but having a strong local economy um will demand the kinds of things that the port brings in, the bulk materials for road building and construction.

All right then.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Thank you, Member Benson.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh thank you all for being here and all that you do for the port authority.

I'm going to submit a number of questions uh via memo for answers.

Um I've had the opportunity to attend many of the job fairs there, and they're always very, very productive.

Had a chance to uh meet the students from our um our maritime academy as well here in the state of Michigan.

It's also a location that many of our youth are unaware is an opportunity to get into the uh maritime field, and there's a free one if you go to the national uh maritime academy, just like there's free um if you go to any of our um service academies.

When we talk about return on investment, a couple years ago you came this body and asked for a half million dollar investment in a ballard.

I thought very, very expensive for one piece of concrete.

What is the return on investment on that bollard?

Um that bollard made it possible for us to re uh have the largest of the cruise ships come to Detroit, uh the Viking Octantis, and the next year that we had the Viking um Polaris, and each of those vessels brings over 400 passengers who uh visit Detroit, spend money.

Um it's a it was a $500,000 investment.

Uh the city, county, and the and the pilots association all participated.

If we hadn't gotten that, we wouldn't have received Viking at all.

Uh it it draws a lot of uh attention.

It's I like I said, we get uh we we expect about two million dollars of spend in Detroit from the whole cruise ship season.

Uh so um it's hard to tie it directly to that one, but the two biggest ships uh are here because of the bollard.

Okay, and so for me that's a direct re that's return on investment.

Yeah, and so if we're talking looking at your numbers, we're doing a little less than a hundred dollars per passenger.

If you're saying two million dollars of direct spend, and uh in your document, you indicate 20,634 passengers are coming in, that's under 100 per passenger.

I'd hope to see that increased.

I hope to see the number of passengers increased as well, but that half million dollar investment has a direct return on investment.

And so I just want to say that's a great way to say this is how the port authority is making good use of your city dollars and your request for your continued 300,000 dollars, doesn't seem unreasonable to me when you're doing that.

But I would like to see that spin number increase to 150.

There's a way to partner with more of our businesses to offer more opportunities.

I don't believe the passengers who are getting off of Viking cruises lack resources based on the tour that we took a few years ago of that vessel.

So I think that we can get that spend up a little bit more, and we have so much to offer those passengers for their port stay here in the city of Detroit.

So I'm hoping that you will work on that, and then we can see a continued uh return on investment for what we support the port authority with.

Thank you.

On that note, I just bring up that we are negotiating with the uh a new cruise ship company that is coming to the Great Lakes.

We're negotiating to help make this a home port for them so that their originations and destinations will be here.

That means passengers will fly in, board the ship here, and add a day or two of uh visit to Detroit.

And so uh John and I have been working on that for a few months now.

We have meetings actually with them today.

So uh stay tuned for that.

Our goal is to get a home port for one of those cruise ship companies.

Fantastic.

And Mr.

Chair, we also have a city airport, and so if you're talking about flying in, I hope you have a conversation with them to see if there's a way to have a partnership that can bring those type of packs directly from Coleman A Young International Airport to your port.

So just the an idea.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Member Callaway.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Chair, and good morning, everyone.

Mr.

Shrupp, I've been calling you for six months.

You've not returned any of my calls.

But I knew I'd see you today.

And Mr.

Jamin, you were 45 minutes late, and we only have this budget hearing once a year, and I would think that you all would get here on time, but um that's neither here nor there.

And you didn't say um excuse my tardiness, but if I knew I was appearing before this honorable body um for my budget, I would say, please forgive me, forgive my tardiness, but that's neither here nor there.

Um very nice.

I'm disappointed though, uh, Mr.

Shrubb, that you didn't mention in um this booklet or in your presentation today, the ferry.

This honorable body approved um a hundred thousand dollars for a feasibility study, which you did.

You absolutely did an amazing job, but you didn't mention it at all today, not unless I didn't hear, and I was intently listening.

I was tuned into everything that you said, but I didn't hear you mention one thing about let me finish.

One thing about the ferry that we support.

We support, we we we um awarded you a hundred thousand dollars in 2023.

You came back with the feasibility study in record time.

You surveyed over 800 residents who support the ferry.

You also even indicated, and I hope you'll provide a copy of that report to us again.

I have mine, but I want to make sure my colleagues have it because we have two um new additions to this body.

So if you can make a note to um send that study out to us today, so it'll be um in front of us as we go through these um budget meetings and as we're considering um your budget.

