I'd like to start the city council meeting with prayer and pledge.

Prayer will be led by Councilman Braddock, pledged by Councilwoman Wiggins.

Heavenly Father, we thank you, Father God, for allowing us to see you another day, Father God.

We ask for you to bless us, Father God, who bless the city, Father God, protect the children in our city for God, Father God, the elders, and also Father God, as we see here make decisions for our city, Father God.

We ask for the Harmony, Father God, Unity, Father God, and Father God, we ask you to get rid of any division, Father God in our city.

In Jesus' name I pray, amen.

I pledge allegiance.

Council members.

President.

Councilmember Seals.

Present.

Councilmember Balls.

Present.

Mayor Procome Garcia.

Present Councilmember Octa.

Present.

Councilmember Braddock.

Present.

Councilmember Wiggins.

Present.

Councilmember Hammond.

Present.

And Mayor Moore.

Present.

You have all members present.

Thank you.

Good evening again.

Happy New Year's to everybody.

I'd like to welcome you to our city council meeting.

As we have the housekeeping to do.

As well as your computers.

Audience, if you could put your phone on silence, I would greatly appreciate.

This is a public meeting.

We ask for no movie, no obnoxious behavior when individuals are talking.

And everyone, please talk loud enough so you can be heard.

These mics are here, but they're going for the YouTube.

So if you think you're talking loud, you're not talking loud.

So you have to use what they say.

Your outdoor voices so that we can hear you.

And with that, Madam Clark to be having the announcement.

Yes, the city offices will be closed Monday, January 19 in observance of the Martin Luther King Jr.

holiday.

Trash collection will not be impacted.

The next city council meeting will be the annual strategic planning planning session on Friday, January 23rd.

The meeting will be held at the Castle Museum and will begin at 9 a.m.

That takes us to public hearings.

Okay.

The purpose of the public hearing is for the public to address the council as a whole and for council members to hear the comments from the speakers regarding a specific topic requested.

Speakers are limited to their remarks to the subject of the public hearing.

Please state your name and say if you are in support or opposition of the subject, public hearing.

The main speaker or the designated representative has 10 minutes to speak.

All others behind them, they have three minutes.

So we will not be answering.

Please come to the podium.

Thank you, Council.

My name is Ryan Higuchi.

I work for AKT Periolis.

We are working uh together to prepare a brownfield application for a cleanup grant.

This happens every year with EPA.

They set aside money from the federal budget to do these kinds of grants.

So the project in question is the Behringer Building, which is located at 126th Franklin Avenue.

Um it's a historical building that was built in uh 1893.

It is on the uh historical national national register of historic places, uh which was established in 1982.

It has been vacant since 2008, and it is a city-owned uh facility that was acquired through tax foreclosure.

Um the preliminary renovation concept would be to uh retain all of the historical features of the building uh and get it prepared uh for renovation.

Uh we're talking right now about uh 48 new affordable apartments as well as four ground floor retail spaces or commercial spaces.

Okay, the um kind of the basis of the grant, um they like I said, they do this every single year.

There's no match required by the city.

Um it is a national nationwide competition, so all states will have an opportunity to or uh submit uh projects like this.

Um so the estimated pot for this year is 107 million dollars, of which they believe that they're gonna send out about 36 grants.

The city is an eligible entity to apply because they are a local unit of government.

Um applications are due on the 28th of this month.

Um a public hearing is required as part of the application process, which we're here today.

Um and winning applicants will be notified by the end of May pending a government shutdown.

So the grant focus again is the barrier building.

And so um what we're looking to do is that it's since it's an old building, it's got a lot of different uh old materials that were used that were no longer part of code, asbestos, lead-based paints, universal waste, which is just kind of a fancy term for things like mercury thermometers and ballasts and stuff like that.

So all that stuff has to be taken out prior to renovation uh in a safe manner to what doesn't harm or uh have detriment to the public or uh environmental health.

So the focus of the grant is to take care of all that stuff and prep this building for renovation.

So uh it would reduce a lot of the uh cost for the potential developer to come in and renovate the building.

Other grant activities that would be funded under this is there's a uh EPA puts a uh prime directive on community involvement.

So we can't just kind of come in and do a project like this without involving a local community.

So it'll be a lot of public outreach activities in terms of getting public um input and informing the public when the work would be going.

Um cleanup planning and um cleanup planning and work plan development.

So there's a less there's a lot of other different kinds of uh things that EPA also requires us to do prior to uh using any money towards the grant um so we would take care of that, but also preparing plans and specifications to solicit for a contractor to do actually do the work as part of that as well.

And then the grant administration, so EPA has a lot of different kinds of things that we have to report on for progress.

Um let's see.

So grant timeline.

I had a we're working on get you guys a copy of my slides.

So um so the as I said, the application is due on the 28th of January.

Um so award notification would be at the earliest at the end of May, early June.

If you're selected, uh EPA will reach out to the city and say, okay, you guys got to get a work plan together of how you're gonna use the things.

So that would be due on June 15th of 2020 uh 2026.

And then EPA kind of goes into their uh agreement drafting process and they'll have that out uh to the city uh for review, and then it gets executed on the first of October every year.

So that's when your agreement would start and the your grant would go live.

At that point, the grant activities would start.

Uh the first thing that would happen would be that the city would have to start procuring the services of environmental consultants or and and things of those ilk.

We would also probably start with the public um engagement activities as well to let them know that the grant had been awarded and what it's for and what we're intending to do.

Um and then cleanup planning would kind of ensue with that with the you know the the acquisition of a contractor and all those kinds of things, and then the cleanup activities would then go uh get done, and then after that we would close out the grant after everything has been invaded out of the building.

Um the grant is four years long.

Um so we have until September 30th of 2030 to complete all of the activities, but if we get done earlier, then we get done earlier.

So and just to kind of temper some expectations, uh missing a slide here, but um I just want to make sure that you know it's communicated this is a very very competitive grant process.

Um we the EPA fields hundreds and hundreds of applications from around the nation every year.

Um and it's really kind of been doing this a little bit.

I mean, it's really kind of hard to kind of predict how things kind of cycle through.

Um I'll give you, for instance, last year Maine got 22 grants over 20 million dollars of the million-dollar pot.

I have no idea what's going on in Maine where they have so many brown fields that need cleanup.

You know, Pennsylvania was number two with 13% of the grant uh pot.

Uh, and then Illinois.

Um Michigan didn't fare all that well.

They submitted 20 applications from the state of Michigan, they got awarded seven for about six million dollars.

Um we're hoping to see if we can get more money coming in Michigan.

Um so they scored on a really regimented point system scale, and if you're not perfect or almost perfect on it, um it really kind of puts you into a um i it it's it's you it gets hard, you know what I mean?

To get an award.

So uh we believe with uh Cassie and River Um River Caddis here, we have a pretty good team, and we have a great shot.

Um and so I'll end there, and if we have any questions, I uh per the guidelines I have to write down your questions and comments, so please forgive me if I'm a little bit delayed in answering.

So I'll take any questions that the council may have.

We'll get to that afterwards.

Understood.

We don't ask questions, sir.

Okay, nor do we answer.

Thank you.

Okay.

Do we have anyone else who'd like to speak to this subject?

Good evening, Mayor, Council members.

I won't repeat what uh Ryan said, but you know, I think back uh probably going back 10 years, Cassie and I and Yolanda when we were redo when we were going through the redevelopment ready um redevelopment ready communities program through the state of Michigan.

This this property was identified as one of the top priorities.

Obviously, uh one of the best historic buildings that we have, and obviously affordable workforce housing is a priority for the city, and this would be a great reuse.

Um we've dealt with some EPA grants in the past.

Most recently probably would be Baker Perkins, where they committed a couple million dollars to help clean up that brownfield site.

Um I just wanted to add that you know, in order to do a project like this, a historic reuse.

Um we worked with Spence Brothers for probably two years on due diligence on this um building.

It's very costly to remediate.

You have some environmental considerations, but just the sheer construction and redevelopment cost is gonna be really expensive, especially if you want to keep the rents reasonable.

And so um River Caddis is got an excellent reputation, but it's gonna take uh a number of incentives to help move this project forward.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else who'd like to speak to this public hearing?

Good evening, Jessica DeVone with River Caddis Group.

