Mr.

Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Councilmember Scott Benson.

Scott Benson, aye.

Councilmember Latincia Johnson.

Present.

Councilmember Denzel Bucample.

Councilmember Renata Miller.

Councilmember Gabrielle Santiago Romero.

Present.

Councilmember Mary Waters.

Councilmember Andrew Whitful Callaway.

Clerk will send out.

Council President Pro Tamcoming Young the second.

Yeah.

Council President James Tate.

Yep.

Mr.

President Derrida Corm.

Thank you so much.

And also neglected to indicate that Member Miller sent a memo indicating that she would be not present for this morning session as well.

And Mr.

Clerk, if you can note that we've been joined by Member McCampbell, in addition to that.

Clerk will send out.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Good morning, Mr.

Corley.

Good morning.

Mr.

President, good to see you.

Everybody.

Did you get any sleep at all?

A little bit.

A little bit.

All right.

We'll take a little during this video.

The floor is yours, sir.

Thank you so much.

So you have a new spread sheet.

And if you would go to page 22, actually page 21.

And um council members, you made a made great strides yesterday.

Really appreciate that again.

So we go to line 239.

Page 21.

So for non-general funds, council changes, one time, 2.25 million.

Recurring non-general fund 4.4 million.

Council changes, those would come out of the street fund.

And column Perns of General Fund, we're now at 22.9 million in general fund one time.

And column Q, we are at recurring general fund by 4.8 million.

So total general fund column U.

Total general fund about 27.6 million.

You know, being at around 2%, you know, one and a half, two percent.

I would say over the last uh the last council term, your average was about from like one percent to three percent, say two percent in there.

Uh I think that's reasonable for council's changes because you have your priorities as well.

Um Mayor Sheffield presented a good budget to you, you know.

That's you know, she presented a good budget, and she hit a lot of the buttons that you know you and the citizens um expect from her.

So I I give it to her, but we're just asking council is just asking for roughly two percent, and I think that's reasonable, you know, for you to meet a lot of your priorities.

Um, and again, Mayor Sheffield, you know, many of her priorities match yours as well.

So I think uh that's a pretty good compromise.

So that's where we at right now in terms of um so if you go to bottom of page 22.

Ms.

Corley.

Yes, yes, sir.

I just want to add, I know there's going to be some additional emotions that are gonna move today.

Yeah, um, but what has not been considered yet um because of the uh issue we had with uh a certain individual is the city clerk as well as the department of elections, and we have a document here uh from the uh department of elections, which would certainly increase that that number.

Okay, so we definitely need to talk about that.

I'm actually going to be requesting for uh the department of elections to uh come before us via Zoom and speak on their request because this number is uh pretty sizable.

Okay, looking at it here in front of me.

What I see is uh seven point uh five million dollars and then seven point six million dollars.

Yeah, um so that's a pretty big number.

Um, and that would uh increase uh the request or the the changes, amount of changes that we would have to make.

Again, massaging uh uh additional items that colleagues are still looking to put in, because I know I have a few as well.

Not gonna raise it too much higher, but um as we talk about the two percent, yeah.

Just want us to keep that in mind.

We have not talked about this huge amount that is being requested from the um Department of Elections, and so we would like for them to justify it, of course, uh, because we did place their entire budget into executive session.

Yeah.

So I just wanted to put that out there for everyone.

I appreciate that to hear.

I guess I would like to hear from council, you know.

I think I know the answer, but you know, the um spreadsheet that I shared with you on Monday, you know, I gave you three shit spreadsheets that showed you the breakdown of how she's using the surplus dollars.

And the first one that was fund 1,000, you know.

Um there were a lot of I have a copy here.

I don't know if you also have your copy, but that was about $53 million, fund 1,000.

Um, and that included things as I said, you know, she's hitting a a lot of the right buttons on this one.

Um, you know, that's the there's a 10 million for the retirees, there's uh public safety overtime.

That's 3.9 million.

We so probably want to talk about that, why is that's necessary.

In fact, can we do that?

Um, Mr.

President.

What's that?

Well, Mr.

Can we hear from Mr.

Johnson as to why the mayor is asking for for three point, I'm sorry, three.

So okay, this fire.

So it's fire and police overtime.

So she's asking for one time three million for fire overtime, and five point seven million one time for police overtime.

We discovered that as we were going through, you know, the budget book, and so those are kind of sizable amounts.

So we'll be good to hear, Mr.

President, from Mr.

Johnson, why there's a need for around eight million dollars in overtime for you know fire and police combined.

All right, thank you.

Um Mr.

Johnson, good morning.

Good morning, Mr.

President.

Good morning, uh, members of the council.

Um the overtime is what we did to um balance the budget and also to take into account a lot of the um items we've been discussing with police and fire um as both part of labor negotiations, as part of their budget negotiations, um, and in taking in account a lot of the new initiatives or things they wanted to undertake.

One of the commitments we um you know worked out with them was that they needed to reduce their overtime.

Um so what we did was we cut their overtime and then we put half of that cut back in as one time so that they have next fiscal year to finish adjusting to a lower overtime amount with the expectation that when we prepare the 28 budget, they will have a considerably lower overtime budget.

Um, and um, you know, that will be the plan moving forward.

So this is essentially to ease them into um step them down from their current overtime budget levels to a lower budget um overtime budget level discussion uh with discussion uh member Benson.

Thank you through yourself to Mr.

Johnson.

Are we seeing the staffing levels that would support the ability to step down over time over the next two years to zero?

Uh through the chair to council member Benson, we are, I would not say to zero.

I don't think any public safety organization could ever go to fully zero.

There are always gonna be ex circumstances through which overtime is is necessary.

Um but we are seeing the staffing levels hitting, we're we're finally hitting that level where we should now start to expect to see overtime coming under control.

Okay, is the strategy the same for the fire department?

Uh through the chair, yes.

All right, and we're seeing staffing levels that support this process.

Yes, that is correct.

So, Mr.

President, so just want to point that out.

You know, that's still something that maybe council might want to take a further look at.

But um back to the 53 million coming out of fund 1000 that Mayor Sheffield has on the table here.

So you got, you know, senior fares, homeless services, childhood at risk, home repair, eviction prevention and diversion, the cultural institutions, DDOT maintenance support rise for seniors, student transportation, pilot after school programs, more police commissioners, you know, Motor City Match, affordable housing preservation fund, uh legacy business space, DGC, retail attractions, small business emergency fund, just about done innovation, challenge private entities, uh public lighting operating subsidy, and there's 150,000 there for city council.

I believe that's for the council retreat for um fiscal 2027.

So, you know, one thing that maybe council could consider, and I say this generally, because these are a lot of you know um initiatives that council supports.

Um, we could back out like retirees, you know, some of the ones that you definitely probably are supportive of and just shave off, shave off maybe a 10% or something like that from the others.

So that's just let's just keep that in mind, you know, you know, as we finalize our um changes, you know, council's changes.

Maybe we can shave off 10%, or we can select a few that we can shave off.

So let's keep that in mind.

Um and I do not have that on the spreadsheet, but I'm just saying that's just another approach here.

Um, you know, we we already are recommending reducing the um fund 4533.

That's the blight remediation.

So we already got that on this sheet, and we can get to that.

And then the last excuse me, general fund pot.

That's um uh 2003, thank you.

So we do we do shave that one as well.

So I know I kind of um got off track here a little bit.

I just want to kind of just give you all uh an overall, and and as you say, ms.

We do need to talk about elections that that's a sizable, that's a sizable amount.

Yeah, I'm trying to get them uh in either at 11:30 or or noon.

Okay, okay.

But we haven't gotten the word back yet, but we're working on it.

So in terms of the spreadsheet, um, yeah, you know, we we we added your changes from yesterday.

Uh a lot of great strengths.

If you if it's okay, um president, we can go over the the items that are still pinned and see if you've gotten some additional.

So, how about we do like this?

And I like how Mr.

Benson uh mentioned, I think this is definitely much more of appropriate time now as we get closer to it, where if we have members who have any changes that they have identified instead of us having to go line by line, I think that might be more appropriate.

Yeah, let's get straight to the point.

With uh discussion starting with member McCampbell, followed by Pro Tim Young, member McCampb.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, through you to Mr.

Corey, uh for the update of spurs year, is that posted online for the public?

It should be.

I make sure though.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, but I'll make sure thanks.

Okay.

Pro Tim.

Uh thank you to Mr.

Johnson.

Um, are we talking good good to see you?

Sir, are we talking about revenues at all in this budget?

I'm looking at some of this stuff, you know, our non-resident uh income tax.

We're losing about 25 to 35 million, our employer withholding.

Uh the annual leakage is about 10 to 20 million dollars estimated.

Um we could probably recover 10 to 20 million of that, you know, uh, plus the with the um with the withholding, we could probably recover eight to fifteen million.

I'm also looking at um.

I'm also looking at our corporate income tax.

And I'm thinking that we're I got 42 million dollar shortfall risk, if probably through reserve funds and audit enforcement, we might be able to recover some of that.

I just wanted to know.

No, I'm sorry, hold on for a minute.

No, no, no, I'm sorry.

I was sorry, I apologize.

Um five to ten million we could recover from that.

And I just want to know are those some of the things that we're looking at in this budget.

Are those some of the things that we're looking at doing?

I know I was I know I'm not Lansing anymore, but I know while I was there, that that was part of the process.

People were notorious about arguing about you know uh revenues and things of that nature in terms of raising them.

Is that something that we could assume in this budget, or are we going more conservative route in terms of just what we're cutting away from it?

Uh and if not, why?

Yeah, through through the chair uh to Pro Tim Young.

So um a couple things.

Uh one, as a broader policy statement, um, we are always undertaking what we call tax discovery, which is really just tax enforcement, looking for non-payers, making sure that everyone is paying their fair share.

Um, and so we partner with the state of Michigan since they administer our income tax in particular to engage in those discovery um activities each year.

Um so we are always undertaking that to try to make sure that we're you know closing those um loops and and making sure those dollars are coming in that we to which we are entitled.

Um, but more broadly, even if we did have a number to that, because of the way that the state law has structured our revenue estimating process, we cannot assume more revenues to the general fund for this budget.

So it would not be possible for this body to say, like, oh, well, you know, I think we could get three million more in income tax.

State law explicitly forbids that.

Um because I because I'm looking even in uh proper tax delinquency or with employer um withholding non-compliance, we know where you have people who are actually employees, but they're filing as um independent contractors and we're losing those tasks down.

That's been a problem, not just the city, it's been a problem with the state for a very long time.

And so what I'm saying is even in terms of those issues and enforcing it that way, you're saying because it's state law, not because we don't have the ability to, or we could, but because state law says we are precluded from doing that.

That's why we're not going that route.

And do I have that correct?

If I understand your question through the chair, if I understand your question correctly, yes.

With the state law, state law simply says the city does not set its own revenue estimates.

So we cannot change the revenues ourselves.

Right.

So even if we did say we believe we're gonna have more success in tax enforcement, that would just be either bonus revenue if it were between revenue conferences.

When we hit the next revenue conference in September, then we might say, hey, we've had a lot of success in this particular tax recovery.

We're gonna give ourselves a little bump in this area, possibly on the one-time side of the general fund revenues.

Um, but in terms of the budget development process, none of us in this room has the ability to alter the revenues as they've been adopted by the revenue conference.

And that's that was part of the post-bankruptcy amendments to the home real city act.

No, no, I I understand that this is my final question.

I just wanted to ask.

And there's no leeway from the state or no wiggle room because they are the ones that are collecting our income tax.

I don't think they give us a little bit of be able to absorb some of the stuff, since we're not collecting that, they're collecting that.

So we have to go to them for what our collections are.

You think they allow us to be able to do what we can to collect more so we can report back to them.

Right.

And through the chair, we absolutely stay out of the bankruptcy, whatever.

We absolutely can.

Yes, exactly.

We absolutely can take whatever actions we wish to either supplement what the state already does in tax enforcement activities or you know, uh additional tax enforcement activities.

So we can absolutely do that.

We're not barred from that.

We and we often have those conversations with the state regularly about what we're doing in that regard.

It's simply we can't make any assumptions about the success or failure of those efforts in terms of the resources we have available to us to develop the budget.

After the revenue as they call it, okay.

Thank you.

I'll done thank you, President.

So, Ms.

President, I actually have another another thought, and I'm I'm I'm stilling um the great idea from Councilmember Benson that he raised on the first day when we got started.

So another thing that perhaps we council could do.

So let's say you set the bar at that two percent.

Your changes is at two percent, but they go above that a little bit.

You could impact Mayor Sheffield's um budget by the amount over the two percent, which means that she would have to come back in the fall with a budget amendment based on the 42 million that's in the reserve.

And they would they should know administration should know by September how firm that 42 million is.

Because they'll have they'll have all of their year-in adjustments for the most part, the revenue picture would be clearer.

