Present.

Councilmember Letitia Johnson.

Councilmember Mary Waters.

Mr.

Chair, you have a quorum present.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

And that'll move us on to approval of the minutes.

Members of the committee should have received the minutes.

With that, is there a motion to approve?

Motion.

There's been a motion to approve.

Seeing no objections, the minister stand approved.

That will move us to chair remarks.

So if you have not uh filed your taxes, um, please do so.

Uh and also if you need to follow the extension, that is also uh tool available.

So um, but please do get those taxes in.

And with that, uh we'll move on to public comment.

Well, open public comment requests for public comment will close at 10.

Um, please limit your remarks to two minutes, and we'll start with those in the room.

Seeing no one in the room for public comment at the moment, we'll move on to Zoom.

Um, if you are joining us virtually, please use the raise hand function, and you will be called in order.

And with that, who do we have with us joining us virtually?

Yep, good afternoon, Mr.

Chair.

We have as of right now, four hands raised.

Our first caller is William M.

Davis.

Commissioner Davis, good afternoon.

You have two minutes.

Uh good afternoon.

Could have been heard.

Yes, you may.

Well, this probably doesn't really have a whole lot to do with your committee, but I'm over here in District 7.

I just uh came back in so for your meeting, and there are a lot of streets over here flooded.

Um the streets didn't used to flood as much before the bankruptcy.

Yeah, I think y'all uh should have a closer look at what's going on and how they are operating the system because if the system was running efficiently, we wouldn't have so many streets flooding.

But of course, also that depends on the catch basins, uh also depends on whether or not people are cleaning up in front of their uh house.

You know, like I say the street, I sweep the area in front of my house.

Uh we need to encourage more people to do that.

Uh we should not be having so many streets flooding every time it rains, even though we did get a lot of rain.

And I know I got woke up early this morning with that tornado alert, which was ooh, a little scary.

But hopefully, I have a nice day, and hopefully y'all could have to generate more money and help to improve what's going on in the city and help to keep more of our dollars, more of our dollars in our city, because far too many of our dollars leave our city, and our surrounding communities don't have their dollars coming to us, so we should reduce the amount of dollars that's going on.

I know sometimes you can't help it, but I think more could be done, and I think more jobs could be permanent jobs in the city instead of her and contractors so much.

Thank you thank you, Commissioner Davis.

And um, I'll I'll touch on the flooding in just a bit.

So hang on the live for us for the end of public comment.

Thank you.

Um next speaker, Mr.

Chair, next speaker is Renard Monchunski.

Uh Renard, good afternoon.

You have two minutes.

Renard, are you there?

Bernard, are you with us?

Okay, let's put Renard in the back of the queue and go to the next speaker.

Our next caller is Owner Papa.

Ms.

Hughes, good afternoon.

You have two minutes.

Good afternoon, and through the chair, may I be heard.

Yes, you may.

I would like to go over, you know, this revenue estimating.

It's more to it than just revenue.

They talk about unemployment and how the unemployment level across the state is rising.

Also in the city of Detroit, but the problem with the city of Detroit is it they they have too many laborers.

They they they and not enough jobs.

So this is where we've come in all of that.

You have done.

The general fund is losing money because we are giving all of these tax abatements to one particular area.

So although these people are having their taxes abated for years and years while we're paying a hundred percent plus the over taxation that's been occurring in Michigan.

So I'm wondering if this is could this this is the committee that is supposed to take a good look at these reports.

We you know that's why we that's why they're done, right?

Is to look at them and evaluate them and take something from them.

But what I'm finding is is that we have all of these reports that say all of these things and they're always ignored, especially by how you are giving out all of these contracts and adding more people.

If you're contracting all of the work, what is the purpose for all of the employees?

If if you're gonna contract everything out and all the labor is going to go to the contractors, and we have more laborers than we have jobs now after this huge economic bump boom, and we also have less less money in our general fund.

Something is wrong here.

All tides are not rising all boats.

We're rising, but the people are falling.