Um I just wanted to say thank you to the city and to AKT, um Saginaw Future, everybody that's been providing support on this grant application to date.

Um as stated, this is going to be a very difficult project to solve for, so every little piece that we can go for helps.

Um I personally have a lot of experience in EPA grants.

I've secured and written a lot of them, so I think between our team as well as the team at the City and AKT, we have a good shot at it.

Um, like Ryan said, it's very competitive.

There's no guarantee, but you don't get any of the shots you don't take, so we're going to try our best.

Um, really, my goal is even if worst case we can't move forward with the bigger picture here.

Um we're leaving the building in a better place than where it was when we started um and at least um getting it cleaned up.

So step one.

Um, but just appreciate everybody's assistance in that and consideration here at the public hearing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else who'd like to speak to this subject map?

Is there anyone else who would like to speak to this subject map?

Last and final time.

Is there anyone else who'd like to speak to this top?

I mean I need a motion to close this public hearing.

Second.

It's been moved to second.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

All those opposed, nay.

Madam Claire.

You will be called up to the podium by the clerk.

Please state your name.

You have three minutes to express your concerns.

Please try to get everything that you have to say in within those three minutes minutes.

I'm sorry.

And also, please stay to the subject and manner that you're here for.

Madam Clover.

Our first speaker is Gary Cradit.

Okay.

On to Melanie Velasco.

Hi, I'm Melanie Velesco.

I reside in Taginaw.

I walk a lot for exercise, and I wish many of the businesses.

Thank you, City Council.

I'm so sorry, addressing you.

You beautiful people.

Um I walk a lot, and uh I wish residents and and businesses would um shovel their sidewalks and the plows.

I wish that the plows would put their snow and all the removers.

Of course, a lot of it's melting now.

I wish they would put their lumps of all that crappy snow in places where uh people are supposed to walk.

And um at 64 years old, I'm still walking, and I can pretty much walk about 10, maybe 20 miles, but I will have to stop and rest.

But when people have the sidewalks all like this, and it used to be they used to get fined and ticketed when the postal couldn't deliver their mail, but it's just like some people just don't give.

You know, S H I T.

So that makes it bad for the walkers that are trying to stay healthy.

And I just wish the residents of Saganau would be respectful.

Also, being winner, the branches are falling all down into the street and on the sidewalk.

Again, it's a hazard.

I wish the whoever does that crap with the trees and the branches and all that would get to it and get it all cleared all up so there's no more falling and stuff stuff like that.

Because if I fall on someone's uh business's property, I guarantee you I'm gonna sit there until the ambulance comes.

I guarantee you I will.

I will cry like a big old baby, and then I will sue.

So that's just word up.

I will sit there, cry like a baby, and then I will sue you.

Because it is your responsibility as a business to shovel your sidewalk, salt your sidewalk so people can walk.

Okay?

Now that's it.

The other thing is I think Saginaw, Michigan could use little homes.

We got homeless people with nowhere to live.

I mean, some of them may be drug addicts, alcoholics, drug addicts, all that, but that needs to come to a stop also.

We need to be more open into suicide prevention lines where people that are all drunk and disorderly and wanting the drugs, they can pick up the phone and call somebody directly.

A voice, someone who gives a SEG.

Because the mortality rate of Saginol and a majority of the country is going down because of drugs and alcohol, and these people need mental counseling.

Probably that's their main problem they have, is they need mental counseling.

And they would probably not be all messed up as they are.

And I'm gonna stay firm on this little home thing.

I'm not gonna give up on this little home.

I'm gonna get back into the drawing board and I'm gonna give you some graphs.

I'm gonna give you some measurements, and then I'm gonna show you that it is possible.

You can buy a little home for less than five thousand dollars.

Check it out, Google it.

That's my say for the day.

And I wish you would have helped me keep my cats, and I think city council uh the animal control are not that nice, but my cat isn't a good home, and I'm blessed with that.

Have a great evening.

Good night.

Thanks.

Our next speaker is Morrison.

On to Mike Thompson.

Good evening.

You know, my phone rang before I came over here, and my friend said, come over and watch the football game.

And I said, I'm going to the city council.

He said the city council, you need to get a life.

But I've always been interested in the local government.

I remember being in school, learning about the federal government, 435 representatives, a hundred senators.

How's anything going to get done?

So I've always paid attention to the local government more than anything, and that's why I have suggestions for how the meetings could be run.

Um it's not a criticism.

Your telecasts, you can't beat those, and your um website, when you look at the budget on the website, there's nothing more clear to read.

Everything you do is for the people, but I just think the meetings could be better.

Now, when I came on December 1st, I said maybe start at five o'clock and have committee of the whole like they used to have and pick take turns and pick special topics to examine closer.

And that didn't happen right away.

I don't know whether it ever will, but at your next meeting, you were going along all of a sudden a medical diamond came up.

I don't think it was on the agenda.

If you would have had that as a committee of the whole, if you go back and look at that tape, it would have been a much better presentation if you had anticipated and had a committee of the whole about it.

So that is following up on my suggestion from the last meeting.

Now, the other one is if you look at your agenda, if you would take remarks from the council members and put it at the end, I've never been to another local board that has it in the middle, right in the middle of your meetings, you have remarks from council.

You have remarks from council.

And my example in that case, I remember now six of you are newer, but this would be when you were voting on the ARPA money, and you'd go to the meetings, and there'd be remarks from council and get to the very end, and then you're passing three million dollars, five million dollars here, passing all the ARPA money.

And it looked like it was at the end of the meeting, it looked like you hadn't discussed it because of the way your agenda was set up.

If you would have done the business first and then had the remarks, that wouldn't have happened.

Is although Robert's rule allows it, there's too many motions to uh end discussion.

Robert, it's called the uh I'm losing it now.

Oh, call the question.

When you call the question, what you're saying is I've talked, now I don't want to hear the rest of you.

I just think it's a very rude thing to do.

I don't know, you mean you don't intend it that way, but stop calling the question when you're having discussions.

Let the discussion play out.

Those are my ideas for better meetings, like Papa Johns would say, better agendas, better meetings, Saginaw City Council.

That's pretty bad, wouldn't it?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our final speaker is Betsy DeParry.

Madam Mayor, City Council, City staff.

I'm here with Le Ammo, Jacob Way, Steve Myers, and doing the talking.

Um George Weddock died in 1937 at the age of 84.

He was a prominent attorney, a civic leader, and importantly, the first mayor of the city of Saginaw after the consolidation of East Saginaw and Saginaw City became effective on March 12, 1890.

It's fitting that he's remembered and that Weddick Avenue was named for him.

Weddock Park, located at the corner of Wettock and White Avenues, was also named for him.

When the city could no longer maintain the parks, Kevin Rooker and Bill Ostache stepped up to care for and beautify Weddick Park.

They've done so both before and since adopting it on September 27th, 2021.

They've tended the grounds, added a fire ring, and every spring you could see Kevin out there planting flowers.

Passersby could see Kevin's loving touch.

Just as it is fitting to remember George Weddock, it's also fitting to remember Kevin Rooker, who loved this our city, who worked tirelessly to preserve the history, and who generously gave his time and talent to multiple projects and efforts that are improving our community for the present residents and generations to come.

The park only.

Thank you.

Council members, you have three minutes as well.

We decide tonight when Council Woman Wiggins.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you to all the speakers tonight.

Um I appreciate your time.

Uh I was at um Kevin's vigil and got the opportunity to sign that petition.

So fully support renaming that part for Kevin.

I'm just gonna stop there.

Okay.

We've got thank you.

Stop.

Okay, we've gotten a lot of uh input from the public for data centers.

I just want to encourage everyone who's contacted us on that subject to also contact Saginaw County because there are a lot of rural areas in that uh area.

So we are the city, but please reach out also regarding your thoughts on data centers to the county as well.

We also have uh on Wednesday, um we have another rescheduled citywide meeting uh that's gonna be held it's January 14th at the water treatment plant at 5 30.

If you have never been in that uh facility, I do encourage you to come.

Um questions will be answered, presentations made, a mini little tour.

Um I really encourage the public to do that.

Thank you.

That's all I'm gonna thank you.

Next we have council mommy.

Thank you.

Um and thank you again to our public speakers today.