But you didn't mention it, and um it's a way for us to generate revenue for this city.

It's an easy, easy revenue generator.

You you said it yourself, and and and this and report indicates so.

So, why did you not mention that today?

Um I believe we completed that in the 2025 fiscal year, and this report focuses on the the what we did during the 25-26 year.

So I apologize.

We we didn't reference it.

I I believe it's in our annual report from last year.

We are continuing to work on it.

We're to continuing to find look for boat businesses that are willing to offer the service without having five uh uh having the boats purchased for them or uh an annual subsidy to encourage them.

We have not to the to date found a an operator who's willing to do it without a significant subsidy.

I do have a meeting scheduled with a new boat company that uh uh is from Finland that has a uh less less expensive ferry that uh actually operates uh at a lower cost because it's a hydrofoil, meaning it it it elevates a little bit because of uh the way it's designed, and they may be interested in offering the service without that subsidy.

So we're looking to have that service, but we aren't uh we we don't have the resources to subsidize the service as as the other boat businesses uh who are operating out there.

Most of the boat businesses that are operating out there are uh you know return visits, uh whether it's the Detroit Princess or Diamond Jack, people go on boat rides, but as a commuter service, we haven't found anyone who's willing to do that.

The the uh the typical ferry services work well when there's an obstacle to getting where you're going, whether it's excessive traffic or uh going to an island, and uh there has been some interest in uh revisiting the uh the sort of a tourist triangle from downtown to Bell Isle and and to another point on the river.

Uh and we also have had discussions with the uh city of Wyandotte, which operates their own dock uh about uh targeted special event transportation for either sporting events or other things, but um we haven't we just haven't found a business that was willing to um run a regular service as was laid out in that feasibility study.

Um Mr.

Shrubb, um I don't think you've been really looking.

That's not your focus.

What you've indicated here is your focus, and but I'm gonna redirect your focus.

I'm asking you respectfully to just focus on it because we've done the work.

We've even contacted um the island of Mackinac that has the ferry boats, and they have some that have been decommissioned but they're still operable.

Um we have made the connections for you.

Um and if we could just start with one ferry and work with one that's already being used, but it's just be it's been decommissioned but still operable, which means it's still usable.

So I'm just asking you to maybe take a look at that.

Maybe we can um you know have some conversations with them.

But um we've talked to them.

Our office has talked to them, and they're excited about the partnership.

Um and we could get one of them perhaps to come down and just do it on a pilot basis just to see what the feedback would be from people jumping on.

Like people bar hop, this would be a dock hop.

It would be a park hop.

We have quite a few parks on the Detroit side of the river.

We're not talking about taking the ferry across to the Canadian side.

We're simply talking about it running from Bell Ao from the very beginning of Wayne County to where it ends, if we could.

And it will be parkop or dock hop.

So um I'm gonna uh make a motion to put um the whole discussion about the uh feasibility feasibility of the ferry service into executive session, uh, Mr.

Chair.

That's that's my motion.

All right, colleagues, there's a motion on the floor.

Any objections?

Seeing none, that action shall be taken.

And um, I have a list of questions um for for you, Mr.

Shrupp, that we will um submit to you in writing.

And I'm very um pleased that you have had a reduction of 18 percent in terms of your um I guess your utilities is it's that electricity since you had solar farm, I mean so solar panels installed, which is the way to go.

Um instead instead of taking up 256 uh miles of um um land here in our city for solar farms, you've done what I have always advocated for that we put the solar farms on the actual building that's going to um generate the solar energy for that building, reducing your utility rates.

That's what you've done, and you showed that it works because you said it reduced yours by 18 percent.

So thank you for leading the way in that regard.

Hopefully, other organizations and building owners and building operators will listen to what you've said here today.

So I will submit my um my questions in writing.

Thank you so much, sir.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Member Miller Good morning, everyone.

I just want to thank you for joining us today.

I have uh a few questions here, but I want to thank my colleagues, uh member Benson and Calabay for basically asking some of the same questions that I was going to.

When you mean speak of destinations, your cruise ships, because I've been here a long time and I've never seen a major cruise ship that comes in.

But I did look it up and I saw you had the victory, you had the Pearl, the Pointe, and the Viking.

So these ships just stop by.

I mean, are they like they have destinations?

Right.

But they're not really advertised.

I've never seen any of these, I call them miniature ships, because I really don't consider the Princes or a the Diamond Jack that's been around as really uh like a cruise ship.