It's incumbent upon this committee to review the information that you get and act accordingly.

I mean, don't come back and tell us that you didn't know because you have enough information and you have enough staff to know.

That's what you're getting paid to do.

You're getting paid to go over this information and then make changes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um next speaker.

Our next speaker is phone number ending in 039.

Phone number ended in 039.

Good afternoon, you have two minutes.

Hey, uh McCamber.

Uh Black Bag.

Mr.

Rook, I gotta come back out and do this again.

Now you weren't here when it's it was killed.

He got a tag on her of suicide, but you hear now.

He had a tag on a suicide over the Detroit Police Department.

It's got to come up.

Now you in uh 55.

I I ain't really include you, but that Angela Whitville Callaway got on my last nerve.

Trying to act fly, aka bullshit uh honey IT artists.

And I don't know what I'm talking about.

I got a whole line of capitalists on my line, and uh QDOR, too.

Hey, I'm cool with them, and they know what they know about examiner Cabinet, but that ain't got nothing to do with Angela being on BS.

So now I'm getting ready to get her straight with her in the place.

Don't get uh caught on the wrong side of the spinster.

I don't know nothing about that.

Dennis Wesley's been seating in the election for I believe 15 years.

I can prove since 2020.

I gave the information to Donald Trump, number 47 president of the United States of America.

I'm not playing with none of them.

That tag got to come off me's mama.

I I don't know how to explain it to y'all, but he asked for it, requested it from a favorable word.

So the dad got to come up.

And I say who did it, and nobody come forward to call me no liar.

Thank you.

The next speaker.

Uh we are back to our last speaker, Renard Monchanski.

Renard, good afternoon.

Are you there?

Yes, I apologize for earlier must have been a technical issue.

Uh name is Renard Boschansky.

I'm actually calling as a resident, um, not so much in my uh professional capacity.

Uh, just wanted to oh District Six, Renard Moshewski.

And I just wanted to inquire as this body, especially this committee.

Um, we gotta get really concerned about the fact that I think um money is gonna start drawing up over the next couple of years in terms of um the budget position for the city.

And I wonder if the city has the power to sell micro bonds or bonds to folks that you know have a little bit more money that live in our city and wouldn't mind investing, or those could be added to some sort of like my kids portfolio or some sort of thing that people are saving money into with the help of the state of Michigan.

Um, the reason being is that the city can if it can do micro bonds or raise funds.

I'm not sure how the law will work in that regard with the state.

Um, the city can have some self-funding and residents of higher means of higher wealth could effectively be lending to the city as a favorable interest rates as well, which will allow us to continue some of these programs that the administration has set forth.

I am concerned though that a lot is being promised kind of up front right now.

And I think it bears to see, especially from the administration, on and like in whoever runs their fiscal body, the office of um not even gonna um whoever wants our treasury in the city of Detroit.

I think they need to demonstrate to us that can we do all these things?

And if we can, what will it cost?

What is the benefit analysis?

Which leads me to my final point in terms of district by district budgeting.

The way that the budget is written, the documents are very anachronistic, hard to read.

And if we have participatory budgeting that goes district by district and have plain language, that could work better for us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is that the end of public comment?

All right.

Um thank you all for calling in and giving public comment.

Um Commissioner Davis, I agree with you on the flooding streets.

I actually um took a call from a resident in D7 this morning who has had constant flooding.

And um, we do need to have a long-term solution to this.

As you mentioned, as you mentioned, um, in PHS, we did have this conversation with DWSD on the flooding.

Um, we'll continue to press them on, but uh you are right, and as much as we can to keep those catch basins clean um and and prevent um litter from getting around, that will help.

But yeah, we do need a system wide approach to make sure there's not as much flooding.

Um, but Commissioner Davis, I know you are do diligent and letting us know if there are some streets that you notice are flooded, um, please uh send it over to us and we'll flag for the water department as well.

Um Ms.

Hughes, on the revenue estimate conference and uh abatements and which you touched on, uh I agree on you know, we do need to take a look at our general fund and where that is going.