Um I'm very excited and good luck to the applications from River Caddis on the uh Brownfield cleanup grant that is competitive, and I'd welcome an ongoing discussion on if there's anything that the city can do uh in looking towards our strategic planning session to perhaps improve some of those points uh when we do those kinds of grants that are pretty competitively scored.

Um also thank you so much to the people who have put together a petition um to honor Kevin Rooker and a passion and uh a passion and a legacy for public service that I think is what exactly what we should be rewarding when we look at our public institutions and when we look at at namesakes.

Um so thank you for putting in the work to help get that done.

Um also I appreciate the suggestions on committees of the whole and pushing up some of the meeting starts.

I do think that there are some discussions and some really big issues that require a meeting of the whole, uh things that have been brought up to me multiple times that there is an appetite for, both in the community and in the council are tiny homes, um, are things like street clearance, definitely the medical diamond project, uh, and looking into how we want to handle um development moving forward in this new era, um, as well as making sure that we're prepared for changes in federal policy and state funding policy.

There have been some pretty remarkable shifts in how government has decided to uh listen or not listen at certain uh points of in in the um representative spaces and do things differently.

So I think that opening up ourselves and and looking at our own policies and procedures as to how we can best communicate might be at least one small way to be able to react to that in a way that the public can still engage and feel heard.

So again, thank you so much for our public speakers tonight, and um thank you for doing work to honor your neighbors.

Yeah, that's it.

Thank you.

Next we have Councilman Young.

Uh good evening, everyone.

Um I don't have much um this week, but um it was unfortunate that I wasn't able to attend uh Kevin's homegrown, but I do fully uh support the renaming of the park.

I think that's a great idea and a great tribute.

Um I also um I support that uh brownfield cleanup.

I think that's uh really good when you can bring uh money into the community and get uh some of our older buildings ready for use, uh whether residential or there are and um I'd also um I'm looking forward to any more information about the data centers so that we can um do what needs to be done to make sure our community stays protected.

Thank you.

That's okay.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

Next we have council warming seals.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um happy new year to everyone.

Um Saginaw did take a huge loss of a leader in um Kevin Roker.

Um he was one of my children's teachers at uh Carlton High School.

Um been knowing him for a while.

Um my kids looked up to him.

And um he will be missed.

Um our school board, uh the children will miss him.

City of Saginaw will miss him, our community will miss him, and um just thankful that he was in our presence.

He was an angel to us.

Um we lost a lot of good people last year.

Um even in Miss Thompson.

Um just a lot of loss last year, and just to make us think about our roles here at this table, and how we have to think for ourselves and how we have to make decisions for our community that's in the best interest for our community, and not on a lines of just what other people want, but what we need for our community.

And so I want us to really focus on what's Saginaw needs and what's in the best interest for the future of our city.

And so with that, I'll let that sit there so that hopefully that we as a body called city council can look to the future and make 2026 one of our best years, but make a decision as a group.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we have council and boss.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

I don't have a lot to say this evening, but I sentiments the same with Brother Council and tells us the past and maybe we all know what the uh uh things that he done for the city of Saginaw, how many lives he touched, and how many kids who uh won't have an opportunity to have a great teacher.

You know, uh in the last uh four or five months we lost another three great teachers here in the city of Saginaw, a woman ham, uh MT Thompson, I mean not MT, but Marshall Thomas, um Mrs.

Thompson, and uh, you know, we got we we lost a few people here, man, it really meant a lot to this city.

You know, we're getting older.

It seems one thing about it, man.

You may plant the seeds, but the tree's gonna grow and eventually the leaves are gonna fall off.

And uh eventually we're gonna have to plant more trees for all the leaves to grow up and take care of our children too.

Um being a mentor myself, I had an opportunity this weekend to spend time with the health group.

And um, due to the fact that myself and my son was UAW members, we are in pretty good wages, and the kids got to buy a lot of things they probably didn't need, like tennis shoes and stuff like that, and and it's come to the point now the kids think if they don't have them that they're not as good as other kids.

Well, I asked my grandson to send me some uh clothing and some slightly loose tennis shoes, and the guy sent me four pairs of tennis shoes, almost like he even been wearing them.

I said, Well, they get the money, you know.

But anyway, um at the meeting this weekend, I uh scoped out the kids who I thought may need a pair of tennis shoes.

They was playing basketball, and some of the kids had on slides and they wasn't even playing basketball, so I uh just slid up to him and I asked a few of the kids if they needed some pair of tennis shoes and I gave one of the kids one.

And uh he said, really, really, really.

He said it four or five times and he read and hugged me, and I was around all the kids and stuff, man.

It does it really just choke me up real bad.

I mean, uh somebody else noticed it and his mother know what was going on, and I told him that the uh I gave the boy some tennis shoes and he's really thankful for having them.

And uh the guy told me that uh the young man's mother was found dead in a house a few months ago, and she had five kids.

You're talking about touching.

You know, that's one of the reasons why I've been in the big brothers and sisters program for the last 38 years.

You don't know how you can touch a young kid's life and make it a little bit better and to make them feel a little bit better about their life.

You don't know what it takes sometimes.

And just to give away a pair of tennis shoes, brighten up that guy's life.

Uh it really touched me.

I told my wife about it, and now she wants to make sure that she's gonna bring lunch to the next meeting.

And I appreciate that, you know what I'm saying.

But the thing is, we all can touch a kid's life.

We we know there's a lot of issues that go on in the city of Saginaw.

We have uh uh alcoholic and drug problem, and we have kids who don't have parents at all.

You know, so I'm gonna engage everybody to just pick up the time and do something for the kids in our neighborhood.

Thank you.

Thank you, my thank you.

Next, we have Congressman Nash Day.

Thanks, Mayor.

Uh welcome everybody tonight, and I know he's gonna give me this drink to get through this.

The stories you're telling right now are the stories we heard all the time.

If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be where I'm at.

And we'd be in the story, and I'll tell you, it's a little funny.

He'd say I don't know their name, so I was the wingman.

I am Bill, and then I would get the name out of them because he had so many students, about 140 students for 30 years every year.

Um what I want to do is I want to thank the outpouring of support from the community.

It was overwhelming to me.

So even though I'm grieving, there's a lot of joy.

Um we're guessing somewhere's around 800 people came to the funeral homes.

Some of you stand stood in line for one to two hours to come in and see him and me.

And I appreciate that.

That shows how much he and I met to you.

And they're saying it was the largest funeral they've ever had at their funeral home in Saginaw.

And I stood there for five hours, making sure that each and every one of you had your time, no matter how much that took.

And the next person waited, so I really thank you for that.

Afterwards, we went to the mix.

Kevin used to be a DJ.

He DJ'd at Bambi's back in the days.

And we opened the bar back up and we threw him one great big dance party.

And we played tracks that he actually recorded when he was at the bar that he was DJing at.

So it was really a memorable moment.

Um it was DJ Rutgers, one last mix.

And I told everybody, whether we were at the candle vigil or at the at the mix.

I said, You're not guaranteed the next hour, day, minute, or nanosecond.

And he and I knew that.

So we lived every day to the fullest.

I mean, he was my soulmate.

Um just love hard.

Yeah.

And tell him every day, if you're thinking it, say it.

If you want to hug them, hug them.

I have told so many friends after this that I had never really said it before, exactly how I feel.

Because I want them to know if I'm not here next day.

And so I appreciate that you come here wanting to rename the park to the Kevin Mark River Memorial Park.

I know there's gonna be a 5013 that's gonna be developed as well that will raise money to take care of the park, continue the research on all the historic home signs that are in our neighborhood that he did.

He can't walk.

I think he's got close to 25 of them right now.

Um it's really special.

But I know you want to put up a new sign, but like I said before, the Wedx sign has to stay.

First of all, he painted it, he's probably gonna haunt you for it.

So um, thank you.

That's all I have to say tonight, Mayor.

Thank you to the community.

Thank you.

Next, we have Councilman Brenna.

Uh thank you, Madam Mayor.

Uh good evening, everyone.

Thank uh thank you for coming to the city council meeting.

Um I have a lot to say.

Uh very emotional at the table today, and offer my condoles to the uh friends and family of Kevin.

I have an opportunity to um to talk to him many a times, him and him and Bill, and so we all had great conversations, so you know I offer my condolence for that.

