Speaker numbers apply only to this recording. Names come from transcript evidence. “Possibly” marks uncertain attribution.
The Livonia City Council held a study meeting on June 1, 2026, at 9:27 PM (originally scheduled for 8:00 PM) in City Hall Auditorium, setting the agenda for the June 15 regular meeting. The meeting included public comments on the public safety millage, transit, and city spending; approval of multiple block party requests, a non-profit designation, a driveway waiver, and other routine items; discussion of a banquet facility waiver petition, which was placed on the regular agenda; and appointments to the Zoning Board of Appeals. Most items were directed to the consent calendar for the June 15 voting meeting.
All right, welcome back, everyone. This is the June 1st, 2026 study session of the Lavonia City Council. This meeting sets the agenda for the 2043rd regular meeting, which is a voting meeting that will take place on Monday, June 15th, where tonight's items will be officially voted on. Um we lost Carrie in the intermission, she had to get home. Um, but we will move right into our agenda for audience communication. We've set aside 30 minutes for anything that is not on the agenda. Good evening, sir. Name and address, please. You have three minutes. Steve King, Country Gardens. Um I just want uh folks to remind folks to check out my reels that I put on Facebook. You don't have to uh have a Facebook account to go on there and look at them, and most of them are getting five to ten thousand views, lots of likes, lots of comments. So, but I am the voice in the wilderness on this millage. Uh my last reel, I talked about the three full page uh ads in Lavonia today, and uh talked about people asking the critical question who's gonna profit from this. So we are constantly told by the city that if the millage fails, our police and fire departments will face devastating cuts. We are told that active police staffing will plummet and emergency response time will suffer. This is a scare tactic designed to force taxpayers into a corner and it relies on a classic political bait and switch. Think about how the state markets the Michigan lottery. Voters were promised that lottery profits would be in addition to school funding. Instead, logmakers use those billions to substitute regular funding. They took the general fund money that should have gone to schools, moved it elsewhere, and used the lottery to plug the hole. The schools never saw a net bonus. This is exactly the same shell game that is happening right here in Lavonia. Public safety is not a luxury or an optional add-on. It's the most fundamental core duty of local government. It belongs at the very top of our city's standard general fund budget. But by separating public safety into a dedicated millage, this city has freed up millions in regular tax dollars. What happens to that freed up general fund money? It gets diverted away from essential services and into non-essential capital projects, administrative expenses, and bloated proposals, like the failed 150 million Livonia Bill Plan that voters already soundly rejected last year. When you tell us that public safety will be cut if this millage fails, you are admitting that you value non-essential projects over our first responders. Every meeting, I'm pointing out wasteful spending. So I hope people will vote no and yes on accountability. Good evening, name and address for the record, please. You have three minutes. Katie Rogo, it's Lavonia. Um, I just wanted to touch on the SPRE issue again. Um, just real quick, um, because I know that um no one here is really in charge of the spree, except I know councilwoman, you are. Um, I did pose a question. I called the uh Lavonia fire marshal in regards to the perimeter fence that would be around the spree because it would need more than those two entrances that the spree claims it will have. Um was weird is I was on Facebook and I asked them about this, and they answered and then proceeded to block me. Really petty behavior. So I'm just wondering. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point people are starting to be like banned from the spree. I mean, that seems really weird. Um, I know that no one can really answer. Well, no one really ever responds, but um I know that um councilwoman McDonald said that she spoke with somebody at the traffic bureau and got an email response pretty quickly, which is weird. I've been a resident for 11 years, and over the years we've had traffic issues in my neighborhood where the police department has referred me to the traffic bureau, and I've never received a phone call back.