Um as you know, uh we had this conversation when we went over the revenue estimating conference um during the budget season.

We will have an additional conversation as well.

And we brought up the conversation around needing to decrease the number of abatements um and in the areas that they are in and making sure that the taxes are equitable across the city.

Um and you you've heard me speak quite about a bit about the contracting services and the need to bring that in house.

Um, so just want to let you know or hear you on that.

And then Renard, on the micro bonds, we can just follow up with us and we can check into get some questions around that.

But you uh as for participatory budget, I know the administration um will begin that process of finding that uh I believe it's a request for information um instead of participatory budget across the city um this summer, and then we will go into a full system as we go into the next budget of fiscal year.

Um, as you know, I am a proponent of participatory budgeting as well.

Colleagues, anything else to add for public comment?

All right, that will take us further into the agenda under unfinished business.

So just for folks to know before we go to this, there are a number of budget memos here on the agenda.

I will let you know.

I since these were uh submitted on e-scribe, I am of the thought that these should be on e-scribe um as the responses.

Um, just so our residents, as they see us with the community business, um, they will see that back on e-scribe.

I know it's on a budget website, but I believe it's my view that it should be on eastcribe.

So if there's if there's someone from the administration on to speak on that.

Good afternoon, Miss Sullivan.

Okay.

Good afternoon.

The chair, uh, we do currently have all of the budget memos that have received the responses live on the budget website um under budget hearing documents.

Um, we can talk back with the administrative team on what that would look like to respond to budget hearing questions in e-scribe for a next but next budget cycle.

Um, but for this year, it would be hard to shift over, but I will follow up on that.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

I okay, let's bring up the line items for line items for discussion, and then I I do want to talk deeper about that and see what is the well the committee.

But that will bring us to um 5.1.

Uh, and if we could take up how do I make this the most easy is for madam clerk and this I know they're oh I know.

Um because there are some of these that are not yet received or um missing from a response.

Some are not on east well, all are not on eScribe, but some are also received but not on e scribe or the budget smart sheet.

So we've broken those down.

So I if we can just go.

I'll have a I'll have a rhythm to this, I promise you all.

All right, so we let's start with 5.1.

Um, this is from my office uh uh memoranda relative to the fiscal year 27 budget hearing for the office of um Budsman.

Um this is not yet received, so is there a motion to bring back in two weeks?

Motion it's been a motion to bring back in two weeks.

Any objections?

Seeing none that actually shall be taken.

Um 5.2 is for my office a memo uh related to DPD for the budget.

Um this has been received, but it is not on e-scribe or budget.

Is there a motion to discuss?

Motion.

Uh there's been a motion to discuss.

Ms.

Sullen can are you there still through the chair.

Yes, I am.

Thank you.

Um, can we just make sure that this memo gets uploaded to the budget smart sheet?

Yes, we'll do.

Thank you.

Is there a motion to bring this back in two weeks?

Discussion.

Yes, discussion.

Vice Chair Johnson.

So um, through you to Miss Sullivan, can you explain a little bit more in detail why it is difficult to respond to upload the response in eScribe since the memo is there?

So the way that council receives or the way that the budget memos are received, some are received through e-scribe and some are not.

Majority are received through the smart sheet link and then responded back to through here.

Um so when you look on the website, and actually, if I can share my public can uh view what it looks like as well.

Um just requested access.

You should be set now.

Okay, great.

So what the public will see when they sh go to the budget hearing website, it is separated out by each one of the budget hearings, and they will also be able to view the budget hearing itself if they would like to see that, and then when they click over on the paper clip, it will show all of the memos that have been responded to on the side so they can see all of the questions asked by council broken up into hearing.

Um for the ones that were submitted via the smart sheet link, they would not be an e-scribe, so you would not be able to see those questions.

Um, so it would be a retroactive of having council have to resubmit all of those and then go through the ones that are on there, so this kind of congregates them all in one place, but we could create a better process for that for next year so that it is seamless um with e-scribe so it could be public that way as well.