We also um lost a lot of you know, we lost some leaders.

We lost some leaders over the holidays and over the season.

And like uh Michael Boss says, you know, you know, we have to we have to look at the next generation and make sure that we come together and make sure we pass down things to the next generation.

Those people and those individuals pass something down to the to us to be able to be leaders, you know, like Marshall Thomas himself made very impactful on my life.

So you know, so a lot of these leaders have made very impact on a lot of people's lives, and you know, you hear the stories from all the different names that we hear and how impactful that people have changed, the direction of people's lives when we're coming up as kids for sure.

Um, but I don't have much to say.

You know, um welcome everybody to the new year.

Um let's make let's bring let's bring some unity and um let's bring some unity into the new new new year and 2026, and let's move Thaganaw forward.

And that's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Good evening, concerned citizens of the community.

Um, just want to piggyback off of um my council members here that um we lost um I would say a legend in our community.

Mr.

Rooker was uh Kevin to me, but um he was phenomenal.

He was there every way of council whenever we had the parades, he was there willing to be apart and helping, uh making sure everything got taken care of.

If I couldn't outbreak something or that, he was right there right along.

And I always felt like he was prouder of our council as well.

Um, his conferences or whatever.

He was always there for us, and um, I always know that they were cleaning up the city, not just when we had our cleanups, but he was they would be at the park.

I'd hit up Bill, and we're like, oh, we're at the park right now.

I'm like, oh, okay, they love cleaning.

Um, so it fits well for him, and I was also able to attend the vigil, which the public showed out.

I mean, there were so many people, the weather held off for a long time, and it was just great.

Um, when I say Bill and Kevin had the best support, it it definitely showed these last few days.

I was honored to be part of um helping at the mix for the one last time, and we were able to give um a nice celebration after um at the mix, and it turned out really nice.

You should see all the people that came after the funeral home.

And the um funeral home was phenomenal for sure.

They were accommodating of everyone that came to show love and support, and that was just awesome.

That just speaks volumes of them.

And when I left at 4 30, I could not believe the amount of people that were outside waiting, and it was freezing to show them all love and support that Bill and Kevin have done in this community in the city, all the lives that he's touched.

Um, and he looked a really nice, and um I got to see him in his last suit for the holiday.

I got to take pictures with them down at Jimmy John's um and be at their holiday party.

So I said I have to give back and host.

Like Kevin was always such a great host at their house and wanted to make sure that we had some good food for everybody that came.

Um, so I just fully support this park.

Um, and whatever um Bill's wishes are, I know that it meant so much to them, and um just all the support, it's been awesome and amazing.

And now um Bill's stuck with me.

I told him, so uh we started off as friends and now he's family, so they were a package deal, so I'm gonna miss him, but yeah, we definitely um he's stuck with me.

That's all I'm gonna say.

And thank you guys in Monday, Martha Luther King Day, the Cassie Museum is having some stuff.

Get a chance, go out.

That's actually my birthday too.

So I'm celebrating with the King Wild Fitted Day.

And also um this weekend, if you get a chance, Hoyt Park is gonna be having some events.

So make sure to follow up on their Facebook because they have some great things coming out um in that facility.

So stay tuned and thank you guys and have a great evening.

Last but not least.

Good evening again, and happy new year's again.

My condolences to everyone who's lost somebody.

I am in support of the park.

But I want to thank some people.

Every year for the past five years, we've been doing, we've been giving gifts to young people in the city of Saginaw.

This year we gave out 582 toys to children in the community.

Couldn't do it without y'all.

I've got some what I call secret Santa's who we're uh I can pick up the phone to mail first.

But local eight, local, 85 is gonna show up and show out 1098.

Saginaw Foundation.

There were a number of individuals privately who gave.

We also gave out 30 gift cards for 50.

We didn't get on the box-to-box meals, but for some of the families, they needed food.

They needed food.

Some of the stuff that I guess I do.

When you do it with love and not selfishness, you always get rewarded.

You always get rewarded.

My new year's resolution is to let go and let God.

I can't change people.

I just gotta do what I gotta do because I'm on a mission.

I'm on a mission.

And the mission is is to make this city the best place that we can possibly be to live work.

So, community.

When we invite you to come to open stuff for the public, please come.

Please come.

Because if you don't come, how can you talk about what we don't do?

Then start talking about what we all do do.

Because there's a lot of things.

If you ride through Saginaw, exception of the roads, but I never said I was gonna fix the damn road.

Okay.

With the exception of the road, you can actually see some of the improvements that are happening in this city.

We've got the best, excuse me for saying the damn staff in the world.

Yes, we do.

We can pick the phone up, any of us at any given time, and say, hey, we need your help.

Hey, it's the citizen that wants this.

Let go, let God, and I'm gonna let him lead me this year.

And whoever wants to do opposite, go ahead.

Go ahead, because I gotta live with him.

I like sleeping at night.

So with that, next year's go this year's gonna be a trying year.

We got all kinds of elections coming up.

We gotta think about what we're doing, and we gotta pray about it.

Madam Clerk.

That takes us two reports from the manager.

Mr.

Manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

And we do have a few presentations this evening, and I know uh they'll be very interesting for council and the public.

Uh, just a few items uh before that.

Um what councilwoman uh Wiggins mentioned.

The city has rescheduled the citywide meeting for this Wednesday, January 14th at 5 30 p.m.

at the Saginaw Water Treatment Facility, right next door, 522 Ezra Rush Drive, after we canceled it in December due to weather.

Residents will receive updates on the water tower project, learn about the history and future of the 100-year-old treatment plan and take a brief tour of the filter gallery along with additional community program and event updates.

And I do highly recommend coming to this if you haven't had a chance to visit the plant.

It's not open very often, so it's a great opportunity to come in and see that and talk to the staff there.

I also want to thank our city clerk Chris Bolzman and City Attorney Amy Lusk for presenting at the City of Saginaw Youth Council today about the city charter, Roberts Rules of Order, Elections, Boards, and Commissions.

So I think of the students were very engaged.

So it's great to see that.

And our future sessions are going to be about public safety, parks, transportation, water and wastewater, human resources, finance, public works, and city council.

So we are those are always at with the students at uh 3:30 prior to council meetings.

Um we'll make sure I think it is on your uh council's calendar.

So the upcoming sessions will be at city facilities, I think, so we'll make sure that uh we remind you of those.

And finally, um this has been mentioned a few times, but the I made some notes on here because this is uh changing pretty uh kind of quickly as we get responses.

Uh City Council Council strategic planning session is scheduled for Friday, uh January 23rd at the Castle Museum in the Moile room, and we do have a tentative agenda in place, and most of the presentations are confirmed.

I think they all are now.

I'd be working on one more still.

Originally, our intent for this uh session was to follow the next steps of the strategic planning session that we worked on last year.

If you recall, um, it was aligning the budget and having that presentation.

Our staff have been working on that and uh look at the progress in implementing the goals and objectives that were identified, talking about the successes for all the departments, those were all items that were identified and how they align with the uh goals and objectives that were established in each category.

Um, however, uh as was mentioned, we did have uh special interest in the medical diamond with the recent announcement from CMU.

So um SAGNA Future President and CEO Tom Miller and I have discussed uh the issue, and we reached out to key partner organizations to see if they'd be willing to present during our planning session.

And each organization has agreed and is interested in sharing their vision and progress.

So we adjusted the focus of this year's session to provide clarity and a coordinated update.

We also felt that it's important for these updates to come directly from the organizations leading the work so they can announce and explain their projects themselves rather than the city trying to speak on behalf of other organizations.

So uh at the meeting, we'll have the mayor's welcome as usual.

Then we'll begin with regular agenda items and then uh move into management updates.

Uh time permitting, we may still have part of the budget presentation, but we'll have that finalized in the next day or so.

Uh but after that, we'll shift to medical diamond presentations with the Saginaw County Health Department, Central Michigan University College of Medicine, Saginaw Valley State University, and Great Lakes Bay Health Centers, and the Michigan Department of Transportation have all agreed to present at the meeting.

So we'll also have breaks for lunch and uh other breaks scheduled in MDOT.

I think is going to be a virtual presentation because they're out of town, but they will have representatives at the meeting as well.

So I think that'll be an excellent update.