And so she can come back with a budget amendment to fill back in whatever impacts that you make to her proposed changes.

So that's so so council can say, okay, our changes for our priorities for our constituents is say two percent.

So that's about 30 million.

If you uh go beyond that, and I I would I would advise don't go too much, please, beyond that.

You know, because it is it is tight.

It's a tight budget.

So let's say you go over that, you know.

So 2% is 30 million, and you go over that for the sake of conversation, five million.

Mayor Sheffield would have to come back to you in the fall with a budget amendment.

And that and that five million, of course, impacts her priorities.

She would have to come back to you in the fall for a budget amendment of five million to fill in what you are impacted during this budget process.

To me, Mr.

President, this is your budget.

So this budget should reflect your priorities.

You should not, you should not uh do the reverse where okay, we'll wait and see how the 42 million is.

You gotta then you got to go back to the mayor.

She has to agree to it, right?

Because she has to initiate according to the city charter a budget amendment.

So that's do what you do your thing now.

You know, and go from there.

So I stole that that was a member Vincent's.

That's not my that's really not my idea.

But it was brilliant.

So that's that's let's keep that in mind too.

Discussion.

We discussed I know Mr.

Johnson has had its hand up for a minute, then we'll come to you, Member Benson.

Mr.

Johnson.

So I I would um uh to the chair, uh uh, you know, um I would note that the converse is also true, um, that uh we could agree to come back for a budget amendment later to address more of council's priorities instead of changing a lot of the mayor's priorities in the draft budget.

So um, you know, both are valid options.

Um I would note that um uh this budget was developed with a great deal of council's priorities already in mind.

I mean, Mr.

Corley went over the list, um, and you know, I think that what we can I think we can all agree.

I don't think there's much disagreement that the vast majority of what the mayor put into the budget, both on the recurring and the one-time side, were all things where we took into account the the known council priorities because we all know that the mayor was the council president and on the council for 12 years.

So she's very familiar with what the priorities are that have been before the council.

She was just on the council, not only a moment ago.

So when we built this budget, she built it very conscious of the fact that there were many items that needed to be addressed in this budget.

So, you know, things like goal line, increasing goal line, motor city match, um, you know, uh CVI program, homeless services increases, a 10% increase to homeless services.

I mean, these are all things, senior food access, these are all things that we know were priorities, and so we built them in proactively up front.

I mean, that was the intent was to bring a budget that we could all come together on and know that we had already addressed many of these pressing concerns.

And so while I certainly am not saying the council should not make some changes and and you know get some of its priorities in, of course, that's the process.

I would say that you know, 20 or 30 million dollars worth of changes is not going to be something that I think is going to be workable in terms of the amount of resources we have and the number of priorities and items we need to address in 27 in order to ensure that the traders continue to rise higher and achieve the um outcomes that we're looking for them to achieve with all of these investments that the administration has already placed into the budget.

So I would just want to you know make that uh put that on the record.

Um we appreciate that, sir.

Member Benson.

No, my question has been answered.

Okay, okay.

Okay, Ms.

President, so we can um go to oh I'm sorry, I'm sorry, with uh further discussion, member Johnson.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um throw you to the administration.

I'm not sure if Mr.

Johnson can address this.

Um so I'm looking at CVI, um, and it looks like there's an increase in CBI funding.

Can you help to um explain, help us understand that increase and um any information feedback from the state about the public safety fund that was discussed last year?

Uh through the chair to council member Johnson, yes.

So the program that we've budgeted for assumes all of the current um operating groups.

Two of the groups have had their footprint expanded.

We've added additional um, you know, square, I don't say mileage, because that's not quite right, square footage is too small, but we've added additional blocks um to the to the um footprint of two of the groups.

And um, so what we do when we budget CVI is we budget for the assumption that all of the groups will all get their regular operating dollars as well as all of their performance um uh amounts.

So, you know, as they perform, that increases their compensation as they show hit certain metrics.

And so when we budget, we have to budget on the assumption that everyone will hit all of their metrics, otherwise we might be short.

It leaves us in a position of potentially being short.

So we did budget it.

To your question um for the state, yes, we are in constant conversation with the state.

It is a high priority conversation for us to address um sorry, council president disappeared for a minute and it really distracted me.

Um below the task.

Um it is it is a it is a constant, it is a constant discussion item with the state.

I know um uh Fred Durhal as our state um affairs um representative has been working hard on um not only um getting making sure that all of the public safety dollars to which we're already currently entitled under the new funding plan come to us, but also ensuring that we continue the conversation and pushing for a public safety trust to guarantee us a certain amount of income each year.

So what we've already received from the state, um the money that we've been allocated in the current year is about 10 million dollars, um, and we have allocated um the 25% that's allowed under the state the new state statute, we've already allocated that to CVI.

So that is that is adding to the resources for the CVI program.

If we get more resources from the state moving forward, we would have a conversation about is there capacity to either expand CVI or is this something where that would begin to supplant the general fund dollars to allow us to you know put have relief on our general fund?

That's always obviously my first priority um as as part of the OCFO.

Um but it's a conversation we would have with um director Brent Ferry Brent um and his team and the mayor's office about you know how would they use these additional revenues moving forward.

But yes, the conversation is very very high on the list and it is constantly um occurring with Lansing.

All right, thank you for that.

And and to go back to what Mr.

Corley just mentioned that um member Benson brought up, it was a thought in my mind as well because we have forecasts and the budget is based on that.

If we receive additional revenue, I have not seen in the last four years where those additional revenue dollars are then giving council the ability to help shape where those dollars go.

Um and so I know in the past, you know, sure, the administration will find something, find some way to spend those additional dollars.

So I think we should have a real conversation about that, um, especially because this is really really tight.

And when I look at what I have put in the budget, that is a financial ask.

There's nothing for district four specifically, it's a department's request, right?

Um, and so I think as we even look at the bottom line number that's on page 25 or whatever page it is, much of it is coming from departments asking us for additional resources to be able to do what it is that they do.

Um, and so while yes, I'm really excited about what the mayor put into the budget.

What I see and what I heard is a response to what the residents come down and advocate for tremendously.

Um where I am looking for additional support is are there specific things happening in district four that needs greater support with that needs funding to be able to address those items.

I'm not seeing that.

Um so I think we should we should really flush out that conversation because forecasts are forecasts, and you have utilized the um forecast of revenue.

If we receive additional revenue, if expenses are lower, I have not seen where council has been able to shape um much of what happens with the budget surplus, even right, because that's where ultimately it ends up at the end of a fiscal year.

So I like the idea of coming back in September um after the financial review commission.

Um is that what it's called?

The FRC.

Yeah, yes.

Um revisiting where dollars are allocated if there are additional dollars that um can be appropriated that um either we address it now or address it in September, but I would love to see um more of our priorities be addressed in the budget.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Mr.

Clerk, if you can know that we've been joined by member Callaway as well.

Thank you so much.

Colleagues, any further before we go into the agenda or the spreadsheet.

Pro Tim.

Thank you.

Two things.

So you're going into the spreadsheet?

Yeah.

Okay.

We shall go.

We begin and then we'll just go member by member to see if there's any updates to the list.

Yes.

First of all, I have to.

Oh, I'm I'm sorry, before you move forward.

Oh, we have uh been confirmed for 11 1130 appearance by uh Chris Maduca, chief of staff at the Department of Election.

So he will be joining us via Zoom at 11:30 to uh speak solely about their asks for this year, fiscal year.

Pro Tim Young.

Why did I think you was gonna say 1130 presidents by TI?

I'm sorry.

Um I must put where my head is at right now.

Um I wanted to ask you.

Um first of all, no, I wanted to say, where are we?

There's um I want to make a motion to move the hospital violence intervention program into closing resolution.

That program is still in existence, but it's no longer with the city, and so I don't think that we could be able to provide budget funds for private pri entities.

The work is still being done, but it's just not with the city anymore.

But that might change via contract in the future.

But for right now, I'd like to move the hospital violence intervention program into closing resolution.

Pro Tim what line item is that, sir.

That's what I'm looking for, right?

Now I will find it shortly.

Um that's line item 66.

66.

66.

Thanks.

Line item 66.

What was the motion again, sir?

Move line of 66 into closing resolution.

Colleagues, there's a motion to place um closing resolution language uh in the spreadsheet for line item 66.

Any objections?

Seeing none, that action shall be taken.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

And then my next one, this is my I'm sorry, course.

So do you want you still want to the dollar amount?

Oh, yeah, remove the dollar.

Oh, sorry.

I've already moved the closed resolution.

Do I need to just remove the dollar amount or do I need to remove the dollar amount and then move to close the resolution again?

Yeah, I should I should have asked for that first.

No, that's my fault.

That's no, that's fine.

I just want to make sure what the process is.

No, we we can remove we can remove the dollar amount now.

So if we remove the dollar not, do I have to remove the closed resolution again or just remove the dollar amount?

That's it.

No, just a dollar amount.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

Yes.

Motion to remove the $300,000.

There's a motion to remove $300,000 one-time allotment to line item 66.

Colleagues, any objections?

See none, then action shall be taken.

All right.

All right.

And then my final one is involving line item 191.

Mr.

Johnson.

Is there any update on the state grant?

Mr.

Johnson.

And that is to uh reestablish the food restoration pilot program and the city recreation centers.

Add one million dollars for staff and operating costs.

It would be reduced from five to two, but I could cut that in half from a million to five hundred thousand.

But if you have a grant for all of it or whatever you have, I don't have to, I don't have to do that.

Because I talked to Miss Rushton about 500,000.

Yeah, about 500,000.

And she was very enthusiastic.

Right.

Um to the chair.

If we got a grant for a million, go ahead.

Um uh two pro Tim Young.

Um, so we definitely receive a grant, uh, General Services receives a grant every year from the state of Michigan.

It's two grants really.

One is for um children, you children and youth, and then one is for seniors or adults and seniors um for food, um the the food pro food access programs um that they get through the state.

I think it's MDHS.

Because that's mainly what I'm focused on is the seniors.

And so the state provides that, it's about a million total.

I think it's roughly half a million each for both of the for the each grant.

Okay.

Um, and so um GSD does receive that.

I think I would I would need to talk to Director Perkins as well as Director Rushton to get a sense of what would it mean for us to you know, how would we supplement it and what would that look like?

How does the program currently work?

If we added more money to it, what would that look like?

Um, so if I could have time to talk to Director Perkins, um maybe during the break the uh during lunch.

Um I'll talk to her.

So if we could keep a pin in this right now, pin in this again.

Okay.

Colleagues, that item shall remain panned.

Ms.

President, I think that's all the items I have on this sheet for me.

So I am done.

Okay, so we'll just go from left to right, and that way we'll just clear the table.

Uh uh member McCampbell.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

So um let me just go down to a few items that I see on the list here.

Um for line item 11.

We can remove that one.

So motion to remove line item 11.

Excuse me, colleagues.

There's a motion first to remove the oh the entire item.

There's a motion to remove uh the line item 11 from the agenda, including the dollar amount.

Any objections?

See none, that action shall be taken.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and then line item ninety-six.

Um, let me just make sure, because I believe we took line item uh 96 motion to uh move to close the resolution.

I had a conversation with the administration.

They will be after they go through their pilot program, we'll be looking to it um increase the access to uh more neighborhood um venues.

So motion to move line item 96 to close the resolution.

Colleagues, there's a motion to move line item 96 closing resolution language to apply to it.

Any objections?

See none, that action shall be taken.

And then for line items 198 and 199.

Uh if we could combine those.

I do I need a motion to combine those.

I think that's 198 and 199.

Uh colleagues, there's a motion, and this is for closing resolution, member McDonald's.

This will be for closing resolution and um funding, but I have additional the funding.

Okay.

Colleagues has a motion to combine the uh language uh for closing resolution for line items 198 and 199.

Any objections?

See none that action shall be taken.

Remember McCampbell?

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

So this is related to the rec center um at Brennan Recreation Area.

Um I've been in conversation with the administration.

Um, and we come to agreement that they will dedicate uh 4.5 million out of capital to both the new building and um improvements on the old buildings or the current building site.

Uh so motion to move language two closing resolution around this.

Um that's the first motion.

That's the option you have one hour to go to the case.

Okay, that's different.

Because I know you said you combined.

I guess I'll make the motion, but I have a question if I if since we have the agreement that the administration put in their closing resolution for the 4.5, do we need to put the amount in our closing resolution or in ours as well?

I think we put it certainly put it in ours, and the administration will place it into its closing resolution as well.

But that also means that we would uh be moving 4.5 as well in one-time costs.

All right, there we go.

All right, so motion to move this line on to close the resolution and also um the 4.5 million in one-time uh funding from capital.

All right, colleagues, there's a motion to place one uh 4.5 million in one-time uh allocation to uh the combined motion now of uh line item 198 and 199.

Any objections with discussion, member Benson.

Right, that's the uh the park improvements and the wayfinding yes uh through Mr.

Chair through you.