These are like for dinner, or you just want to stop by, but they're not advertised.

Yeah, these other ships that provide um uh tourism, they're not no one knows about it.

That but do they actually pick you up and drop you off at the Detroit port?

No, most of the desk uh the originations are um on if you look at the Great Lakes as a whole, on one end on the east is is the city of Toronto, and a lot of the ships originate there, and they go through the Great Lakes, stop in Cleveland, Detroit, up in um uh Mackinac, some go into Lake Superior all the way to Duluth, Minnesota, or some go to Milwaukee, and so they pick up folks in Toronto and then they end in Milwaukee, and then they get a new new but there's no actual stop right here in Detroit.

There is, yeah.

So they when the as they're traveling through the Great Lakes, they will do uh day stops.

So they they tend to arrive around 6, 7, 7 a.m.

in the morning after clearing customs, they take tour buses and visit uh our museums.

We're we're considered a a museum stop.

Most of the passengers are well into their sixties.

It's pretty there, they're they're um uh no no children on the on the cruise ships.

It's not like in the Caribbean where you have lots of fun things for young people on the boats.

It's mostly a retirement crowd.

Uh the boats have anywhere from about 200 passengers to 400 passengers.

So they're you know, they're not nearly as big as what you'd see in the gra in in the Caribbean or other places.

But um Yeah, Detroit is more of a day stop.

We're we're hoping to secure a home port for a new cruise company called American Cruise Line that operates a smaller vessel, about 125 passengers.

But if we can get them to make Detroit their origination place, then people will come before the cruise starts, maybe spend another day or two here in Detroit and uh visit restaurants and things like that.

Okay, because that was my biggest question.

Can I go down with my mom and say we're going to get on this ship right here and go to Toronto?

And then they'll bring us back to Detroit and we'll exit right here in downtown Detroit.

Yeah, no, that they don't I haven't seen any itineraries like that.

Most of the itineraries are between seven and seven days and two weeks, and they visit uh lots of different places in the Great Lakes, and Detroit is one of the most popular visits.

Um a lot of the ships do stop here for about seven or eight hours, and then they go on their way after that.

Thank you.

That's all.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Member Santiago Romero.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Good morning to the chair.

Good to see you all.

I have brief questions.

I know of your work well.

Thank you for the work that you do.

I I think Mark can do a great job building partnerships since I got here.

I've seen that growth, and I've seen us going green, I've seen us going deeper into the city in this community, so thank you for that.

Um as we build more boats and we have more boats on the water.

Um can we talk about safety?

Um, I also know that there's um a very sad amount of suicides along our water.

Um it can be pretty dangerous already.

Um and if you visit other places like Chicago, they have boats and they have people kayaking and canoeing.

What are we doing to make sure that we are building a safe place on our water for both boats and people and kayakers, etc.

Uh thank you, um representative.

Um we you you are correct.

This and and the Detroit River can be very uh choppy and it it isn't always safe for the kayaks and the smaller boats.

I've been out there when the wind is going, or maybe a freighter goes by and the waves, and I I think we we haven't been engaged in boater sort of safety or that's mostly the Detroit Harbor Master and the Wayne County Sheriff that do a lot and the and the U.S.

Coast Guard that do a lot of that on the water, but we work directly with them on a lot of things.

Um through our work with the Harbor Master and getting a an electric boat for them, I I did learn that a lot of the work they do is rescue.

And we we work with the Westcott, which has done rescues of people who've you know made made the choice to end their lives by jumping off the ambassador bridge, and they've saved people who have done that.

And you're right.

Um it's not something that we've had as a focus, but as we move more uh into the recreational side, um it's definitely something that we'll put on our list of making sure we're we're uh at least uh connecting people with those kinds of resources.

Thank you.

Um again, exciting uh changes and developments.

Want to make sure that we are keeping people safe and that you're in those conversations.

Um you mentioned the the Westcott, uh such a cool post office, um, the only one along the river.

Um, and to member Callaway's points about there being economic opportunity along the river, they are looking to do ferries.

Um I also know that we do currently have, or we did have, not sure if we still do, in previous summers, some bars, like boat bars on the boat.

So I know that there is opportunity and I think there is a need.

Um but to that end around opportunities and assets that are the ports.

Uh thank you for mentioning the agreements, because I was going to ask about the agreements.

This was a question that I asked my first year here on council.

Um I think that we are being prevented from fully enjoying the benefits of our ports.