Um we still want to move forward with those other items with the updates and aligning those goals and objectives with the budget.

So we'll have those included in uh upcoming city council meetings, whether we want to do it as a committee on the whole or do it under management update, and we'll take that direction from council.

Okay.

So that's where we are, and I'll get the agenda out to you in the next few days.

Um there's one more uh presentation we're efforting on scheduling, but that should be.

We're probably looking at MDOT, CMU.

I'm sorry, MDOT, Saginaw County, CMU, then SCSU, and then um Grey Lakes Bay Health.

All right, and we have a an excellent presentation that we heard about this program, and then there was an issue that came up at the state level, and now it moved forward and it started today, I believe.

So we have uh Christina Harrington, the health officer and director of Saginaw County Health Department, and B.

And we well here to provide an update on the RX Kids program.

Thank you, Tim.

Really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you guys tonight.

So thank you, Madam Mayor, and all the council members for a little time on your agenda to talk about a really exciting program that just kicked off this morning at 9 a.m.

for all of our mamas and babies in pregnant mamas and babies in the city of Saginaw.

So I just wanted to uh give you an uh an update in case you haven't heard of the program.

Um we did do a press conference last week.

Um it was streamed live on TV5.

Um if you want some additional information, I'm just gonna kind of give you a 50,000 foot level of RX Kids so that you're aware when mamas and babies start applying for this transformative program.

Um I can't take credit for the program.

This was really designed by Dr.

Mona Hanna.

She is the pediatrician that sounded uh the Flint Water Crisis.

She teamed up with Dr.

Luke Schaefer from University of Michigan uh Poverty Solutions, um, who was instrumental during COVID when families got $500 cash during the COVID pandemic.

The two of them really got together and said, um, how do we address maternal poverty, childhood poverty, and how do we make a bigger impact in the community?

So they went out and did a lot of research around those who live in uh poor socioeconomic conditions and when poverty um is greatest, and if you're a parent, you probably can understand that around the time of a childbirth, income tends to drop to the greatest levels.

Um there's a graph here that shows that from the time of the birth, usually there's loss of income.

Moms might and families may have to take time off work to care for babies, and also lots of additional expenses like diapers and uh if you're formula feeding and all of the other goodies that come along.

And in fact, one of our um uh moms in the city was really excited about this program said it seems like anything related to babies just cost more, right?

So but the research really tells us that it takes almost a year for those income the drops in income to get back up to preconception levels, and so they said we need to do a better job of addressing this poverty level.

Um, also the time of a childbirth is really important, and a baby's brain literally doubles in size in the first year.

And so our moms and babies need to start off on the right foot and at the wrong foot.

And we know with chronic stress and corticals cortisol levels that we see preterm births, we see very low birth weights, and we see really poor uh health outcomes.

And unfortunately, Saginaw is a community in which we see that.

We see lots of preterm um babies are being born, and we have really high infant mortality rates, particularly in the city of Saginaw.

So they designed a program that says this is really about love.

This is about empowerment of families, this is about universalism.

We don't care what your income level is, we don't care what kind of insurance you have, um, but we want to give unconditional no-strings attached payments for our mamas and our babies to be able to do what they need to do, which is make basic ends meet to provide for their families.

So pregnant women uh who live in the city of Saginaw, who are at least 16 weeks uh along in their pregnancy, can apply for a one-time lump sum payment of $1,500 during their pregnancy, so prenatally to prepare for the birth of their child.

And then once baby is born, they can apply for $500 a month for the first six months of their child's life.

So it's a pretty significant amount of uh of funding that they can be um eligible for.

They do global cash assistance payments, they do a lot of disaster response, they've been around for decades, and now issuing millions and millions of dollars to communities across Michigan, which now we have 28 communities as of this morning, um, all the way from the uh upper peninsula and to communities right here in Saginaw.

Um and this is really about that unconditional love for them and give directly manages it from the application to the geocoding of addresses to the proof of residency and the documentation that that applicants have to uh put forth and to the issuing of payments.

And so those payments can come as direct um deposits if mom wants them that way, um, or they can be uh issued uh like a prepaid sort of gift card in in those types of payments.

Or they can be issued like a prepaid sort of gift card in those types of payments.

So mom can elect to do that.

But this is really kind of about reimagining the social contract.

So the lift that we have here in Saginaw is to wrap our arms around our mamas and babies and engage with them.

So we will be serving as local champions of the program.

Trying to click forward and it's like freezing on me for a second.

There we go.

So the health department, along with our B Well partners, is really the champions of Be Well, and it's our jobs to wrap our arms around those mamas and celebrate them and connect them to further resources.

So we have a great amount of community-based organizations providing wonderful programs that a lot of our moms are eligible for.

And what we're seeing is that engagement across the board in a lot of these programs is already seeing great outcomes.

So if I didn't say I might have skipped because usually it's like the city of Flint launched this program in January of 2024.

So they've had two full years under their belt where they've issued millions of dollars to their moms in the city of Flint.

And so that they've been serving as the pilot community to see what changes there's that the program is as the outcomes, right?

So we're seeing amazing outcomes.

So things like we can measure vital statistics.

So we're seeing a drop in preterm births.

So moms are making it further along in their pregnancy.

They're delivering healthier weight babies, which we know matters, and starting off on that right foot.

We're seeing an increase in uptake of other community resources.

So for example, WIC enrollment is up, voter registration and turnout is up.

It's sort of, as I mentioned, this social contract of reimagining and rebuilding trust and kind of government, and that we're not here.

Moms don't have to provide receipts, they don't have to show what they've spent their money on.

It is their money to spend, and where they're tracking the data, because I always get that question is how do you know what they're gonna spend their money on?

Um and so we're seeing that they're spending it on the items that they need.

Their uh top categories are baby supplies, food, rent, utilities, transportation, and health care costs.

These are the basic needs of the things that they need to survive, and that's what they're spending their money on.

And now that they have the ability to do this, they don't have to make a decision between do I pay my utility bill or do I buy the pack and play that I need.

So this is um also seeing incredible outcomes from an economic standpoint.

So these are millions of dollars going back into the local community where they're seeing uh that reinvestment because they're spending their money in the local community in which they're getting these payments, and it's been estimated with their economic evaluation of the program through the city of Flint that a hundred new jobs have been created just by simply providing these payments to moms and babies.

It's pretty remarkable stuff.

Also, it's improving social and emotional states of moms.

87% of the participants say, wow, I feel more prepared, I feel better equipped because we know every mama wants to be able to provide for their kids.

They're doing the best that they can, but they're in survival mode.

This is an opportunity to go from survival to thriving.

That's our goal here.

So funding is obviously a big component of this, as you can imagine.

You can do the math.

We have lots of uh babies born in our community, and that takes a lot of money.

And so we're super thankful for Dr.

Mona and her team.

It was over a year and a half ago when she came to Saginaw and said, I want Saginaw is on the list, and I want you guys to launch this program.

Um, but we can't do it alone.

So this is really a public private partnership to get this funding and this program off the ground.

A lot of which is coming from state dollars.

So our legislation on both sides of the aisle have seen the benefits of this.

There's been two folds of pockets to help support this program.

One is temporary assistance for needy families funding, and the other is general fund dollars from the state of Michigan.

And as you can see, we've had TANF dollars since fiscal year 2024.

That's when the city of Flint launched theirs, and then they've been uh adding general fund dollars to that.

Um and then this year in the fiscal year 26 budget, they approved an additional 250 million dollars to expand RX kids across the state of Michigan in communities like Saginaw for the next three years.

But we couldn't do that just with those source of funding.

We have to blend the funding into a private um partnership as well.

So the TANF dollars general fund is really meant to cover your Medicaid births, but as what as I mentioned, this is sort of this targeted universal, so it's for every pregnant mom that lives within the city limits, doesn't matter her income, doesn't matter the insurance, it's for everyone.

So the private um pieces of funding is really to help cover the gap, right?

Between Medicaid births and non-Medicaid, so private insurance births.

So you can see for the city, and actually uh the Bridgeport Township and Buna Vista Township, it would cost about 3.6 million dollars to cover every uh birth, which is estimated to be about 800 births within those three municipalities.

The state funding between those two sources is 3.2 million dollars, and so Saginaw's lift in the private philanthropic um area here is about 400,000 a year.