So thank you for that.

Um and I believe it's our newer colleagues who primarily used e-scribe, and perhaps they their teams were not familiar with the smart sheet or utilizing the smart sheet as most of us were.

Um, but I'm just as it relates to those that have already been submitted via e-scribe.

Are you all not able to share the response via e-scribe since it is on the agenda?

I can follow up with the administrative team so that they can be submitted via e-scribe and get back with you all on that.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair Johnson.

And just a note on that, um, so uh my office, we submitted both on eScribe and the smart sheet.

Uh we submitted on e scribe for the reason being that uh we wanted to make sure folks knew and saw that we were submitting these memos and these questions.

Um, and then we got back uh uh inquiries from residents um that they would like to see those responses to the memos on e-scribe on the on on the um e-scribe as well.

So um definitely uh looking forward to a process next year, and we can have a uniform process.

But if for this year, thank you, Vice Chair Johnson, thank you, Miss Sullivan.

If we can get the ones that were submitted to e scribe on eScribe as a response, that would be great.

Um, so there was a motion to bring back 5.2 in two weeks.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, we will bring that back in two weeks.

And before we move, let's let me just do it in this way.

Let me do this.

Because if we're gonna wait for the E scribe submitted to be on ESC, um that would account for all of them.

Um Madam Clerk, I promise I will uh we'll get through on this way.

Um so for 5.3 5.4 5.6 through 11, 5.13, 5.15, 5.18, and 5.30.

Um, these have not been received.

So for those line items, is there a motion to bring back in two weeks?

Motion.

There's been a motion to bring back those line items in two weeks.

Any objections?

That action shall be taken.

Now for 5.12, 5.19 through 5.25, 5.27, 5.28, and 5.29.

These have been received, but they're not yet on e scribe.

So since we had that discussion, um, is there a motion to bring back in two weeks?

Motion.

There's been a motion seeing no objections that action shall be taken.

Yes.

Yes, for sure.

Thank you.

Uh 5.12, 5.19 through 5.25, 5.27, 5.28, and 5.29.

Thank you.

And then 5.2 we took action on, but 5.5, 5.14, and 5.31.

These have been received, but they're not yet on East Rive or the smart sheet.

Um, so we would need to see those uploaded to both.

So is there a motion to bring those items back?

Motion in two weeks.

There's been a motion to bring back in two weeks.

Seeing no.

Oh my okay.

Uh your mics now, yes.

Okay.

All right.

Motion.

There's been a motion from member Wars to bring back these items in two weeks.

See no objections.

Oh, yes, ma'am.

Uh 5.2, 5.5, 5.14, 5.31.

There's been a motion, seeing no objections, those items shall be that action shall be taken.

Let me then let's just make sure we took care of those all the way up to 5.16.

So that we would uh move us to 5.16.

And this is the status of uh from the office of chief financial officer.

Um we'll take up uh so February 2026 revenue estimate conference report and then also 5.17.

Um the FY 2026 and 2035 long-term forecast report for legacy pension plans and debt obligations.

Um the administration has asked that we bring these items back for their presentation.

Um seeing that we have a presentation on the 29th with the audit, um, which I believe will take uh as it should take a bit of time.

I'm wondering if folks will be okay with bringing these back in three weeks.

Is there a motion?

Motion.

There's been a motion to bring back 5.16 and 5.17 in three weeks.

See no objections, that action shall be taken.

Then that would take us to 5.26.

There's been a correction for this line item.

It should be from Member Miller's office, a memoranda relative to the 2026-2027 budget hearing for the Museum of African American History.

And folks should have received a copy of that updated memo.

Is there a motion to receive the updated memo?

Yeah, five point two five.

Five point two six.

Yes, so it's the it's the wrong title.

Um and it should be the Africa.

It's the wrong title and wrong memo.

So it should reflect the budget hearing for the Museum of African American history and be that memo.

So just looking to update that.

It should be the same as 5.25 then.

5.25 talks budget hearing historical.

