The Ferndale City Council met on Monday, February 23, 2026, at 7:00 PM at City Hall. Mayor Melanie Piana called the meeting to order, and it adjourned at 8:49 PM. The agenda included a presentation, a public hearing, consent items, two ballot proposals, and a discussion on the RxKids program.
8A – Remove Civil Service Board
8B – Police and Fire Retirement System Governance
10A – RxKids Program
Good evening. I call this meeting to order at seven o'clock. If you're able, please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation, under God, and invisible, with liberty and justice for us. May we have a roll call, please? Johnson. Here. Kelly. Here. McColsky. Here. Sabatini. Here. Leaks May. Here. Approval of the agenda. Madam Mayor, I move we approve the agenda as presented. Support. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. It looks like tonight we have a presentation. Looks like it's coming from the DDA. All right. You were up. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Main Street Oakland County previously partnered with Michigan State University Federal Credit Union to create the Main Street Connected Grant Program with the aim of supporting the attraction, retention, and growth of small businesses and historic downtowns and neighborhood commercial corridors. This program is designed to provide technology and digitally based support to complement economic vitality efforts and bolster entrepreneurship at the local community level. Business owner Chris Rivard, who is here tonight, has a long-standing history with Ferndale. She previously operated her business, Blooms and Baubles, from the Rust Belt Market, and then later on continued through a partnership with Not Sorry Goods in Ferndale. In 2025, she renovated the space at 22963 Woodward Avenue to and opened the Creatives Collective as a one-stop artist-owned co-op. Just prior to her opening this past November, she applied for the Main Street Connected Grant Program and was awarded 1,295. And those matching funds are being put to good use towards a point of sale system to support more than 20 artisans who operate out of the Creatives Collective and also digital marketing campaigns to attract new customers to this amazing retail destination. So on behalf of Ferndale DDA, I'd like to thank Main Street Oakland County and MSU FCU for their support of our downtown and programs like this making it possible for us to support our businesses. We are uh able to have these grants for our businesses because we are a select level accredited community. Uh and Creatives Collective is actually the third business and all three. We've had the third business in a row, one in each cycle of the last three MSU FCU grants. So we're very proud of that. So I'll invite uh Chris and uh Ian as well as uh Annika to speak about this program. Good evening, everyone. Uh on behalf of myself and all of the artisans that I have within the Creatives Collective. I wanted to thank uh the Main Street program, uh MSU Federal Credit Union and the Ferndale DDA for this amazing, amazing windfall for all of these artists. Uh we have been uh recently opened in December 10th. We've already gotten to the point where we have 24 artists, we'll be rounding up to 30, and we have just scheduled our first classes, which will be happening on March 21st. We are beyond excited and so thrilled to be able to offer the city of Ferndale not only handcrafted artisan goods that keep the monies for these artisans and other businesses local, um, but to create a bigger community than just ourselves. We are so thankful. Hi, um, my name's Ian Duncanson and I work for MSU Federal Credit Union. This is my third time coming to Ferndale for this very purpose.