The good news is we've raised over 700,000, so we have a little bit more to do, but we're pretty confident that we're gonna get to those levels.

Um, so we have enough to get off the ground and get running and cover to launch the program.

And so Mona said, we're doing it.

I want you guys to launch in January, and it's a go.

So we're very excited to be able to offer it not only to the city of Saginaw, but to Buna Vista and Bridgeport Townships.

Exciting news here from a county perspective is that that is almost 50% of all the births that happen in Saginaw County.

So when we talk about a hundred percent uptake and start examining vital statistics, this is like transformational in the ways that we can actually move the needle in um in health outcomes.

So the application is live now on rxkids.org.

It's like come on.

Um it opened live at 9 a.m.

this morning.

So uh I did get an email from Give Directly staff, and as of about 3:30 this afternoon, we already had a hundred applicants in the system.

So exciting news there to come.

But we want every pregnant mama to be able to apply, and also any baby born as of January 1st.

So if there was a mom or a family in the city and they just had a baby on January 2nd, they can apply for the cash payments of the $500 a month.

Can't apply for the prenatal piece of it because they have to be pregnant today or after, but they can apply for at least the cash payments.

So just uh just to go over quickly that eligibility, they have to live in the city or Buna Vista or Bridgeport Township.

So I get a lot of questions.

What if they live somewhere else?

Unfortunately, they can't.

Our goal is to be able to provide it to everyone.

Mona's goal in this is every baby born in the state of Michigan, and so she's uh she's she's expanded that pretty quickly, and so um I'm hopeful, but also if we raise additional money, we can expand the program across uh I would love it if it was every single uh member of our county, but it's not.

We want to focus on uh greatest need right now and um most challenging families, and uh it makes sense for these three communities, they have to be at least 16 weeks pregnant, they have to be 18 years of age or older, or 16 with a parent or guardian consent, and that's on the pregnant side.

Um, on the baby side, again, you can be born anytime after January 1st.

So we got little questions.

What if they were born on December 30th?

Sorry, we have to put some confines around the program, these are what they are, and the baby has to be less than six months old.

So, born obviously right now, they can't be six months, but even in the months to follow in August.

If the baby was born and the baby's two months old and mom just learns about the program, she can still apply as long as they're less than six months of age, and then they get those six-month payments still.

So, um they do have to provide some proof of residency.

So, again, give directly does all of the application process, they geocode every address.

So, you have to have a physical address for the mom, and so she has to be able to provide a utility bill, a lease agreement.

If she's staying in a shelter, it would be uh a letter head of the shelter saying that this um mom is staying here, um, and also proof of pregnancy.

So, one of the pieces we love about this program is that moms get into care earlier now because of this program.

So, I gotta get in, I gotta get that ultrasound.

I have to have an aftervisit summary that I've seen a provider, and they upload those documents.

Um, lots of our community organizations just participated in application walkthrough last week, and it takes 10 or 15 minutes.

If mom has an ID, proof of residency, proof of pregnancy, it'll take her 10 minutes to do the application.

So it's a pretty simple thing to do.

Um, they do have to provide an email and a phone number as well, so that give directly can communicate with them, and they'll get text messages that say, thanks for uploading your documents, they look great, or hey, um, ultrasound picture got cut off, you need to upload a new one.

Um, they'll communicate with moms and the families that apply along the way in the process, and then begin to issue payments.

So these dollars are gonna be coming out to uh members of your community very very soon.

Also, it doesn't affect um other benefits other than it potentially can affect SSI.

They've worked with all the other programs like SNAP and some of the other um uh other programs for benefits, and those won't be affected, but potentially they haven't seen it yet, but some SSI could, depending on where their levels were.

Um, it could be affected, but every other uh program is not.

Do you have any questions?

Any questions?

Yes, Councilwoman.

Thank you so much for your presentation.

I really appreciate it, and this is incredibly exciting.

Um my question was um I was a little bit confused on the um the amount of funding secured in relation to the length of the program.

So I know are we talking about 2026 right now that we are able to?

I don't want to use the word guarantee, but essentially guarantee for babies born in 26.

This program's available, but we're looking at at least three years of funding, and some of that is secured.

Can you expand or explain a little bit more about the connection to what funding is secured versus the duration of this program?

Sure.

So um the TANF funding has been secured at the state level, and the general fund um allocation this year has a three-year um implementation.

So at this point, give directly and the RX kids team are telling us that that state level appropriation is there for three years.

We have to then fill in that philanthropic, um, which we have about 470,000 that we have left to raise to make it that full year um three-year period.

But we hope to continue it beyond that.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions?

Just a comment.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for bringing this program to our city.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Very happy to do it.

It's been a whole team working sort of behind the scenes to get the the philanthropic support.

And so um uh the community foundation has been the local fiduciary, so any funds that we've collected or will continue to collect in the future, goes to the community foundation.

Um, and then they turn around and give those dollars to give directly.

It's very little uh oversight.

So anyone knowing that the donations that we are getting, they're going directly to our moms and babies.

I just have a question.

Sure.

So I know you said um it's created more jobs in what areas um, I guess in the city uh Flynn, I believe you said, um, where have you seen what what kind of jobs has it um increased in respect?

I can't speak specifically to the the kinds of jobs, but just um I can share uh with the council the economic evaluation of the project, and so there's an entire report and it may outline some of those in there.

Okay, I got a question.

If you have a twins, is it per baby?

Per baby school now, some people actually have twins.

Absolutely.

Yeah, uh twins triplets it happens, um, and it is per baby.

So if mom has multiple babies, it is five hundred dollars per month per child.

Yes, I'm sorry.

Thank you.

You're all right.

Um, so I think because of what you said, it does count as taxable income from what I'm hearing, but it doesn't necessarily count against sounds like there's a lot of work done with individual assistance programs to make sure it doesn't count against income, and that's been guaranteed for almost all programs.

Is that right?

But it's still reported on your taxes as taxable income.

I'm not sure the actual reporting they get at the end of the year because it's considered a stipend and not an income.

But SSI, there's regulations where it could count towards SSI, but it is technically considered a stipend.

Interesting.

Well, it's tax season, so that's on the mind for a lot of people.

Right.

But thank you so much again.

You're welcome.

Anyone else?

I have a quick question.

If a um is over 16 weeks gestation, do they still qualify?

Yes.

They can be anytime from 16 weeks gestation all the way up to before they deliver.

So any any time in that prenatal period, they can apply for the $1,500.

The only time they cannot, if they're less than 16 weeks, they have to upload, they have to sort of wait until they're 16 weeks to get the payment.

Um, and if they've already delivered, then they cannot.

Okay, yes.

I just have is there like a cutoff like um maybe a hundred mothers or not really?

No.

No.

Okay.

No.

So we looked at um an analysis of all of our births and track that over time.

Um and so nope, it is I just know during COVID people report.

A lot of babies I got a couple brand kids out of the back.

So you locate.

Where's your location?

Is everything online?

Yeah, so the application um they moms do have to go online.

So give directly staff will be at the health department, um, probably starting next next month or so to help walk moms through so they can walk into room 312 at the health department anytime we're open.

If they um have questions about residency documents, etc.

Um, also what we've done is try to empower a lot of our community-based organizations, and so we gave them a walkthrough with all of the requirements.

Um we've got participant guides.

I think Cassie said they're gonna be posting like some of those like accepted documents, everything that I had sent out previously, um, even on the city's website to help empower and educate the community and a whole, but um absolutely people can walk in and we get we'll help moms as much as we can.

So application online.

Yes.

Eventually you're gonna be at the health department.

Yes, not now.

No, I mean right now they can walk in, it's just give directly staff.

So moms, I don't know if I mentioned they can elect a direct deposit payment for the dollars or get a prepaid gift card.

And so if they elect the prepaid gift card, give directly staff will be there, and moms will come and pick up those gift cards.

So that's when probably starting next month, the give directly staff will be there.

But the health department, you can come in, and our staff have been educated, they can help a mom tomorrow if they need help with documentation or anything like that.

But the application doesn't exist, so if mom doesn't have a computer, that's why they can come in, they can sit down, we'll give them the resources to help them apply right then and there.

There is no paper application, you can't mail it.

You have to do it online.

One more question.

Do you have any of those brochures that we can get that you have?