I'm sorry, uh member McCamble.

Through you to member Benson, yes.

So originally when we talked about this, I had that I have amended language, so this is just wave and just improvements around the Brennan, the current building and also for the construction of the new representative.

Member Benson?

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Colleagues, there's a motion on the floor, 4.5 million.

Uh one time uh contribution for line items combined line items 198 and 199.

Any objections?

See none, that action shall be taken.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, and just also want to express my appreciation to the administration to my colleagues as well.

So that's all I have for now.

All right, thank you.

Member Johnson.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Just based on conversations with the administration that I've been able to conclude.

Um line item 179.

Uh we can remove the pin.

It has already been moved for the closing resolution.

All right.

179.

All right, there's a request, colleagues, to remove the pin for 179.

No further action shall be taken.

Member Johnson.

And line item 226.

We can remove the pen from that as well.

Uh it has already been added to the closing resolution.

Colleagues, there's a request to remove the pen for line item that's 226, ma'am.

That's correct.

Line item 226.

No further action shall be taken.

Member Johnson.

And the other items.

Um I'd like to request that they remain pinned until hopefully this afternoon.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Member Santiago Romero.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Looking at the new list, uh, the new form would like to oh, we'd like to remove line item 182.

182.

This is a department of appeals.

We may be having this discussion around blight tickets.

Um 182.

Um, this is around the need for us to do more public education on um blake tickets.

As we've been talking about this, I believe this is already being covered in line seven.

Um, by increasing the budget for more enforcement officers and also increasing the budget for more education around enforcement.

I would like to remove I item 182 and combine or join line number seven because it does um address what I was trying to address here.

So there's a motion, colleagues, to remove line item 182 from the agenda.

Any objections?

Seeing none, that action shall be taken.

Member uh Santiago Romero, you did mention line item seven, I believe.

We'd like to join item seven along with Member Benson and Member McCampbell around more blight education and enforcement.

All right, thank you, Mr.

Corley.

If you can note, Member Santiago Romero.

Um thank you, Mr.

President.

I that's all I have for now.

I do have um one conversation that I need to have with the media services that we will have on Monday.

Um we're working through our closing resolutions, so those should be coming to you soon.

That's all I have for for right now.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

And for mine, I would like to point out information, Mr.

Chair.

Um, Member Benson.

What was the disposition of number two of line item two twenty-six?

226 was a removal.

Thank you.

Thank you.

For my items, I would like to head to line item 120 on the new list.

Okay.

Line item 120.

Uh would like to remove this item from the agenda.

Uh, and speaking with the port authority, they already have a tracking mechanism.

They just weren't able to provide it to us when they were before us.

So, colleagues can I have a motion to remove line item 120 from the agenda.

See no objections, that action shall be taken.

Uh if I can go to now line item one twenty-nine.

And that is clear media services.

We're gonna continue.

I'm sorry, I should probably shouldn't say they're gonna continue to keep that one pin.

We're still having conversation.

My apologies.

Uh, line item one fifty six.

Um would like we've already placed this item into we already placed this item into closing resolution, but I did indicate that I was going to pin it for potential funding.

Uh I'm gonna remove that pen and leave the item as is with closing resolution.

Taylor, uh there's yeah, no no no motion needed for the pen.

Thank you.

Uh thank you though, member um waters.

Line item one fifty seven, though.

Uh this is uh construction mitigation fund.

I know that there's this emergency um fund that was or loan that was being um put forward, but I still would like for us to um have a construction mitigation fund and we can have further conversation as needed, but at this moment, looking for $500,000 to be placed in a construction mitigation fund.

Um for line item 157, colleagues.

One time one time, yes, sir, one time.

Motion 122.

There's a motion.

Any objection?

See none that action shall be taken.

Um we're gonna now drop down to 180 189, excuse me.

Line out of 189.

I did have a uh pen for the budget in that one.

I need to keep that one pinned, so I'm sorry for that.

But I did have closing resolution language, so that's good still.

Line item two to seven, and we're still having discussion with the department, so that's why we don't have a information on that one yet.

227.

Um, we did place this item line item 227 into closing resolution already, uh, but I did pend it for pin it for a potential funding allocation.

I would like to remove that pen on that item, colleagues.

And information, um member Benson, yes, sir.

Were you looking to add a number to 227?

Delaware avenue.

Uh no, sir, just just a um closing resolution.

Closing resolution, yes, sir, which we uh already approved yesterday.

Okay, and those are the all of mine for today uh at this moment.

Uh member waters.

Okay, thank you.

Oh, I'm I'm sorry, my apologies.

I forgot the ones I wanted to add.

Oh, if I can also uh get a motion, colleagues, to please add uh $41,000, and I'm sure you probably could find this, Mr.

Johnson.

Just in your in some budget, $41,000 for park improvements over at Eliza Howe Park.

Uh there will be $25,000 for a large-scale art sculpture to replace the sculpture that is being uh deconstructed.

That is the focal point of the park.

Uh $16,000 for uh picnic pods, um, and then $4,000 for a signage on the fecal entry.

Uh again, that is $41,000.

Can I get a motion, colleagues, please?

I'm sorry, Ms.

President.

What what department?

Uh that would be uh GSD.

GSD, okay.

Yes, sir.

So there's a motion uh with discussion, Mr.

Johnson.

Uh Mr.

President, um, yes, that should be no problem.

Um in fact, I think I think I could probably just um take care of that in the current fiscal year with some additional funding.

So this might be an item that you put in your closing resolution um and I put in hours, which I know is kind of unusual because it's kind of retroactive, but it would simply say that you know we will have taken care of this item.

Um I definitely uh believe we have enough flexibility in the current remaining capital in the park space where we could fit this in.

That shouldn't be a problem.

I appreciate that because that uh comports with the uh plan that has been uh discussed by the city as well as sidewalk Detroit has done a tremendous job over there.

So um colleagues, can we get instead uh I know we put that dollar amount uh into closing resolution in into the executive session would like to now uh make that uh item a closing resolution with no funding, uh understanding that the administration will fund it with current dollars.

Is there a motion now placed?

And they'll put in their closing resolution as well.

Sir motion as a motion, any objections?

Seeing none, then action shall be taken.

Thank you.

Member Waters.

Okay, all right.

So the first line item is line item 75, veterans' affairs.

Um I want a motion to put us.

Can you pull that mic a little closer to me?

Yes, please.

Yes, ma'am.

Yes, ma'am.

And I've got to pass this, pass these around.

But line item 75 veterans' affairs.

I want to motion to put $500,000 in there for one time.

And this spreadsheet that I'm passing around shows you how it's going to be used.

It is going to be provide subsidies to veterans, dependents to make housing payments and repairs to honorably discharge veterans in Detroit.

Hire a federally trained veteran service officer to file benefit claims on behalf of veterans dependents.

Conduct job fairs, resource fairs, listening sessions, plaques, awards for service, and then train and provide training to the staff on the latest veteran affairs, approve mandatory training to ensure we are delivering recent news and information to veterans.

I'm asking for one time.

Is that line item already that's on the agenda?

75.

And that was $500,000 one time.

Yes.

Colleagues, there's a motion to place one-time allocation of $500,000 into line item 79.

$75.

$75.

Any objections?

With discussion, Member Callaway.

Um thank you.

Um Mr.

Chair and to Member Waters.

Yeah.

Being the daughter of a um Korean veteran and the sister of a um Kuwait.

Um served in the Kuwait war.

Um support um veterans.

Upmost respect for them.

And if you only are asking for one time 500,000, what about the next year and the next year?

They're going to continue to need services.

I just had a veteran who just lost his home.

Disabled veterans.

So why one time?

Through your through the chair to you, Member Waters, because they're going to continue to need the services that you're attempting to provide was which is admirable.

And I'd like to join you on it, but it has to be recurring.

Um, yeah, yes.

I'm I'll tell you, I'll share with through you, Mr.

President, why requested one time at this time and be able to follow up next year because the CFO said yesterday that they have a difficult time at this time with recurring.

And so I figured I'd I at least start out this year uh with one time and then build on it next year.

That that was my rationale because of what he stated yesterday.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And and you're welcome to join me if you like.

Um, I'd like to join you through the chair.

Thank you.

Uh colleagues, again, there's a motion on the floor for $500,000 one-time uh allocation uh for line item 75.

Mr.

With discussion, Mr.

Johnson.

Um, is this an item that would you know through you to Councilmember Waters?

Would we be willing to pin this until the afternoon session so that I can go back and have a conversation with my um team?

Sure.

Member Waters?

All right, motion to pen.

Member Waters is fine with that pen.

Member Waters to uh member Callaway's point.

Uh would you mind putting some language in the closing resolution indicating that you would like to see you know that way you won't have to come to the table next year and the following years?

It's already baked into the budget.

Would that be something you would be interested in?

Oh, absolutely.

So thank you.

So motion to also place this in closing resolution.

I can do that part now.

Yes, ma'am.

There's a motion to place um closing resolution language into line item 75 with language to be provided.

Any objections?

See none, and action shall be taken.

Member Waters.

All right.

Um line item 94.

This is the tenant rights counseling in the stipend.

I will say to to my colleagues that this is the amendment has already been submitted to uh to east five uh for this, but I need to revise line item 94 to reflect the correct amount.

Okay, the correct amount uh will be 16,200 recurring.

So let me make a motion to remove the 75,000 or to amend it.

Yeah, remove the 75,000.

Okay, colleagues as a motion.

So you are you gonna amend it with 1600?

16,200, yeah.

Colleagues, there's a motion to amend the dollar amount for line item 94 from 75,000 dollars to 16,200, and that's uh reoccurring.

Reoccurring, yes.

Reoccurring.

Any objections?

See none, then action shall be taken.

Member Waters.

Um line item two twelve.

Member Waters, do you want to just approve the item now?

Because I know we just changed the dollar amount.

Oh, yes, motion to approve.

Okay, colleagues, there's a motion to approve line item 94 with the updated amended dollar amount of sixteen thousand two hundred dollars.

Any objections?

See none, that action shall be taken.

All right, so on to line item two twelve.

This is the uh smoothie line.

Uh-oh.

Uh I will I want to change the name.

So motion to change the name to nutrition and wellness.

Okay.

There's a motion to uh uh change the name or uh did we ever have a name?

Well, it says smoothies in there.

Okay, so apply name of what was it again?

Nutrition and wellness, nutrition and wellness uh for line item 212, colleagues.

Any objections?

See none that action shall be taken.

And then a motion to uh keep it pinned for now, Mr.

I guess I don't I don't need to do anything at this point, right?

Yeah, no ma'am.

All right, so um the other thing is that this through you, Mr.

President, the um CFO yesterday and I had a conversation about the whole land use uh fee, and we discussed trying to identify a way to assist communities uh with that.

So we'll need to do a study first to see if in fact uh there's a way to use the to get the dollars from somewhere else.

Maybe the CFO can explain it a little bit better.

Mr.

Johnson uh thank you, Mr.

President.

Um so what we talked about yesterday was the idea of you know, one thing we know that the Department of Neighborhoods is undertaking um with um Brian with Director Peckinpah is sort of um reconceptualizing how neighborhood associations and block clubs and all these things all fit together in that ecosystem of our neighborhoods, and so um that all goes part in parcel with the planning of what happens in the neighborhoods, including things like land use planning, as these are often driven by block clubs and groups, um, as we know with um you know Ms.

Um Ms.

Betty Varner um in the DeSoda Ellsworth block club, you know, they have a lot of plans um and they you know we're looking for ways to how they can move forward, and one thing we could do is give the Department of Neighborhoods um a little bit extra money for them to undertake um you know I'm always loath to to throw out a study or something like that because I know that that that sometimes doesn't feel super um um solid, but in this case I think we have a lot to learn from other places from other jurisdictions.

I think there are a lot of cities that do really amazing work with block clubs and neighborhood associations, and this is one of those places where I think we can say we can learn a lot from other people.

Um it just takes a minute to go out and actually make those connections, have those conversations, um, and determine what others are doing in this space.

So my recommendation on this was that we take fiscal year 27 as a sort of a learning, a learning stage to say let's learn what other people are doing, how they're supporting those neighborhood groups in this space and in other spaces to do what they need to do in other places, and then gather that together and create a list of meaningful actionable recommendations that could be brought to this body um and brought to the city planning commission and other groups that are important stakeholders in those conversations, so that we could then talk about what that looks like as we move into either a mid-year amendment or um the 28 budget cycle, and that's gonna be something we take into account there.

So my recommendation had been that we put about $25,000 into the Department of Neighborhoods for um Director Peck and Paw and his team to um undertake that effort of reaching out to some of those cities that have really robust neighborhood-based programs and support programs and learn how are they doing it?

How are they making this work?

What is the infrastructure they've done, both in their own government infrastructure and just the community infrastructure?

How are they helping build that?

I think that would be really instructive for us and allow us to come up with a plan that's we could really start taking action on right.