That's the historical yes, ma'am.

Yes.

You said African American Museum.

Yes, sir.

All right.

So I I think I need to make a motion to amend it.

Okay.

A motion to amend 5.26 to reflect budget hearing for African American Museum authority.

Oh, African American Museum.

There's been a motion to amend 5.26 to reflect uh uh memorandum uh for 2026-2027 budget hearing for the Museum of African American history.

Any objections?

Seeing none, the action shall be taken.

So 5.26 now reflects from member Miller's office.

Two weeks.

Two weeks motion to bring it back in two weeks.

Motion to bring back line item 5.26 in two weeks.

Any objections?

Seeing none that action shall be taken.

And then finally, uh rounded out old uh unfinished business.

Um that brings us to 5.32, which is uh from my office a memorandum requesting a resolution on Senate bills 559, 560, and 561.

Um, is there a motion to bring us back in four weeks?

Motion motion to bring back in four weeks uh has been made.

See no objections that actually shall be taken.

Before I move forward, just want to inquire to Madam Clerk and Madam Parliamentary.

Are any clarification needed on those items?

Okay through the chair to break it down, everything's coming back in two weeks.

Yes.

Thank you.

Except for the uh presentations, yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Thank you, Madam Parliamentary.

LPD, are you all set?

Okay.

Thanks for bearing with me.

Uh appreciate it.

5.32 is coming back in four weeks.

Four weeks, yes.

Three, yes, sir.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right, all right.

And then that will move us on to new business.

Um for uh from member Callaway's office.

Uh memoranda relative to requests for a report on principal residence exemptions for LLC entities.

Um, is there a motion to discuss?

A motion.

There's been a motion to discuss and defer the LPD.

Mr.

Crowley.

Um, thank you, uh Mr.

Chair, and good afternoon, city council.

Please bring this back in two weeks.

Motion.

There's been a motion to bring back 6.1 in two weeks.

See no objections, that action shall be taken.

Okay.

That will move us on to member reports.

Um, and we will start with member waters.

Okay, well, um today's skill trade is the uh skill trades task force meeting from 4 to 6 p.m.

You know, it's co-chaired by waters, mcampbell and miller.

Uh 4 to 6 p.m.

2161 West Grand Boulevard at the Labor's Local 1191.

Again, today, 46 p.m.

2161 West Grand Boulevard, labor's local 1191.

Thank you.

Mr.

Ads.

Thank you.

Uh Mr.

Chair.

Just want to say thank you to all of my colleagues who attended the district four evening council meeting yesterday evening.

Um, we heard very clearly and boldly from the residents of Ravendale as it relates to the travel in slash regency in.

Um I have no doubt that we may see them again this evening.

Uh, so to residents in district four or citywide residents, just to let you all know.

Mayor Sheffield is hosting her district four charter mandated meeting um at Fountain of Truth this evening, beginning at 5 30.

The meeting actually starts at 7 p.m.

The address is 9801 Chalmers.

So I will be there in support.

Again, that is this evening beginning at 5 30 with the actual meeting kicking off at 7 p.m.

at Fountain of Truth, located at 9801 Chalmers.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair Johnson, and thank you for hosting us last night.

Yes.

So our next meeting will be April 29th.

And just to let folks know that the District 7 Mayor mandated charter meeting will be on April 23rd at Cadish Baptist Church from 7 p.m.

to 8 30 p.m.

So we'll love to see folks out in that at that meeting as well in District 7.

We will have our next monthly meeting for uh district 7 on April 30th at 10 a.m.

Um at Dayball on Grand River and the corner of Wyoming.

And then also for folks to know that our uh planning meeting um for the amendments to the master plan will be this Saturday at 10 a.m.

at St.

Suzanne's uh Cody Rouge Resource Center.

Um so we'll uh encourage people to come out to that as well.

That's the end of my member reports.

Seeing no further business before this committee, uh is there a motion to adjourn?

Motion.

There's been a motion to adjourn, see no objections.

This committee should stand adjourned.

Thank you.