I do, I have some, so I will leave them with you guys.

So um, and I believe if uh we have posters as well, and so um if you guys need more or need any of them, just reach out to me.

So I left a little stack here.

Um and this one is pretty simple, just three steps on what moms can do.

There's a QR code that takes them right directly to the application.

Thank you for that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And they were putting those uh those brochures at City Hall today, too.

I'll just go with the data.

Yeah, you want to do that.

Okay, our next presentation is um we've had this come up, I think at a past council meeting uh when it was in progress.

It's the st the safe streets project update.

And I think Ronald Wrangle, our assistant city engineer is going to be doing the presentation.

Looks like our whole engineering staff is here.

Yeah, that's me.

Good evening, everyone.

Uh Ronald Rangel.

Um, we are today basically uh uh member of the team uh working on this uh safety action plan.

Um let me present first, you know, the members.

We have uh Lauren Warren from C2G, the consultant.

We have uh Mary Kirby for the C2G, the consultant.

We have Travis here, Charles Hair here, and Bet London too, and uh working on this.

Um sorry.

Uh okay.

Um we received this um we have this agenda, sorry, the the slide moving on, but the agenda we present in tonight uh the the project purpose and need uh the engagement summary, uh very important for us.

The Bichon goals, uh next steps.

And uh I know as uh we have very tight uh time frame from the presentation, but we will try to answer uh your question tonight.

It's not yeah, we can receive the question and we can handle the moment um um next week or in the near future we can reply or respond the the question, okay?

Just in case.

I want to be very quickly on this.

Um let me uh jump into the purpose of the plan.

Uh yeah, the city of Sagan obtain uh US Department of Transportation Safe Street and Road for all grant to basically um perform four big uh bullet points, for example, review and evaluate existing regional and local safety related policies, plans and guidelines.

Uh number two determined and recommend target safety goals develop a program of project and strategy targeted improvement safety, and number four prioritize project based on project uh related on funding, economic benefit analysis, equity, safety, and other relevant factor.

Um for the last year we can say, right?

Um working on this, I think I see faces here that working with us, you know, in October, for example, and a little uh community engagement in uh open house.

We received uh the mayor was uh and and that one that time and uh free marketplace as something like um we are very proud to present tonight to the citizens and the council member.

Um this point I passed the microphone to my friend Laud and Wall with the details.

Thanks.

All right.

Okay, so Ronald kind of led this off.

So why are we here?

Um we're here because there's a lot of fatalities on the roadways in Saginaw, and this plan is aimed to reduce serious and fatal injuries throughout the city.

So if you look at crashes from 2014 to 2023, almost 13,000 crashes occurred on just the roads within the city, resulting in 29 fatal crashes and 164 serious injury crashes that breaks down a little bit further into what we call VRU, which is uh vulnerable road users.

So those people walking and biking and um using transit, you know, getting between A and B.

And we also saw that uh six of the fatal crashes of those um were people that were um walking and biking.

Some other kind of crash data um that you may be interested in is what what like what is happening, why are serious and fatal injury crashes occurring.

Um within the city, 49% of the crashes are a result of young drivers, so those under the age of 24 and elderly drivers, those um of the age 65 plus.

650 crashes were attributed to distracted driving.

All of those cell phones, just not when we're driving.

262 crashes uh occurred with a bicycle or a pedestrian.

The majority of the crashes are occurring at intersections, um, be that uh signalized or unsignalized.

So that's just intersections in general.

23% of the crashes within the city were also related to alcohol or drug use, and then 23% occurred under dark conditions.

So what our team did is we took all of the crashes within the city over that 10-year period, and we plotted them on some heat maps.

And the map that you'll see, and sorry it's a little small, I hope it's in front of you.

Um, this is a this is a guideline of the federal grant that we have to meet.

So we basically plotted all of the crashes, and we've identified both high injury intersections and high um injury segments.

And you can kind of see those um denoted in the green segments and the blue dots.

One of the big things that working with the city, their goal uh moving forward was to really identify crashes that occurred on city-owned streets.

You do have a lot of MDOT or um county roads that are in the city as well, but they wanted to identify streets where they could make you know, kind of that quicker um impact.

And so these are those um segments and intersections.

From there, we also do a what we call a predictive analysis.

So not just where our crashes are occurring now, but based on everything we know, where could crashes occur in the future, and that's how we get to this high risk network.

If you kind of flip back and forth between the maps, they probably look similar.

Um, but this really covers, like I said, all of those places where we think crashes could occur.

Because we don't want to just fix the problem, we want to be proactive in solving um future crashes.

This accounts for 14% of the total road mileage within the city.

And I'm gonna turn it over to Anne Marie to talk about how we've engaged the city and your residents.

Thank you, Lauren.

Uh so we have had a pretty extensive engagement process uh since last year, as Ronald pointed out.

We started this process last February.

Um and we started out with a public engagement plan to really figure out how do we engage stakeholders and residents in this process to really make sure it's a um resident and stakeholder-driven plan.

So we put together a project website, and you can go on there now, you can see a summary of the draft plan recommendations itself, a summary of survey results on there, and just really an overview of the entire planning process.

We also had a couple of online surveys that we did to get feedback, and then we had an interactive mapping tool where from the first open house as well as online input, people could map out where they had concerns in the city related to transportation safety.

We did hold a joint open house with MDOT.

They are doing, we're actually CGG is actually working on the project.

They're working on the M13 Mini 1 corridor study.

So we did an open house with them.

It kind of fell within the safety action plan study area, so we thought it would be a great way to kind of cover both projects in one open house.

We held focus group meetings with numerous stakeholders in July.

And then we also did some outreach.

So it's really important to look at the data, look at best practices, and then also look at what was our the feedback from the public and stakeholders.

So the overall vision for the plan, and I'll just read this out loud to you.

The City of Saginaw envisions a future where every resident and visitor can travel safely while walking, biking, driving, or using public transit.

The City of Saginaw commits to building a connected and accessible transportation network that prioritizes transportation safety.

With the goal of moving towards zero traffic related deaths by 2050, we're investing in safer infrastructure, smarter policies, a community-driven solutions that ensure every journey in Saginaw begins and ends safely.

So it is definitely visionary.

But the goal is to really capture what people have said, what their concerns were, and then really look towards how can we be a safer transportation, safer transportation in the city for all users.

So people who are walking, biking, using transit, and using vehicles.

And then there are goals that fall under this vision.

So these goals are meant to kind of implement that overall vision that I just read out loud to you.

So we've kind of categorized them into four different goals.

So when you do see the draft plan, you will see a series of actions that fall under each one of these goals.

So Safer People is promoting that more responsible behavior.

So we're really looking at the educational component for safer drivers and then also just people who are biking and walking as well, but really promoting that safer behavior.

And then safer roads is looking at the design of roads, looking at maintenance, but also how can we upgrade that infrastructure to make it safer?

Safer speeds is primarily looking at enforcement, but also looking at the design of roads as well to make sure that there are safer travel speeds in the city of Saginaw.

That was definitely one of the things that we heard back from folks is that they're concerned about speeding, and then post-crash care.

So when there are crashes that do occur, making sure that that emergency response system they're all communicating with each other and they're more enhanced to make sure that there's proper medical care given and that communication is apparent between the emergency response system for the emergency responders, but also the police department.

So we do have policies in the plan that address that as well.

So now I want to turn it back over to Lauren, and she's gonna walk you through our project list and our process.

Okay.

Like Amory said, where can we make the changes that are going to move the needle?

And so we went through first a really broad project identification process.

So that takes into account, you know, the that high injury network that I showed you all in the beginning, all of the feedback that Amory went through from our stakeholders from our focus groups from the public.

And then what kind of is on Saginaw's?

I mean, you have a great engineering team, so what have they already identified?

What have your community groups already identified?

And what are those like big pie in the sky wish list items?

They were all like, we wish we could just fix this, but maybe we don't have enough money, and this could be a future opportunity for us to apply for a grant out of this.

So that was our kind of big project list.

I want to say that list was probably two, three hundred, you know, locations long.

Um, so the next the next fun part is prioritizing those.

So working with that safety committee that Anne Marie talked about, we talked about different ways that we could prioritize the projects and the locations.

First being context, where are the intersections and segments located?