That was a mouthful.

Um motion um Mr.

President to add $25,000 to neighborhoods.

Um for study.

I know okay.

Just want to make sure I thought maybe I missed it.

I'm sorry, kind of things going on.

Oh, so so I need to add it for yep, that's what we'll be doing now.

That's what we do now.

So there's a request, there's a motion, colleagues, to add $25,000 to the Department of Neighborhoods to study.

Uh um what others other cities uh are doing uh to empower neighborhoods.

All right.

Uh and that is one time.

One time.

Yes.

Any objections, colleagues?

Discussion with discussion, member Caluman.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I'd like to join you on member waters if I may.

Absolutely.

All right.

Any objection, colleagues?

See none, that action shall be taken.

Uh Mr.

Quarley, if you note that member Callaway would like to join Member Waters.

And let me just further state that I believe wholeheartedly an empowering neighborhoods.

I do.

Because if we do that, if we have a happy neighborhood, it makes our jobs much easier.

So I I just I just think that it's incumbent upon us to identify more ways to do exactly that.

You know, I allow them to help us because that's what they really want to do.

Um now just the last thing that I want to ask you about, and I'm gonna ask you every day until we have it, is that opera spreadsheet?

Mr.

Johnson.

You got me.

Um that was one of the items that I intended to do last night.

I'm so sorry.

Um, so uh during the lunch break, I will absolutely take care of this.

I I promise.

Okay.

So sorry about that.

All right, thank you, Mr.

President.

All right, thank you.

Member Benson.

All right, thank you.

Um I'm still using the original spreadsheet, so I'm trying to coordinate both.

And I was looking at what was line item 47, which was fire, and I don't see it on the new spreadsheet.

And that one, no, I do see it now.

Uh number line item number 51.

Motion to remove the $500,000.

Which number?

Uh the number 51 on the updated spreadsheet.

51 colleagues.

That is an increased budget of $500,000 one time for the creation of capital fund study for the fire department.

Member Benson.

Motion to remove the $500,000.

As a motion, colleagues, to remove the $500,000 uh one-time allocation for line item 51.

Any objections?

See none, then action shall be taken.

And then motion to change the narrative from increased budget for capital fund study to capital um investment study.

This is for capital investment for the actual fire department, fire truck fire houses, things of that nature.

All right, colleagues, there's a motion to amend the closing resolution language for line item 51.

Any objections?

Seeing none, then action shall be taken.

And then through yourself to Mr.

Johnson, just want to verify that this can be handled uh currently through the budget, and you all will identify on your closing resolution that you will fund this and we will have a capital study for the fire department.

Uh through the chair, yes, that is correct.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Member Benson.

All right, and then I'd like to go to line item number 78 and the new spreadsheets.

And and so I'm gonna keep this number here.

I had a conversation with the administration, and we're still having conversations about that.

I had a conversation with the 11th floor this morning in the mayor's office.

So still waiting to hear back on that number.

Just wanted to get my colleagues in FYI.

Um, then let's go to line item number one ninety six.

196 is the increase to one million for GSD security recreation centers.

I'd like to change that number to $300,000.

I've had conversations with both with GSD as well as the Wayne County Sheriff and DPD on this space.

Uh DPD doesn't need any additional Wayne County Sheriff, so they are more than happy to come in and support uh the park patrol and GSD indicated that that a $300,000 um increase would make a significant difference in the environment and compliance at these spaces.

All right, member Benson, is that one time?

No, that's reoccurring.

Reoccurring.

Okay.

Colleagues, there's a motion on the floor for uh to amend the one million dollar uh dollar allocation to three hundred thousand dollar uh reoccurring uh for line item one ninety-six.

Any objections see none that action shall be taken.

Member Benson, you'd like to move the item uh as amended.

Move the item as amended.

All right, colleagues a motion to move line item 196 with the 300,000 dollar reoccurring uh allocation.

Any objections?

See none that action shall be taken.

And Mr.

Chair, I've got a few more items, but I'm still waiting to have some conversations on those.

That should be hopefully done by our second session today.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Member Callaway.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Good morning, everyone.

Okay, let's see.

Um line item 63.

This is um uh a proposed ordinance on the safe storage of cannabis light products.

And I did share with my colleagues a sample um cannabis storage bag yesterday that is being distributed through um the health department um on a limited basis, and I'll let everyone else see it.

It's on my desk.

I'll have my assistant to bring it over really nice with the with the lock on it.

Um so I we put 75,000 in it from the general fund.

So I'd like to um make a motion to move it from the general fund to the marijuana revenue fund.

Um, this is a one-time um ask of 75,000 dollars.

All right, colleagues.

There's a motion to um so it's still coming from the general.

So that's right.

So the marijuana uh the fund that we created for the marijuana um tax revenue.

Uh this is line item uh 63.

Yep.

There's a motion on the floor, Mr.

Johnson.

Um, so the the marijuana revenues for the most part uh they are they are in the general fund.

So they they are they're part of the general fund, but so what we'd be doing is we would be allocating in the general fund.

Okay, understood.

Just wanted to make sure.

Just wanted to know that she wanted that's what it comes from.

Yeah, through that from that pool of money, that bucket.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

Well, Mr.

President, so that's under 5,000 be shown as a source as well because it's coming from the marijuana um fund.

So we're gonna show that as a source in our spreadsheet.

Yes, sir.

Through the chair.

Um with further discussion, uh member pro tem.

Uh does this include um and I'm not saying it has to, I'm just I just out of curiosity.

Does this include advertising at all?

Because I think this is a really good product that a lot of people should be able to know that the city has should be able to.

I think it could I think it potentially could save a lot of lives.

And it's a trendy piece of uh uh uh uh product too.

I I I I was kind of I thought it was gonna be kind of you know a bulky, heavy, you know, uh type of deal, but it's real trendy, it's real nice you know, piece of equipment.

You know what I'm saying?

I'm I'm not saying I know people who would partake in that, but if I did, I would recommend that they have it.

Is that something that's gonna be promoted at all when we're talking about you know the health aspects of marijuana that you come to city and get this trendy piece of um yeah uh buggage with with further discussion, Mr.

Johnson?

Uh through the chair to to Pro Tim Young, absolutely.

So this is something that um part of the um two cool for drugs uh program, which is part of the marijuana um revenue.

It does also let folks know about not only getting kids off of it but keeping kids safe from it.

Um young young young uh young people.

Um the health department definitely has a very robust advertising and sort of educational campaign that um I know Dr.

Abazita's um uh director Abbasid is um absolutely can't gonna continue and and and make more robust.

So we're definitely putting it out there.

I think having these dollars in place to have more product available to distribute um is gonna be a very positive thing for everybody.

No, I no, I just wanted to say I thought I thought it was very cool.

I'm very supportive.

You know, I thought it was gonna be kind of like you know, a dare, you know, cracking eggs your brain on drugs type of corny deal, but it's really nice.

So I'm I'm very impressed with it.

I hope it goes for it.

You're really aging us with it.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

I've been that calling us out on that.

That's just what I thought, you know.

This this drug warrior don't do drugs type deal, but no, it was it was nice.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And member Calvary, I know we did mention that we were looking at uh the the language to focus on control substances, not just cannabis, because we want to keep uh our children and pets safe from all control substances, including oxy and some of those other types of um uh controlled substances that can be misused and Mr.

B.

So okay, Mr.

Um Chair, you'll help provide that language because my whole focus was just on cannabis because that's through the chair to Mr.

Johnson and everyone from Mr.

VD's letter from May the 11th of 2025.

He indicated that like hundreds of kids, and also from Commissioner Angelique Peterson Mayberry just last week at a community meeting.

400 kids have had to go to emergency because of cannabis.

I don't know about any other control substance.

So my focus was just very narrow and straightforward on safe storage of cannabis.

And this is the this is the bag.

This is a safe storage bag, and I want to thank Mr.

Rajin Reed and Creole for showing me the bag.

But Mr.

Chair, if you'd like to provide some additional language, oh we will we'll we'll provide it because again there's numerous studies and information out there about opioids that have also affected our children.

Um while it may be silent, uh it's out there and it's killing them and fitting all as well.

Okay, and so I think it's imperative.

Not and and the other things to keep in mind, it's not just the children, it's those people just should not be using those substances.

Um some folks have uh unfortunately individuals who may have um uh uh issues with addiction, yeah, and this allows uh the uh controlled substances to be uh under lock and key, no matter what type of substance that is.

That's why I think it's a very useful tool, but I think it's broader than just cannabis because we okay the goal is to help.

Okay, so Mr.

Chair, then I know I'm gonna have your support on helping with the ordinance and adding some language to it.

Oh no, uh so I was the one who actually encouraged them to get this piece in place.

So while I may be the one who supported the ordinance, it was again designed to make sure that uh residents had the opportunity to have a fair opportunity uh, period.

Not trying to encourage anyone to do or not to do, but if it's going to be here, we need to have an opportunity to also uh participate in the industry fairly.

So I'm I'm online.

I want to keep our children, our people, our residents, safe um as well.

Okay, thank you so much, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Um so that is Mr.

Chair, through to Mr.

Johnson, the money would come from the marijuana revenue fund, which is also part of the um the general fund.

And at this time, um I also like to uh make a motion I don't know.

Did we do we I don't know if we close that one out?

There's a mo we don't there's a motion um to approve.

Uh and I guess essentially because we already approved it, but now just to change where the fund is funds are coming from for 75,000.

Any objections?

Seeing none, that action shall be taken.

Member Callaway.

Um, yes, and on this note, Mr.

Chair, I'd like to um add this is a new line item for you, me, and vape free.

You and me vape free, and this is through the Wayne Health Authority Board.

Um, they were requesting this amount, like a $15,000 one-time um funding for this very, very um important program.

There is throughout Wayne County, but mostly in Detroit for our kids who are getting addicted to vaping.

Um, so it's called you and me vape free, and they're asking.

I said 15, but I'm going to try to get 25,000 because it's an incredible program.

We know that it's working.

So, Mr.

Chair, I'd like to make a motion to add this as a line item, 25,000 for the you and me vape free program through the Wayne Health Authority that I do understand you're now a member of, Mr.

Chair.

Um no, not that one.

Yeah, they it was announced last week.

Authority health.

Wayne County uh authority health.

So authority health, yes.

Authority health, yes, ma'am.

Okay, yes, ma'am and welcome.

Thank you.

I know you're the outgoing member.

Um colleagues, there's a motion to uh place on the agenda fifteen thousand dollars one time to go to the Wayne to go to the authority health uh your time one time your time, what is it called again?

It's called um you and me vape free.

You and me vape free program.

Any objections with discussion member would that be?

So it's not really department maybe non-department, it's actually one of our authorities, so I don't hire minimum, okay.

It's one of our um entities that we work with, and we have a member of the board that sits on it, but it's not a uh department.

Yeah, Mr.

Johnson.

Mr.

President, I I think I would probably put this in health because it would be logical for the health department to have a connection to Authority Health.

Yeah, I put in health department.

Okay, Mr.

Chair.

All right.

Uh member Callaway.

Further discussions $25,000.

I just changed it, if you don't mind, sir.

I'd like to make the change from 15 to 25.

And Mr.

Chair, um, Denise Rezo um currently serves on the board as of this past Tuesday.

All right.

Um like to amend that dollar amount to 25,000, colleagues.

Any objections?

See none, then action shall be taken.

And I haven't had my first meeting yet, so well, they're excited about you joining them.

Yes, ma'am.

I'm excited to be a part.

The floor remains yours, ma'am.

Okay.

And do I need to do a closing resolution as well?

Okay, so I make a motion.

I'll um add this to the closing resolution.

You and me vape free, um, and the importance of keeping our children um safe from um vaping products.

They're also having um um episodes, uh, very bad episodes with the overuse of vaping, and we will add the language to the closing resolution, sir.

That is my motion.

Thank you.

College says a motion for closing resolution language.

The item member Callaway just uh presents it to us.

Any objections?

See none, then action shall be taken.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Sir.

And then I mean Mr.

Chair, and then also line item 83.

Um, this is to um increase the funding, or not increase the funding, but roll over the remaining balance from last year's fiscal year for the lead-based encapsulation program, which was very successful.

I said five hundred thousand dollars, but we spoke to Mr.

Johnson and it should say six hundred thousand dollars.

That was the leftover amount.

So um just an amendment to the um to the amount, sir.

College says a motion to amend the funding amount uh that is general one time from $500,000 um to $600,000 for line item 83.

Any objections?

See none, then action shall be taken.

And then also line item one ninety-three, sir.

Um last year, um joined by member waters who served on the board of the historic Fort Wayne feasibility study.

We approved $100,000, but the director says they'll need an additional $40,000, which we said yes to, but it's I don't see it on the spreadsheet.

Through yourself, Mr.

Chair to Mr.

Corley.

I see yes for the closing resolution, but we also approved a one-time um $40,000 to complete the feasibility study.