Um, and it's because of this agreement.

Um and I do believe that with the new administration, I will I I want to hope that with a new administration we can change it.

Um so that's something that we will re re start.

We can start that conversation up again.

Happy to do so because I want to make sure that as you're building investing, we are fully benefiting um from what's coming from the port, so thank you.

Um and those were my only comments, Mr.

President.

Again, really grateful for your work.

Uh, this is in D6, and the work that you do with our community is really inspiring, just really making sure that we are creating a greener city.

So thank you.

Um, and we will be in touch about the agreements to make sure that we we make that better for us.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Thank you.

Member Johnson.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Uh thank you for the presentation.

It's always a delight to just see the continued growth that we see with the port authority.

Um, at least I've seen over the last four years.

I do want to go back to something that Member Benson mentioned, and it was probably mentioned by several of my colleagues.

Do you all currently do any outreach with local businesses for them to connect with the passengers on the cruise ships?

Do you work with tour operators, transportation companies, or do the individuals get off and they figure it out themselves?

So one thing we have done is we've told we've uh encouraged all of the the ship owners, uh Viking and others to utilize our uh eastern market for restoring their.

I mean, they there it's basically a hotel on the water and they need to uh need supplies.

And so we have seen purchases of meat and other things from from our businesses here in Eastern Market.

We work with uh several of the uh actually uh visit Detroit works with uh some of our local historians and others to help put together uh curated tours uh for for folks.

Uh I I know that uh Ken Coleman has been doing uh history tours and music tours as well as uh uh Detroit Musics, which is kind under contract with the uh Visit Detroit to provide uh musical tours, uh Motown uh visits and things like that.

So we don't uh arrange those directly, it's the the ship companies working with their local um excursion companies, but but we definitely are are working to connect them.

Uh we are also working to uh uh expand the uh opportunities for using our dock with local boat businesses.

Um we have a new charter company that's going to be using our dock for uh sailboat excursions this summer.

Um if you're you know have a group of you know 15 or 20 people want to go out for a uh sunset cruise, you'll be able to use our dock for that.

Um we also administer several um a EPA uh revolving loan fund program that helps clean up uh sites.

It's not really port business, but we're a pass-through agency, and so we've supported several uh housing developments in the area, uh got cleanup funds for for their um their their developments, uh Southwest Detroit housing on the um one of their expansions, uh the Detroit Food Network uh on Woodward, and we are currently uh looking for more projects to uh provide low interest loans and sometimes grants to help lower the cost for their uh their things.

Um as we look at expanding more opportunities on the waterfront, our focus is trying to make sure that local Detroit businesses participate in that, not uh sort of international companies just coming in and uh grabbing up all the business.

All right, very good.

That that was my focus as well.

Um, and so I'm not sure if you all provide the visit Detroit magazine to folks so they can see everything that's happening in the city of Detroit because I know there are times when you can go to one area and you think that's the only thing that's happening in downtown Detroit, but if you're privy to the other areas and other things that are happening, um it may just encourage people to go and patronize uh those businesses.

Um the other question I had, and it's I I'll kind of make it into a statement because I'm not sure that you know about alert 365, um, but you talked about air monitors, um, and we know that there have been wildfires in Canada that have impacted the air quality and the city of Detroit.

Um I'm wondering if you utilize Air 365 to alert the community when the air quality is bad.

And I would I would think that the port authority might have access to that data if you actually have monitors along the water where you're picking up uh particulate matter that's in the air just to be able to alert Detroit residents of air quality issues.

I'm not familiar with alert 365, but through our partnership with Just Air Um residents can sign up for a text alert and uh when any monitor uh that they're can that they live near goes above a certain threshold, they can receive a text alert.

Um so from our website you can connect with just air and and sign up for those text alerts.

Got it.

Um and I will be sure that we connect you with um the homeland security here with the city of Detroit that facilitates alert 365, I will say, but it's up to the departments if you will that send out the notification just to make sure that we're informing residents of things that are happening that they really should be aware of.

Lastly, I do just want to encourage you.

I know you talked about um encouraging more facilities or facilities to come back online to produce steel.

Um I would just encourage you to be sure that you are aware of the environmental impact of such facilities as you encourage them to come to the city of Detroit because we've been kind of hyper focused on the environment, noting that we have some challenges that we need to overcome.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Member Johnson.

Member McCampbell.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Good morning.

Um good to have you all here.

I have learned a lot as my first ever budget hearing, but also hearing from the port authority.