Mr.

Corbin President, Ms.

President, so uh member Callaway, it was our understanding that the 40,000 would be added to the administration's closing resolution.

Okay, so we don't need to put it here.

They're gonna they're gonna um find the money.

Okay, I'm just trying to okay.

Thank you.

And um, thank you, sir.

And then lastly, Mr.

Chair, on line item.

This is my last one.

Um 214.

I threw the chair to Mr.

Corley.

I think this is the same thing.

We thought it would be 50,000, but it's only $7,500, $500 to um restore the gazebo at Hyde Park.

I think that is going to come from the administration.

If that's my understanding, so that's why it's not here.

Yes.

Then we're all set.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Mr.

Corley and Mr.

Johnson.

All right, thank you so much.

And I did mention that uh we were going to have the Department of Elections joining us at 11:30.

Are they available?

Let's promote them over, please.

Give them an opportunity to speak on the request that they have before us.

Colleagues, I'm gonna have to step out briefly.

Um put it in the hands of Pro Tim Yo.

Discussion.

Okay, Mr.

Chair.

Chairman has member Benson?

Uh motion to move line item 195 to the closing resolution.

Okay, for a minute.

That's 24.

Slide it 195.

It's for 24 FTEs for the 4th department.

We're gonna open the closing resolution.

Okay.

Did you want to take the time to tell us why you move in there to close the resolution or not moving forward with it?

Oh, so that is the FTEs, and so the funding is what supports that.

So a closing resolution indicating um urging the administration to increase the FTEs in the 4C department.

So we have a moderate based uh versus a not moderate service providing for free department.

So you say so just the staff and matches the funding that they received.

Okay.

Motion has been made to move line 195 to closing resolution.

Are there any objections?

Hearing none.

What line 195 and move to close the resolution?

Member Benson.

And then further discussion just to the colleagues that the line 194 is where the actual money resides.

That's a conversation we're still having.

Okay.

Did you want to still have the conversation with the administration about 194?

Okay.

Anything else you want to talk about, Mr.

Benson?

That's it.

Thank you.

Okay.

Anybody else anything they want to discuss?

Raise your hand because I do not remember the pecking order at all.

So come first, come first.

Serve somebody got any questions.

Was that everybody?

Because I know I'm done.

Member Johnson, did you want to the uh clerk?

Okay, did you the clerk is right?

Oh, right, right, right, right.

The clerk is online.

Right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right.

We can't forget the clerk.

Okay.

So we go on with we go with the alleged office first, right?

Department of Elections.

Then we go with the clerk.

Okay.

Because I'm like, we're going to clerk with the clerk at.

All right.

All right.

Well, yeah, right.

No, no.

No, thank you.

That's just what I was going through in my head.

Uh, I just had it going differently.

Uh, Mr.

Bill and I guess did I say that word correctly?

Sir.

Uh were you looking for Mr.

Maduka?

Mr.

Badu, I was like, ah, Jesus.

I was knew I butchered the hell out of that.

Mr.

Maduca, sir.

Hey, how are you doing?

Good.

How you doing?

Good, good.

I'm Chris Meduka, Chief of Staff of the Department of Elections.

Uh, we are joined by other members of administration.

Uh, our deputy directors, George Jesus, and our director of elections, uh, Ms.

Gina Avery.

Okay, excellent.

So whoever wants to go first, go ahead.

Uh, we were uh through the chair, we were under the assumption that you guys wanted to discuss the voting equipment, or did you just want to discuss the budget at large?

So I'm clear.

Well, I want to discuss the budget at large first, and then after that, if we had questions about voting equipment, we could discuss that as well.

But colleagues, are are we on the same wavelength, or did you want to discuss anything about the uh actual operation?

Just want to discuss the budget at large first.

Yeah, maybe we'll suppose we providing some action now.

Mr.

Mr.

Chair.

Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

Uh member Johnson.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

So the elections, the elections department has provided us with their microphone on.

Yes.

The elections department has provided us with their uh budgetary asks.

Okay.

So if we can have them help us to understand what the asks are and what they're for, that would be great.

That's no problem.

Yeah, so you just uh so uh as member Johnson just stated uh clearly just tell us what your asks are and what they're for.

Sure.

Uh through the chair.

Uh do you mind if I share my screen so I can show you the PowerPoint and just uh talk about it briefly?

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Yeah, everybody see it.

All right, get started, sir.

All right.

So this is a Department of Elections budget overview.

Uh I am gonna give you the basic uh breakdown of our uh funding request.

Uh the big picture.

So for the Department of Elections, the budget this year in large part is remains the same year over year.

We have had some increases to our funding, uh, roughly one percent or approximately 202,000, but many of the costs that are put into this budget to administer it remain the same because regardless of what the turnout is for the election, we know that some of them are gonna be uh consistent.

We're gonna consistently have various expenses related to site uh poll workers.

We're gonna have expenses related to securing polling locations.

Uh we're gonna have expenses to transporting election equipment and whatnot.

And this year we've added a bit more funding for security, uh, because we know that the uh atmosphere is a bit contentious, especially at the federal level and at the state level.

So we've added some funding for that, and one of the bigger line items in this budget is for the procurement of new voting equipment, which I'll get to in a bit.

All right.

For the next uh uh slide, it basically talks about the expenditures year over year.

Uh the first two uh boxes within the chart talk about salaries and employee benefits.

In short, we've had a reduction in the salaries and the wages as well as the employee benefits because we've gone from 115 positions to 105 positions.

So naturally the salaries and the employee benefits were decreased because we have less positions as far as uh professional and contractual services.

Uh it's gone up because one, we've put in more funding for security measures, and we've also had some cost escalators that were put into the budget for contracts that we already have, uh, such as moving of our voting equipment, our some of our capital outlays and whatnot.

So some of those costs have increased year over year because they were already built into the contract for operating supplies.

We've had a decrease in that by roughly $32,000 because we've digitized uh some of our uh expenses.

For example, we've had a shift as far as sending communications electronically to our poll workers as opposed to sending it through paper-based methods.

So that's helped uh ease some of the costs as it relates to things related to sending them mails, cutting down on paper costs, as well as them filling out applications digitally as opposed to the paper versions.

And last but not least, uh operating services that's decreased year over year, roughly uh by $200,000.

Most of that has decreased because we've had some costs that were one year or one-time expenses in the FY26 budget related to the cost of ballot printing for the municipal elections, the onus is on us to pay for the cost of printing ballots.

Uh in federal or state elections, the onus is on the county.

So we've accounted for that.

And then we've also decreased our postage costs somewhat because since the inception of early voting, that's helped defray some of the costs associated with postage.

More people have come in uh to vote at early vote centers uh than they did in the previous years.

So we've accounted for that as well.

This just this slide just gives you the breakdown of the expenses per cost center.

I'm just gonna highlight uh the one that talks about the primary election as well as the general election.

The expenses from FY26 to FY27 have ultimately more or less stayed the same, but we've shifted some of the funding from the general to the primary, not because we don't have the same amount of expenses in the general election as the uh, not because we don't have the same amount of expenses in the general election as we do the primary.

But previously, we set funding in the budget based off of what time of year we paid it, and a lot of the stuff that we were paying for some of our contractual obligations typically were paid after the general election because sometimes vendors just take a while to submit invoices and whatnot.

So the funding was naturally more suited for the general, but we've decided to just break it in half.

That's why it's uh the disparity from year over year.

But in all, the funding remains largely the same.

It's really just a half a percent increase between the primary election, which we see here, as well as the general when you look at the aggregate number.

Okay.

As I mentioned earlier, uh we've dropped some positions within this budget.

Uh we've gone from 115 to 105, and we've done that largely because some of the positions that we eliminated, we were having uh quite a bit of turnover with those positions because they didn't pay as well.

And to alleviate that problem, we swapped some of those positions out the budget to get higher paying positions that we felt like would be more enticing to qualify candidates.

So that's where the drop is, and we don't feel like it's gonna impact overall operations.

Uh next slide just talks about our revenue year over year.

One of the big changes, uh, one of the reasons why there's such a disparity in the revenue year over year is when we uh when proposal 22-2 was passed in uh November of 2022, it created uh a mandate in which we must have early vote centers for statewide elections, uh, which we'll have this year, including the governor and the secretary of state, as well as federal elections.

Traditionally, the state of Michigan has reimbursed us since the inception of these early vote centers uh for the cost that we've uh incurred to staff the early vote centers.

However, when we had a municipal election, because it's not mandated that we have early vote centers within the law, we weren't expecting them to reimburse stuff.

However, uh to our surprise, and you know, we were uh pleasantly surprised.

Lansing ultimately decided to reimburse us, and we welcome their uh generosity because we certainly weren't expecting it.

It was a serendipitous.

So that's one of the reasons why there's such a disparity.

We didn't account for the reimbursement in this year's budget, but now we're uh accounting for them.

So for example, uh last year uh for the August election, they reimbursed us uh close to 100,000.

For the November election, they reimbursed us close to uh 84,000.

So we certainly didn't anticipate that for the municipal elections, but now we're projecting those revenue costs uh or those funds into our budget.

All right.

Well, next slide talks about some of the changes driving our spending for the election.

And again, no surprise, early vote centers.

Something that we've had to do since 2024.

We did it in 2025 because we wanted to keep it consistent so that there wouldn't be any confusion amongst the public of when early vote centers would be open and when they wouldn't be open.

But some of the things raising our costs this year, even though the costs have been slight, is for the gubernatorial cycle and the congressional races, we've decided to keep our early vote centers open for 14 days as opposed to nine.

The law requires that we keep it open uh for nine consecutive days, but we've uh chosen to go the extra mile for this election because we know it'll be a little bit bigger.

Uh, and we wanted to make sure people had ample opportunity to vote.

So we've gone from nine days in this cycle to 14.

Um, and in addition, we have extra staffing to run those vote centers, and then we've also added extra staffing as far as security to man our vote centers as well as Huntington Place where we conduct our AV or absentee operation.

So a lot of the costs are related to extra staffing uh for security to run the vote centers longer, and then we've also increased our drop boxes.

As you can see on the fourth bullet point, we have we went from 34 to 37.

And that's allowed for us to have that's allowed for us to have five uh at least five drop boxes in every district to make it as convenient as possible for the voters.

And some of which have six, I believe is district five and six that have six.

But our goal was to have parity within each of the city council districts to make sure voters had uh numerous locations that they could drop off ballots to if should they choose to vote absentee.

So other things driving the increase uh deal with the permanent AV ballot list.

In short, all that means is under the proposal 22-2 that I spoke of earlier, we are now required to mail ballots to any voter who signs up for the permanent uh absentee ballot list for every election for I believe it's at least um correct me if I'm wrong, George, seven years.

No, to definitely if they don't vote.

If they don't vote in six years, then they're taking off the list.

Okay, if they don't vote in six years, then they're taking off the list.

But either way, it's still uh we're still mandated to send out these ballots uh to the people who signed up for this list.

Uh one other thing that's increased uh our costs is for this election, uh Michigan election law allows for what's known as early tabulation of AV uh or absentee ballots at Huntington Place.

For the last election cycle, we chose to have five days of early tabulation.

Uh for this election cycle, we're choosing uh ramp it up to eight, which is the max allowed by law.

And we've also the ballot will be much longer, so we'll have uh much more ballot styles or counting boards.

So, in essence, more staffing, and we'll be running our operations a little bit longer.

All right, the next major uh line item has to deal with our supplemental funding request.

Our supplemental funding requests is roughly $7.6 million.

And how we came up with that number is I'm gonna uh I'm gonna exit out of the PowerPoint really quickly and go to this chart.

We've been in uh consultation with the state of Michigan, and through their recommendation, because they're currently bidding out the contract for this and subsequently Wayne County, they have recommended that for each precinct, which we currently, or for the last election, we had 400 precincts, but uh recently learned that we're gonna up it to 402.

But for the last uh election, we have 400 precincts, and the state has recommended that we budget at least $15,000 per precinct, which is how we came up with the $6 million just to get the voting equipment that includes tabulators that includes ADA accessible equipment to our precincts.

But we have to worry about more than just the precincts.

We also have to worry about uh Huntington Place, which houses our absentee operation, and then we also need tabulators and equipment for the um early vote centers.

So when you put all these things together, the early vote centers, our absentee operations at Huntington, as well as the precincts, you have roughly 650 uh new pieces of equipment that we ultimately have been cautioned that we may need to put up the cost for.

So we wanted to put that request in now, just in case we have to ultimately pay it.

So again, it's upwards of 650 uh devices, and we wanted to make sure we were accounting for those costs.

So we have added some uh we've indexed it to uh uh for inflation because the contract, I'm gonna go back to the PowerPoint.

The contract has been in place since 2017, and then expires, as you can see with the uh second bullet point, it expires on February in February of 2027.

Under federal law, there are new guidelines uh that were put in place since 2021 after the inception of this contract that mandate that new tabulators must have uh updated guidelines and standards, and they have to have tougher rules for things such as cybersecurity, accessibility for voters with disability, uh transparency, so on and so forth.

So, in other words, we're basically just trying to account for the funding to get the new generation of tabulators so that we can be in compliance with federal standards and regulations.

Now, one thing that I do uh I would be remiss if I didn't mention this, our office has been in coordination with the governor's office to try to secure funding for this.

And even though the governor seems amenable to providing the funding, we still know that the legislature ultimately has to approve the funding, and we know that a budget for the legislature uh will typically be approved in the summer.

I believe it's June 30th, but sometimes they go a little bit later than June 30th, because we know their new fiscal year starts.

Um I believe it's October 1st, October 1st.

So we're basically, even though we know that the governor seems amenable to our request, we don't want to take it for granted that Lansing will ultimately put up the dollars because we know critical election infrastructure, it's not a discretionary expense, but it's the bedrock for which our democracy um you know rests upon.

And even though 7.6 million dollars may sound like a lot of money, we don't view it as profligate or superfluous because we know again, you have to have these tabulators to ultimately make sure people can exercise their right to vote and exercise their right to the franchise.

So all right.

Is that it?

You got anything else?

Uh, just one more uh one more thing.

All right, go ahead.

That's all right.

Uh so here are the main budgetary takeaways, right?

We know in the current environment with the elections being at the forefront of seemingly every newspaper at the comp in the country, we can't reasonably rely on federal funding to cover this, and we think we'd be ill-advised if we didn't put any contingency plans in place absent Lansing intervention, right?

Typically in presidential election cycles, we know that we've been fortunate to be the recipient of uh funds from generous benefactors, but it's not a presidential cycle, and so far, no funding has come forth.

So we feel like the costs associated with our ass are reasonable, especially given that we know as a nation we've been dealing with uh we've been dealing with inflationary pressures dealing uh stemming from trade dynamics, various fiscal conditions, and now uh foreign policy.

So we feel like the funding is ultimately warranted because at the end of the day, when it's all said and done, this budget is only roughly two percent higher than it was year over year.

So we don't see that as being unreasonable in our ass, especially uh considering we're talking about people's right to self-determination, people's right to self-governance and ultimately people's right to the to vote.

So thank you very much.

All right, hey, thank you.

I appreciate that.

We anybody have any questions, discussion, chair recognizes member Bitts.

Hey, thank you for being here this afternoon.

Um, can you just go back and talk about the potential support for the equipment via grants, federal and state?

And if there's any potential county support.

Well, at present, we're not aware of any county support.

Uh, as I mentioned before, we know that the governor uh had we've been in count uh conversations with her office, and we know that roughly 43 million dollars have been put in her budget proposal, but there's no guarantee, as I said, that the legislature will ultimately approve it.

Could they move around additional monies to you know supplement that 43?

Possibly, but again, we don't want to take for granted that Lansing will ultimately fund these uh procurements because we frankly don't know, especially given how contentious elections have been.

Are they typically supported these type of uh purchases with grant dollars?

Or does uh something to you?

I I can't comment on that because I'm not familiar with if Lansing is typically supported it with grant dollars.

Did they help finance the purchase in 2017?

Yes, but a lot has transpired since 2020 surrounding elections, so we may not be uh met with as receptive an audience.

Do any of your colleagues there have any uh feedback on prior year support?

Uh council member this council member Benson?

Yes, sir.

How are you doing?

This is George Azus, Deputy Director.

Um yes, like Mr.

Maduca stated, they have uh they did grant us the equipment in 2017, and before that, 10 years prior to that uh 2006, they did that as well.

Yeah.

So the last two the last two uh pieces of voting equipment we received that were granted to us by the state of Michigan.

The one before that, the very first one we received in 1998, that was all on us.

We paid for that ourselves.

So historically, we've received support from the state, but we just can't count on it during this current environment.

Is that what I'm correct?

Correct, yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Anybody else have any questions?

Um Chair recognizes Member Gabriel Santiago Romero.

Thank you.

Pro Time through you to the elections department.

Good afternoon.

And I'm sorry if I missed this.

Good to see you all.

The uh 14 early vote centers, are these new or separate from what we're currently doing?

Um sorry if I missed that.

Are we adding capacity to our um elections process or are we meeting the need that we have?

Uh, through the chair to member Santiago Romero.

Uh I was saying that we were having 14 days.

I wasn't saying that we were having 14 early vote centers for the last election, and correct me if I'm wrong.

Uh I believe it was nine that we had.

Oh, eight early vote centers, and then if you include the department of elections, we all okay.

So eight early vote centers.

Uh, whether we will expand on the eight has yet to be determined.

But we're we'll we're expanding on the days in which we're gonna be uh having early vote centers.

The law requires nine, and we're looking at doing 14, especially in the November election.

Oh, through the chair.

So sorry, just just to confirm you're looking to you are looking to bring this to 14 because in the list that we have here for the projected cost for the topulators, it does state for 14 early vote centers.

So you are looking to send it to that.

Possibly, but we still wanted to budget for that.

Was just uh a conservative estimate, like I said, I would have to consult with Clerk Winfrey for that, but we've talked about potentially doing that, but we still have to uh finalize the locations.

But this budget, like I said, was conservative as far as the 14, but nothing's been set in stone as far as solidifying them.

Okay, thank you.

All right, excellent.

Um chair recognizes uh member Johnson.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, a little off topic.

Um, can you all share when uh polling sites are identified are selected?

Can you talk about the accessibility requirements for all of the polling sites?

Um yes, I can do that.

Uh to the chair.

Give me a once again on Georgia Zeus.

Let me ask you one additional question.

Um because assuming all of the sites are required to be accessible.

Do we provide signage for people to know how to access the polling sites or the the accessible side of the polling site?

Yes, ma'am, we sure do.

The first thing we do is when we assess the polling locations, we use the guidelines that are that were uh created by the state of Michigan and they're and it stems from the ADA uh federal law.

So we do we have a checklist that we uh evaluate the polling locations with and we find them to be accessible.

We uh require we acquire the locations.

If they need modifications, we modify them, for example, we have some ramps, wheelchair wraps.

If the if there's one step or two if they're if it's if it's very low where the ramps are adequate, we provide those, and then yes, we have we we put signs on the we put a sign that uh has alternate entrance stated on there, and we also have signs outside directing them to the door where the alternate entrance is.

And last but not least, we have a curbside voting sign that we set outside the polling location that's visible when you drive up.

There's a phone number on there.

When you call that phone number, someone will come out from the polling location to service you if you prefer.

Thank you for that.

And can you share um what accommodations are made for individuals that are visually impaired?

Visually impaired, we have the what we call the ICX, which is uh um it's a piece of voting equipment that you can use wearing headphones.

It's designed, it's designed to read the ballot to you if you're visually impaired.

And and how about accessing the site?

So for someone that's visually impaired, if they get to the site Oh, they can call, they can um they can call us with the number provided to them, and we will have someone come out and escort them into the building to the polling location.

Okay, and that information we never had that situation before, council councilwoman, but we are set up and prepared to to offer that for sure.

So so I know two people that are visually impaired.

Um typically they have people go with them and into the polling site to help them vote.

Um and so I was going to ask how we share the number and um the information that those who are visually impaired can utilize to reach someone for assistance.

Right.

We can okay, we can get that for you.

We can reach back out to you and give you that information, councilwoman.

That would be great.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Any additional questions, colleagues?

Excuse me, Pro Tim.

Uh good to see everyone.

Uh Mr.

Maduka, I am sorry that I completely butchered your name.

I hope you tried that to my head and not my heart, man.

I was not trying to start something with the with the clerk's office and the department of legs.

I don't want to hear nothing about it after this meeting is over.

All right.

People do it all the time.

Chris is just fine.

Okay, Chris.

I just want to make sure I won't be too familiar.

All right.

The first question I wanted to ask you was about uh what are you doing evolving and how much of this budget is dedicated to the preventing of equipment failures?

I know that's a hidden cost driver.

And let me let me emphasize this again.

When I'm talking about artificial intelligence, I'm talking about using it to use it for predictive maintenance.

I'm not talking about for the actual elections.

I'm not talking about voting count.

I just want to make that clear.

I'm talking about just using this for the purpose of being able to engage in preventive maintenance.

Can you just tell me what your preventive maintenance is?

And are you using artificial intelligence to do predictive maintenance so you can actually start fixing these machines before they break down?

Because that's one of the things that I get in my community a lot, is when I'm at this.

Um here at the election station and it broke down, and they need to come out here and fix it.

Somebody need to come out here and fix it, and then people want to get in my face and I'm not doing enough, you know, and then I get the calls, you ain't no good, and that you need to fix this thing when it's broke, and I told you to fix it.

So, what are you doing to fix it pre-election and your equipment lifecycle planning?

Can you just tell me what those look like and how much those cost?

Sure.

Uh, through the chair to member young, uh, as far as the maintenance for our tabulators, we've got uh roughly north of 600 tabulators, and we have a contract in place with uh Liberty Voting, uh, formerly known as Dominion, where it's basically a contract to provide all services for maintenance of said equipment, whether it's the ADA accessible equipment or the tabulators themselves.

So they it's annual, the contract dollar amount is roughly $326,000.

Plus, we have people who come by on site on election day, technicians who will troubleshoot uh any equipment that we have.

Um if they can't troubleshoot it remotely, we have staff of troubleshooters who will be sent out to the precincts to troubleshoot the equipment and try to make sure that they get it back online.

So I know there are roughly uh there are roughly 40 troubleshooters that are dispatched throughout the city who basically go from precinct to precinct to check on them to make sure things are going well, and they will troubleshoot the equipment if our people who are from Liberty Voting can't troubleshoot it.

But again, to answer your question, there's roughly 326,000 that's in it.

To answer your second question about AI and preventative maintenance at present, no, we don't have anything.

Um we don't have anything of that sort at present.

It's typically just the techs that I mentioned who are here remotely on election day to troubleshoot them, and then the people that we dispatch out to the field, as well as uh on site call center.

And even if the tabulators or the equipment uh does break down, particularly the tab later, because that's one of the ones that's a little bit more prevalent.

Uh, we have uh what mechanisms in which people can still exercise their vote, because I know people typically push their ballot through the tabulator when they're voting, but we have a separate bin, which is known as the auxiliary bin, in which people can still cast their ballot that way until we can get the equipment up and running.

But those are the methods that we use to ultimately troubleshoot it, having the tech on site, uh doing preventative maintenance even before they uh get sent out, utilizing the 326,000 that I said, as well as our troubleshooters.

We teach them uh usually the week before the election, how to troubleshoot any issues they may have with it.

No, I think that's really good.

I I would just say I would suggest that you look into the predictive maintenance from the artificial intelligence aspects of it, plus your usage logs and your pre-election stress testing with your equipment lifecycle planning.

My analysis says your savings for your repair costs will go down by 25 to 50 percent, and your downtown related costs will go down by 30 to 70 percent.

Your annual savings could be from 100 to 300,000.

I'll send you this information, it's just so you'll have it.

But but you want to talk about the issue of contracting, and I want to talk to you about that a little bit.

From from what I was seeing here, I think there's an issue, and you correct me if I'm wrong, with fragmented purchasing and overpaying vendors and duplicate contracts.

And so I just want to know do you have a citywide election procurement system?

Um, do you have performance-based contracts and bulk purchasing agreements?

And how what are the metrics to be able to measure the efficiency of that?

Well, through the chair to member young, uh, this contract was one that wasn't initiated by us, it was initiated by the state.

And then ultimately, everybody within Wayne County had to come uh comply and use this equipment.

So this wasn't something that was negotiated by us, but more so we were just being in compliance, which is what I was talking about for uh February 2027.

We're gonna ultimately get new equipment, which the procurement is being spearheaded by the state of Michigan.

And I suspect similarly, we will have to be in uniform and within Wayne County and use the same equipment.

So it's not solely within our hands.

Oh no, no, no, I no, I didn't know that.

I uh I thank you for that.

My last question, you're talking about um, you were talking about digitizing some of these elected places in moving for paper and movie from um moving from paper to going to digital, because I I I know there's uh there's an issue from my you correct me if I'm wrong again, but from of overprinting of ballots and reprinting due to errors and logistics and storage costs.

So I mean again, and I'm saying I'm not saying this for the issue of the actual counting of ballots.

I'm not talking about count again, I'm not talking about counting the ballots, but you could use artificial intelligence for exact ballot quantities and expand it.

You can expand your digital poll books and standardize your ballot the design, you standardize ballot design to reduce your spoilage.

And so I just want to know what are you doing to be able to address that because you can your savings can be 20 to 40 percent, your waste could go down, going down.

Your printing costs go down by 20 to 40 percent, your weight split will go down by 36%, your annual saves will be 200,000 to 600,000.

What are we doing to address the overprinting of ballots and the reprinting due to errors and logistics and storage costs?