Uh so thank you all.

I uh wanted to, as uh been brought up before.

I know you are doing outreach to schools around the city.

Um I would and I'm happy to send over some lists, but we'll love that there's outreach to all of the high schools.

Um I know I didn't hear Cody mention, um, but also you know, the career in tech high schools as well and vocational.

I think those would be a great uh place to get folks as well.

Um and would love, I know uh our my colleague member waters and member Miller with the skill trace task force as well to talk about how we can connect it with maritime um careers as well.

Uh to get into my questions, I I wanted to talk about the challenges that we may be seeing on the river and with uh maritime activities, um particularly around uh tariffs that may have come and how that's impacting industry, but also the environment environmental things that we're seeing around water levels on the river, and just want to see if you have anything that has impacted your operations and seeing a decrease in the economic activity with tariffs and the varying water levels that we see in the impact on climate change.

Yeah, thank you and welcome.

Um the tariffs have had a direct impact on our cargo terminals, our general cargo dock that receives uh steel and other um uh products is down over 25 percent this last year uh because of that, and it's hurt them financially.

Um overall, I think the tariffs have hurt our region, which then impacts the the the cargo levels uh here in the port.

As far as the water levels, there is some cyclicality to that.

We're at a little bit of a low point, but we'll see that level come back up in the next few months uh as we get uh into the summer.

Um in terms of uh environmental impacts, we're we our decarbonization plan is really focused more on the land and the air, but we are now starting to focus more on the water.

Uh we just signed a uh sponsorship with uh a group called Aqua Action, which uh was founded by the Great Lakes governors and premiers to focus on water quality issues and and actually tomorrow we're hosting a uh information session for entrepreneurs who want to come up with solutions to water quality issues at our facility, and we'll be sponsoring a group of scient young scientists who want to come up with say uh a way to collect PFOS from the water, you name it.

Um it's an eight-month program with uh businesses and scientists supporting young groups of scientists to come up with solutions, and so it's helping us uh pay more attention to the water uh ways uh we've been working with Detroit uh Friends of the Rouge and others to also do some more studies on uh the impact more of water running off of our industrial sites into uh stormwater running into the river uh as well.

Um Taylor Mitchell's here, she's running our Aqua Action program.

So thank you.

I would definitely love to connect further on that, um, especially with uh Franza Rouge and Rouge River being in D7.

So I appreciate that.

Um next question is on uh thinking about you talked about the riverfront, and I know there's been a lot of conversations about the riverfront activities there.

Are is the Port Authority in those conversations or have you been approached about plans around the riverfront and development there?

Well, yeah, we've we you know we are looking to expand our cruise dock, which is just and using some land up the river, and we've had some preliminary discussions about what what some of our recommendations would be for uh redevelopment on the waterfront as well, and that includes you know just uh supporting more businesses that want to engage uh in activities on the waterfront for sure.

Are those are those plans available publicly or can you share it on what's there are right now?

There's they're very preliminary and uh kind of in uh NDA stage, but um we know that there's a um an effort to um do a major development uh up and down the river.

And uh I just returned from Washington DC and I saw how they've developed their riverfront.

It's pretty exciting.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

And I know all these things are preliminary and there's conversations that are having and you know I I would just say with the riverfront and that also being a public asset and such, I I pause when I hear NDAs and because we are talking about a lot of public land.

But um if we as soon as that is available and able to be shared, I think this body would love to see that as we're talking about the riverfront and and such plans there.

All right, uh, but other than that, and also yeah, absolutely looking forward to a conversation on the MCA as well.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you all.

Thank you so much.

And as we've noted, we have a few items that we did place into executive session and a number of questions that are still coming your way.

Looking forward to getting those responses as we uh go through this budget process.

We want to thank you uh all for being here this morning.

Look forward to having those additional conversations.

Any last things you want to add?

Um just one last thing.

Our website is uh www.portdetroit.com forward slash career expo.

Okay, one more time for folks, it's a little slower for www.port detroit, P O R T Detroit.com forward slash career expo.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for that, member waters.

Mr.

President.

Uh yes, ma'am.

Um before we wrap this session, would like to move the master concession agreement to executive session, even if it's not discussed in executive session, it should make it to the closing resolution.

It should be a priority.

So we'd like to move this um master concession agreement to executive session.

All right, colleagues.

There's a motion on the floor.

Any objections?

Say none, then action shall be taken.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

We'll now uh bring forward our folks from the historical museum to begin.