Well, through the chair uh to member young for this budget, we haven't done anything to uh to be frank regarding it because the cost of ballots will not be uh placed on the department, it'll be on the county.

Okay, uh whenever it's a municipal election, the cost is on us.

But for federal state special elections, the contract is run through the county because again, we must be in unison all using the same ballots because we all have the same tabulators.

Okay.

Well, then that as it it in that case, I could answer some other questions, but I don't go stock.

I know that people might have other questions.

We gotta move on for a second time.

So thank you.

I appreciate you.

I'll send you the rest of my question to you writing.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh, member waters.

All right.

So thank you.

Um good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Um, last year I placed um $500,000 in the budget to do uh voter education, specifically targeting uh people who just didn't seem to know how to complete their ballots.

Uh lots and lots of spore ballots, and especially in a year like this year.

When you know you have the you can you cannot vote, you have to stay in your in your if you're voting by Democrat, you gotta stay there.

You stay in your lane in the in the primary or Republican the same way.

I think that we receive a lot of um spore ballots during that time.

And so uh did we manage to do some voter education um last year, utilizing those dollars, or is that gonna be done um this year?

Well, that's gonna be done towards the tell uh through the chair to member waters.

That's gonna be done in large part towards the tail end of this fiscal year because the cross-party voting or wasn't applicable in the municipal elections.

It's applicable for this upcoming election uh in August, which we'll be sending out ballots in June uh for that.

And but we're still gonna be educating the public as it relates to that to make sure that they don't uh try to vote democratic in one office and then Republican in another.

So we're gonna be sending newsletters, uh doing television commercials and things of that nature for the August primary, because that's when it would be most effective.

But yes, we have utilized some of those dollars to promote um robust turnout and whatnot, but the thrust of that will be for the August election.

All right then.

Thank you, Mr.

President, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Umber McCampbell.

Thank you.

Um good afternoon to you all.

Uh I just have uh few questions on one on process of seeing the supplemental uh budget requests.

I'm just wondering, um, because I agree with the need of tabulars and the vet and uh what you laid out here.

I'm just wondering at what point, and maybe this is for um the budget office as well.

Do we have a plan to start baking these into the actual request so that they don't come as a supplemental?

Because I'm I'm we I think we all agree that election security and uh um administration of is important.

So I'm just wondering, um, how do we make sure that this gets into our proposed budget?

Well, through the chair to member McCampbell.

Uh the reason why it's coming through as a supplemental initiative for this one is because as I stated before, this contract comes up every once, I mean once every 10 years.

So it comes up every 10 years, you know, we couldn't put it in our budget year after year because you know, it was a 10-year contract and it's finance.

Uh it's been financed through the state.

But like I said, given the environment when it comes to the administration of elections, we can't necessarily be certain and count on Lancing's largesse.

So we wanted to make sure uh for this cycle, uh, because we know ultimately the contract will end that whether Lansing intervened or not, we still have adequate funding.

So yeah, that's why we didn't put it in year after year, because effectively it wasn't uh necessary because we still had those tabulators for the life cycle.

Mr.

President.

Uh Mr.

Johnson.

If I might um also chime in on this, I mean, the fact of the matter is we just we don't have the resources to do it right now in this immediate budget.

We are counting on getting to the end of the audit so that we can confirm how much of the 42 million dollars of the income tax reserve that we don't do or don't need after that, the in the elections equipment is the first priority item for us to deal with.

Um understanding the elections needs um elections department needs, you know, quite a bit of runway in order to test new equipment, get it in, you know, get it all on board and on boarded.

Um the fact still remains that the first election, the new equipment is required for is not until um 2028, um, early 2028.

And so, you know, I think we can definitely get since the state has done all the work on the on the procurement side essentially for us, um, the actual taking delivery of the equipment and that sort of thing should be a considerably faster timeline for us than us having to go through our full normal uh homegrown procurement process.

So I believe if we have um if we bring a budget amendment later in this fiscal uh toward the middle of this fiscal year or maybe before the end of this calendar year, even um, specifically to reallocate some of the new surplus that would come from the release of that income tax reserve, this is the first item we would do, and those funds would immediately be deployed to begin getting those equipment in place so that they have most of 20 as much of 2027 calendar year as possible to test, to deploy, to do everything that they need to do.

So this is absolutely a priority.

I can't stress that enough.

I think we all agree on that.

Um, and um, but the fact of the matter is um for the current initial budget uh resource allocations, there isn't a need at the moment to set aside the money.

That money can come later in this year, and it would still be the same timeline um that we're on, regardless of when the money comes in place.

So, you know, that you know, it's not difficult for me to say yes, of course, the administration is absolutely going to ensure that the elections department has everything it needs to make sure we make this transition to all of the new equipment um and processes.

Uh through the chair, uh thank you so much for thank you both, and thank you for that, uh Mr.

Johnson.

I um I have a follow-up question for and just thinking about moving forward, and this is because I know I'm over here, but I just have a question.

What is these is this type of equipment or this type of contract that's not considered um capital funding, right?

Is this through the chair to uh member McKimbell, it is considered capital funding.

Okay.

So all of this would be capital funding.

Okay.

That's good to know because I'm um to the elections department's point.

I know that we are in a uh a very different atmosphere around funding and our elections and election security is under attack, including from folks who are in office.

Um, so I I would just say, as we're also thinking about since this is a once every 10-year type of aspect, uh if we can just think about that planning moving forward for the next decade um as well to kind of build up to this, that would be uh great something because I know we're in a different atmosphere that we probably probably didn't think we were gonna be in um 10 years ago.

I another question I have for um the department is around planning.

Uh, you know, we know that there's constant movement around the Save Act on the federal level.

Um, I'm just thinking about are we putting in any mechanisms to prepare to educate folks on maybe they will need additional documentation um to vote uh in these upcoming elections, Mr.

Maduca?

Uh the chair to uh uh member McCampbell.

Uh yes, we have frequently asked questions, and we are aware that there's a lot of concern regarding Save Act, but at the same token we'd like to see one if it passes the Congress, because we know that there are dueling bills uh within the House of Representatives and the Senate.

So it's it's difficult to ascertain what, if anything, will become the law, let alone educate uh the public on something that doesn't currently exist.

So while we know debate is uh raging on in Washington, we still have frequently asked questions on our website, and we still will administer elections in accordance with current federal, state, and local law.

Uh if something does become the SAVE Act, we will make sure that we educate the public then.

But at present, um we're gonna uh operate as though we're still running the elections in the same environment we've traditionally ran them in.

So it's difficult for us to opine on what to educate the public on or what our policy uh ultimately will be until we have a final version of the Save Act that one passes Congress if that even occurs.

Thank you.

And absolutely do not want to put fear into folks or something that is not passing law, um, and and understanding that I I just and this also as we're thinking about this this of a budget here for the next fiscal year, and if this bill does pass a lot of that will come into effect on this during this year.

So I would just I would just urge the department to uh plan as much as possible to roll out um robust education if this does happen.

Hopefully it doesn't, and hope, and uh this is one thing that uh I hope that planning comes that we don't have to put into implement.

I just don't want us to get called off guard um because the documentation that folks may need um may take them some time to get.

Uh so we want to have that robust education early on as much as possible.

Uh that is, and then I do have one final one.

Sorry, Mr.

Chair, there's one final one around uh youth and student engagement.

I know you all go into high schools and partner with DPS CD, but wondering do you all have further plans on engaging our young folks that are maybe pre-registering or who are 18 and becoming a voter, but also the college and university campuses here in Detroit.

I know some municipalities have polling locations at various campuses.

So just want to get the thought process or the planning around that.

Well, we currently through the chair to member McCamp, but we currently already partner with universities such as Wayne State, WC3, as well as uh myriad of high schools and whatnot, as well as other community partners.

So we plan on continuing to do that.

We uh we do it now, we plan on continuing to do it, and uh we want to make sure that we educate uh our youth uh as much as possible for what the process is uh early and often.

So that's currently what the department already does uh and will continue to do.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any additional discussion?

Member Callaway.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, and um thank you, uh Member McCampbell um for um your thoughtful questions and inquiries regarding um youth and young people being registered to vote since I've been in office since 2022.

We have partnered with the Office of Elections and with Madam Clerk Janice Winfrey, and we have registered hundreds of students in district two at all of our high schools, and we do it every single year.

We also do um ballot education so they'll know to turn the ballot over and um give them information, not influencing their vote and how they vote, but just the importance of voting.

And the theme is um your diploma in your right hand and your voter registration card in your left hand, and that's been the theme since 2022.

And I want to thank the Office of Elections and Madam Clark for being willing to partner with us and showing up at different events throughout District 2 with a um with the information table, resource table, and always being willing to show up and send um your staff.

So thank you, Mr.

Chair, and thank you again, Member McCampbell, for your questioning.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any further, member Santiago Romero.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Uh, through to the elections department, since we are talking about elections in general at the moment, just want to flag um we did pass a language access ordinance last year.

Um at the last election, um, I along with a lot of community members have to quickly respond to the lack of translation services at our polling sites.

So just wondering if there is a language access plan this uh for this upcoming election.

Through the chair to Member Santiago Romero, yes, we have been in uh we have been partnering with CREO to make sure we shore up any potential deficiencies.

For example, I know we spoke to them uh earlier this year about having access to they have a translator uh access line, which we are giving that information to our poll workers to make sure that they can let the voters know if they need additional assistance, uh, they could utilize that resource.

So we're basically really pushing that uh and uh in full force to make sure that the voters know that they have access to it.

We've also uh uh taken the time to translate our voter registration forms and acting T uh related material.

We're working on that to translate it into various languages, uh Spanish, Arabic, Bengali, Farsi, as well as uh French.

So many of the languages that are a little bit more prevalent within the city of Detroit, we've already taken those steps to make sure that we get these things translated in addition to uh giving our poll workers access to um the Creos translation or translator line.

So we're working towards that.

Uh our newsletter that we mail out to every household within the city of Detroit.

We also offer that in a multitude of languages.

And one of the things that we're also doing uh for this election is with our poll workers.

Uh, we're trying to grassroots effort campaign where we're gonna try to recruit more people who are bilingual amongst our poll workers by putting on the application an area or a section where they can answer, do they speak certain languages French, Spanish, uh, Arabic, Bengali, so on and so forth, so that when we find out that they're bilingual or however many languages they can speak, we're making a concerted effort to ultimately put them in that part of the city where we know there's a heavy speaking, say, for example, the Spanish population, so that we already know that uh some of our workers are fluent in both languages.

So we're taking measures to ultimately make sure we're in compliance with it and make voting as seamless to people who aren't uh as proficient in English as possible.

Through the chair.

Uh thank you so much.

Uh, and this is very appreciated.

When you are ready to begin to recruit um from community, if you have a flyer, happy to send that out.

Um, there are many talented high-working residents that speak to your points multiple languages.

I know a few that speak Spanish, Arabic, French, um, and English.

Um, so we we definitely have the talents and they know their neighbors.

Uh, so we'd like to make sure that they can help us with this as well.

So thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And we appreciate your help with the recruitment efforts because the more poll works we have that are more than multiple languages, the more access people will have just in case they're not as proficient in English.

All right, colleagues, uh, we have another from uh Pochum Young.

Thank you, Ms.

President.

Uh listen, I was just thinking about what you had said to me earlier uh about the um the count is is it are these are these mandates from the state down or are they from the county?

Which mandates on the I'm sorry, the mandate we were talking about earlier involved when I was talking about the issues that would I was talking to you about contracting, and when I was talking to you about the centralized uh vendor contracts, you said you had to accept the contracts from Liberty.

That you is that for the $20.

Do I have any counters?

Uh, through the chair to member Young, uh, we had to accept them for 2017 because again, the county wanted to be in unison.

The state did the uh handle the procurement aspect of it.

And then Wayne County uh had uh basically choice of, I believe it was correct me if I'm wrong, three vendors, and then they made the selection that would be used for the county.

Yes, we were mandated to use that equipment.

Yes, they asked for our input, but in the end, the county made the selection.

Well, the reason why I'm I'm saying that is because basically you were under a mandate from the state to be able to hire these contracts.

Did they provide any funds along with those mandates?

And if not, I I don't know we have anybody legally here that can speak to that, but I'm starting to think that's a violation of the constitution.

Is the state mandating the locals be able to procure services and not provide funds to that?

Well in 2017, the state did provide funding for it.

They did provide funding.

They've just mentioned to us for this cycle that they may have to do.

Well, they didn't say they weren't definitively, but they basically asked us to create contingency plans, and it would be prudent for us to you know try to make sure we can come up with the funding.

So we're just uh adhering to the recommendation of the state.

And again, I am not absolutely certain whether or not the state will um contribute nothing.

But they thought it would be prudent for us to budget for it just in case.

But fortunately, uh, like I said, the governor has seemed amenable, but we'll ultimately see what the legislature has to say.

No, I understand what you're saying.

And that was really good how you answered that.

I think I think you should definitely get a hundred cool points in the way in which you answered that.

But for me, sitting here, I just feel part of the reason why we're in the situation now that we're dealing with is because the state is not adhering to the laws.

It's required under the Constitution.

That is not an ask.

That is not a uh uh that is not a that's a requirement.

That's a demand.

They are by law supposed to provide you with those funds if they are mandating that you pick these services.

So I was just wondering why the state was not providing these funds, because we would be in a different position financially right now, had the state did what they are required by law to do.

So I mean, I don't know if we have anybody from the legal department that wants to be able to chime in or answer that.

I don't know if we have anybody from LPD that wants to be able to chime in and answer whether what I'm saying is accurate or not, but I didn't feel that to me looking at this from what I'm seeing, not you not feel excuse me, feelings ain't got nothing to do with it.

From what the law says, this is a blatant violation to me of that mandate of Article 929 of the Constitution is clear.

So thank you.

All right, comics, any further?

Seeing none, I do apologize, have to step away.

I'm dealing with a couple of things here.

So I'm not sure what uh we had planned uh pro tem how we had laid out.

Were we just doing questions and okay?

Did anyone motion anything at this moment?

Okay, is there a desire to motion at this moment to bring the department of elections budget into uh into uh executive session?

We've done that.

Okay.

We we've done that part already.

So we still sound like we still want to pin it for now.

Yes, yeah.

Okay.

All right, so there's another um city clerk.

Well, I don't think the city clerk made any requests, uh, if I'm not mistaken, Ms.

Meduka, am I correct?

Okay.

Uh there are no supplemental requests other than the voting equipment.

Okay.

Okay, got it.

So the other thing, colleagues, I know we have on the floor the proportional funding uh issue, and that's uh in line items 124, 121, uh 129, excuse me, 124, 221, 229, and 230.

Uh and I do know that member McCampbell did uh graciously allow for those items to be uh brought uh or placed into executive session for discussion.

Not sure, and then that's really another will of the body to make this happen.

But I don't know if you're in the position at this moment to uh make any further motions or to unpin that item at this this time.

Uh Mr.

Chair, not at the moment, not at the moment.

Okay, all right, because I do uh I'm ready to make some kind of movement at some, but I want to first allow you to have the conversations you're having, and we can have additional conversations as well.

Um, but it sounds like you're not ready at this moment, so we'll after this have conversation or our office.

Uh Mr.

Corley.

So thank you, Mr.

President.

Uh just went through the list spreadsheet, and um when you include the request from the elections department, that's about 7.6 million.

And uh there's some still outstanding items, one time.

All of that adds up to about 19 million.

So be wonderful if uh for those outstanding items, one-time items, if we can make some movement, consummation movement this afternoon.

Um that would make it a lot easier.

It should make it easier for council to decide how you want to fund those.

You know, we have our suggestions on the spreadsheet in terms of sources.

Um, because Monday, ideally, we're truly done.

Council is truly done, you know, because we got and when you say done, you mean adding items because we're still gonna be going through review of closing resolution language and all of that.

So adding items, thank you, sir.

Yeah, adding items.

Because we remember uh my team has to work on the schedule B, you know, for council's items that you're adding to the um mayor's budget.

Um so we take our first crack at it, and they work very hard to do that, and then we like to consult, you know, with the budget department.

Um, so that takes a minute.

Um you have schedule A, that's dealing with the black grant and uh neighborhood opportunity fund items.

Schedule A is gonna be just a little different because you got some programs and HRD, you know, the affordable housing related programs, the um f programs, and most of your NRF programs will be in the new department, um, human and housing, human homeless family services, HHFS department.

So schedule A is gonna look a little different.

So we still need to, I think we're there, but we still need to make sure that's right.

So you gotta you know give us a chance to go through that.

Administration has to provide you their um compensation schedule that shows the salary ranges by titles, and so they need to provide that.

Um the tax statement assess the property tax rates.

I think that's already done.

Would you be there, Mr.

I think that's the tax statement?

That's okay.

So text statement that's that's done.

So I'm just kind of outlining where we at today, right now.

So the more we can move on outstanding items, you know, this afternoon, the better.

And with the goal that, you know, if council could be done, I know this might be idealistic, but when it comes to the monetary changes can be done by you know, say two o'clock on Monday, something like that.

That's not that's not unrealistic whatsoever.

That's needed, that's required.

Yeah, yes, the period at the end.

Yeah.

So that would give us a chance to go back and start doing our schedules, and then of course, um, you're providing your language.

I know members have already started to do that, your language for closing resolution items to our team and LPD.

They need that, you know.

Of course, ASAP.

So that's kind of like where we at.

So um, yeah, I'll stop there.

So, Mr.

Corley, I I do also want to lift up that we have a member who is not who has not been able to be here uh thus far, uh, who have prior who has priorities as well.

Yeah, um, and we are looking to uh receive that information from her um today so that we can have some uh discussion dialogue on uh her items as well as we move forward.

So again, a little bit more a little incomplete, but a little bit more information that will take us to what this final document is going to look like.

So looking to have additional input uh from member Miller's office on uh items that she would like to move uh and get approved uh in this particular budget.

So Miss Benson, that would be today.

I'm sorry, that that'd be today.

That the yes, sir, that will be happening today.

Okay.

Yeah.

So we're more than likely gonna look at that taking place after the break.

Yeah.

Um, but we just need to be in be prepared for that as well.

Okay.

All right, colleagues, any additional?

I know Member Johnson is uh treating us to lunch today.

Thank you, Member Johnson.

We appreciate it.

Uh, and I do believe that the lunch will be here about 1.30, about 1.30.

Um, what we'll do now is uh unless there's any additional unpinnings that we have, colleagues.

We'll go to public comment.

If there's anyone from the public who would like to speak, please raise your hand now.

If there's anyone from the public who would like to speak, either in person or on Zoom, please raise your hand now, going once, going twice, going three times.

Collection public comments have now concluded.

Uh, as I have mentioned, uh, for the duration of our budget uh period uh through budget hearings as well as executive session, we will be having uh abbreviated public comments that are um uh the time will be abbreviated.

Uh we will return back to everything normal um during the formal session, but right now we will have abbreviated public comment.

So there's gonna be one minute for those who are participating in the public comment.

I don't see any hands in the committee of the whole.

There we go, waiting for the clock.

All right, so don't see any hands in the committee of the whole, so we will now go to our online callers.

Team, uh, how many callers do we have and who do we have first?

Um we have seven callers online.

And your first caller is owner.

All right, caller, the floor is yours.

We have one minute general public comment.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, and through the chair, may I be heard.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you, uh, Councilman McCampbell, for uh acknowledging the need for District 7 and uh addressing it.

Um, I hope to see something tangible very soon.

And thank you, Council Woman Waters, for acknowledging that uh Miss Varner and other block clubs.

The the community funds are for those purposes, and they're not for large projects that you're using them for.

They're actually for communities to continue to build themselves up, and that money that is for the permit should come from that money.

CDBG money, money that we have that's coming to us to stabilize our neighborhoods.

And I appreciate Mr.

Johnson acknowledging that you must involve neighborhoods and not just assume that everybody needs the same thing and address what people in there in their communities actually need.

Thank you.

All right, next caller, please.

Next caller caller is Tyson Gersh.

All right, Tyson Gersh, the floor is yours.

You have one minute general public comment.

I um I'm still stuck on this BZA thing.

I don't get why we can't just view the contracts.

I mean, the charter and the uh code says all these contracts are supposed to be public.

I'm looking at the original RFQ, which would have resulted in the contract that was in place when I was charged five thousand dollars for a transcript.

And I mean it's clear, like clear as day, like that the BZA gets these transcripts.

Um, like they get them for all of their hearings, they have them, it's part of the contract, it's always been part of the contract.

And I don't think that they can pass through the charge.

I know that there's this like elaborate effort to sort of attempt to make it legal, but like you just can't do it.

Uh the case law doesn't support it.

Um why are these contracts so hidden?

Also, apparently, I'm not even allowed to talk to HRD without going through council.

I don't think that's how government's supposed to work either.

Um, this is an issue.

Thank you so much.

Next caller, please.

Next caller is Betty A.

Verner.

Miss Betty A.

Varner, the floor is yours.

You have one minute.

General public comment.

Uh, good afternoon to all within the sound of my voice.

I want to uh thank honorable uh council member uh waters for continuing to advocate for the neighborhoods to get the help that we need to do the improvements that we need uh in our neighborhood.

I thank uh honorable council member Callaway for uh joining and uh supporting us for all the people who called in uh and speak and on the regards to neighborhoods and what I advocate for.

I thank you.

I appreciate the conversation in regards to the monies for a study to find out what other cities can do to help us out to uh do the work that we are doing in our community.

And I I'm not trying to be a problem.

I appreciate all of the council, but what can we get for help for now?

We got projects that we are trying to do in 2027.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You are never a problem, Miss Varner.

We thank you so much for your participation.

Uh and your and you're pushing us as well.

Uh next caller, please.

Next caller is number ending in 48.

Caller ending in 482.

The floor is yours.

You have one minute general public comment.

Now the whole Detroit Department of Elections, Gavin and Wimpery oversee, over called by her.

And it's Gina A.B.

Walker director.

Y'all need to call Gina A.B.

Walker in there.

And it's Daniel Back there.

They've been keeping an election.

I believe for 15 years, but I can prove for 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2024.

And all rogue leads directly at 2938 West Grand Boulevard, the Detroit Department of Elections.

Now take my whole reputation, the whole 45 years on it.

I did the investigation.

I know what I'm talking about.

Harry Elaine Beckman did not vote in that election.

That's international activity, ballot crowd right here in Detroit, Michigan.

Detroit City, the city I love.

Yeah, Detroit Elections Department.

AT.

Next caller, please.

Next caller is William M.

Davis.

Mr.

William M.

Davis, the floor is yours.

We have one minute.

General public comment.

Good afternoon.

Can I be heard?

Yes, sir.

My concern is with the election bill also.

And that I've been complaining for five years, or actually six, about the fact that I live by joy and myers, but yet I have to go 3.1 miles to vote in Samson Weber on tirement, you know, through another uh city council district through another congressional district.

Um I think no one should have to vote, have to go more than a mile.

I have to pass a dozen of the polling locations to go vote.

I've been the precinct delegate, you know, in my district for years, and many people like to vote, especially seniors like to vote in person, but yet they should not continue to make it difficult.

Four years ago, Daniel Baxter said he's gonna get back with me about trying to do something about, but of course it did not happen.

We need to be doing more to encourage more people to vote, not to the press the vote.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next caller, please.

The floor is yours.

You have one minute, general public comment.

I have some questions I'd like them to answer for you.

Do they have two locks on the doors where they keep all the absentee ballots that have been voted?

Because they take those back every night and take them and sort them into the AVs.

Do they have closed circuit camera or they have cameras in the room and uh alarm on the door so that we uh and we can look on our channel of whatever TV you've got for for the city?

Look on that and and if we hear an alarm and go over and watch our TV and see what they're doing with their uh ballots.

Do we have to have a uniformity law at the state level so that we have to all have the same machines?

Just uh Detroit used that excuse last time.

Oh, the county chose some machine, and and that's uh liberty voting might be mega look at New York Times about the thank you so much.

Next caller, please.

And your last caller is Mia.

All right, Mia, the floor is yours.

You have one minute general public comment.

Uh yes, may I be heard?

Yes, ma'am.

Um, so my comment is about um the department of elections.

Um, so to hear that their department is over um a hundred people, and you know, their influence getting people out to vote has been almost insignificant.

Um their uh budget should be a reflection on the voter turnout.

Um we have a democratic uh conference, if you will, this month in April, and what information have they uh brung forth to let people know that so they could go out to uh vote for who will be in the primary?

Um so signage, they need more a lot of you know, a lot of things.

I would think that that department is maybe 20 to 30 people based on the results of you know Detroit elections.

And I also want to comment on district three, uh, what's happening in district three.

All right, thank you so much.

And then takes us to the end of our general public comments.

Uh colleagues, uh that wraps up our uh morning session of executive session.

Uh Mr.

Corley, anything you want to add before we recess?

Um, let's have a general question for Mr.

Johnson.

Um stepped away.

Oh, okay.

I'm I'm just noticing uh either elimination or a drastic reduction in travel and training budgets.

And so I'm just wondering, is that something they're doing across the board?

I know typically, you know, when there's um monetary and fiscal challenges, that is one place that you know past um budget directors and mayors have gone to, and looks like it's happening here too.

So well I always that question um when we come back, but it kind of appears that travel and training budgets are either be depleted or significantly reduced.

So we'll ask them when he comes back.

Okay, thank you.

Colleagues, any further before we recess until 2 p.m.

Seeing none, this meeting stands adjourned stands in recess until 2 p.m.

This meeting is adjourned.

Is is is recessed.