So we looked at, like I said, is it on city owned infrastructure?

Can they can the city make the change without other stakeholders having to get the buy-in?

Is it near a school?

Um, we all know that school zones, we have especially young children walking who are not super familiar with you know the roadway and the context and speeding and those sort of things.

So we really want to protect our most vulnerable young road users.

Uh, are they near a hospital or a healthcare facility?

We have a lot of great healthcare facilities in the area, and so how do we allow people once they get there to get there safely and to get in to get the care they need?

Is that by a transit stop?

We um had a great representative from the transit agency and really talking about making those those great connections, um, but oftentimes, right, they're walking, they're crossing a road, and so how do we get people that need to make connections there safer?

And then, as kind of the two populated um centers, are they located in old town area or downtown area?

We really took what the public had to say to heart.

Um, so if it did come up in any sort of public context, it received another point.

Um, I think people we all we all want to hear that our concerns are being heard, and so that was carried forward.

And then this is a data-driven safety plan.

And so, was it located on that high injury network?

That's gonna help us receive more points in our um if when we move forward with applying for the grants.

Did it address vulnerable road users, those walkers, those bikers?

Um, and then kind of you know, more into the engineering and safety.

Does it apply a proven safety countermeasure?

And what that means is there's a lot of research in the engineering world that if you apply rumble strips, for example, on the side of the road, that's gonna reduce run-off the road crashes.

And so, are we applying proven countermeasures that have been known to move the needle?

Um specifically, we want to look at those fatal and serious injury crashes.

We know those are the ones that we really don't want people dying on our roadways.

And if we can just get an offender vendor where our car will take the heat, yeah, it sucks for our pocket bill, but it you know, it keeps our loved one alive.

And then does it reduce speed, address speeding?

We have a lot of really, really wide roads in the city, and so I'm looking at ways to reduce the speed.

And we know when we've reduced the speed on roadways that um the crashes become less severe and directly you know correlate to lesser um less deaths on the roadway.

So from that, I have kind of two slides.

One being recommended projects for the intersection.

This is all um also broken down online.

You can see the the um recommended countermeasures at each of these locations, but tonight we're just gonna present the locations to you.

I'm not gonna read them all off, um, but you can see a um wide variety of locations, both intersections, and then the next one are um the segments.

And um, when you do take a look at the project list online and in the um final plan, you will see a variety of countermeasures.

Um it's important to note that not every countermeasure will be implemented at every location.

These are countermeasures, you can kind of think of it as like a menu of options that the city can take to reduce those crashes, and one might be you know aroundabout, but then you wouldn't you know improve the signal.

So think about those in ways that they have a little more ability to be nimble based on budgets and moving forward and integrating um different countermeasures into projects that they already have funding for.

And then and um in that table of projects as well, we've really tried to identify when can this happen, right?

That's always the big question.

We've identified all these things.

When can this happen?

Uh so some near-term projects, like what could be implemented within the next couple of years, what maybe will take a little bit more time, more budget, more engineering, those sort of pieces, and then what is kind of that long-term, bigger visionary project that might take five years or more.

And then we've also given you some cost breakdowns based on engineering judgment, you know, what could be done kind of at a low cost all the way up to you know that higher cost.

And you'll see hopefully a mixture of those, like I said, so you can see kind of that menu of options that the city can recommend.

So where do we go from here?

Um like Anne Marie said, we are meeting with our safety committee on Thursday.

They have all seen the draft plan and had some time to stew on it.

Um we are meeting with you tonight to kind of give you the precursor because uh the team will be back on February 23rd to ask for your approval in the plan.

That is one um requirement of the federal grant is that we receive approval.

Um and that, like I said, we'll carry forward the next round of implementation dollars will be available hopefully around the April time frame, and we hope to meet that so that we can prepare a competitive application moving forward to hopefully receive some money, you know, back into um Saginaw to implement some of the things that we've identified.

Um that's where you see the the spring development of the grant.

Uh as part of the grant, this current grant for the planning, um, the team also, the city also needs to monitor kind of like where they're going with this, and I think that will really start to show your residents that the city is trying to make changes on the roadway to make them safer, and so we've given some metrics that they can um monitor crashes over the next um five years to see how we're moving the needle.

And then obviously we don't work in a bubble, so we need to work with all of those partner agencies, um, whether it be uh the county or m dot, you know, on these changes, and so it's been great that we've had both of those entities um on the safety committee, um kind of seeing these changes as we go.

That's a lot, it's a long plan.

Tried to give you, you know, the high level, those you know, step through um the key points on this.

We're definitely happy to answer um questions now, or like Ronald said, Um if you if there's you know more specific data questions, those sort of things, um, we're happy to take them, you know, through the through the avenues that need be, and we can uh answer those between now and the 23rd.

Thank you.

So I got a question.

So when we have resident and maybe you can help out with these.

Yeah, just want to get some lack tar whatever to patch the roads up in neighborhood.

Because we got like some I get to call, I don't know about nobody else about the big old holes in the street.

I mean, do we go to who do they go to?

Do they call street?

So that's what it's updated.

The community will know as well, not just me and the council, but they'll know if they've got a concern.

Maybe not asking for a new road.

We just ask into the hope.

Because who knows what about no more shocks is me.

Yeah, you can call the streets department.

They integrate all locations and depending on whether they'll go all and take care of a lot of them one day.

Okay.

And they do communicate for engineering to develop future projects.

I know because whenever we talk about it, some industries do we still hear about one on the one on our wish list.

We used to have a wish list.

And we have stopped and get to the wish list for some people, but even when you do that, I just say it.

Some citizens still me.

So it's like even if we fix your row, we gotta close your row.

But we you know we just so what do you want?

It's it could be it could be us in all of them.

Okay.

Yes.

We have 313 miles of road on our wish list.

I know.

Thank you.

Um, so I was just wondering the project, uh, the presentation that is uh was sent to council was a lot longer with um more.

I think there's like an action plan schedule, survey, interactive map, and it also goes through like one specific priority project.

Yeah, so there we knew that you guys were kind of beholden to a short time frame, so we want to be respectful of your time.

There are some miscellaneous slides at the back end.

Um if you have any questions on kind of what those surveys said, those are um placed at the back, and then um to the so that that's the engagement, then there's um definitely the the kind of visionary project of um Michigan.

Is that the one you're you're looking at?

Yeah, so um we took uh one of the priority location projects um and that will likely be the one of the projects that we are looking at um applying for the implementation dollars on, and so that is the the Michigan um corridor and the working with the team.

Um there's kind of a short term that the city could do with a lower dollar amount, um, which is just kind of re-striping um because the whole Michigan corridor is on that high injury network, as well as court in Michigan, and um I think everybody that came to our public meeting kept saying, we love the crosswalk at court and you know, at court in Michigan, and so um looking at better ways to improve you know kind of the connectivity in that area, um, especially because you have a lot of people, you know, parking and walking and crossing um a variety of roadways uh in that in that space.

Um so yeah, we did kind of some preliminary engineering drawings and cost estimating to kind of aid with that process.

I don't know if you guys want to say anything else about that, Ronald or that area because we have police park coming up.

We tried to connect everything.

We probably review our project, you know, uh previous project in our shell and um we made this um uh list our investigation for this uh safety action plan.

We tried to connect our ideas, you know, with with the with the with this uh um that analysis we're just doing from C2G that way.

We don't make something here but uh not connecting with another project in the area that we tried to keep the connection, the police park with Michigan, Bullside, East West, you know, that kind of thing, and go to the corresponding.

That is the reason uh the uh Lowering on Anne Maria for their team, you know, try to this another slide because it's something like a wee um uh problem to see in the future, right?

To see um implementing and connecting everything in that uh very core by hand initially having towards an open out how you know it's not thank you.

Hold on while we yeah, I just have a question, and I don't know if that's something maybe you can answer.

Um I just know like in Bay City Midland, they shut it down during the summer.

Is that something that we could do something here in SAG?

I mean, I don't know, it's just is it what does it take to see something like that done?

Yeah, that was definitely something that the safety committee had brought up, um, either temporary or even permanent road closures of short blocks to create kind of that community space, um, be that through planter boxes or kind of low all the way up to you know, reinvigorating a street by you know reconstruction, and so that was something that we definitely looked at.

Um one of the things that you'll see on the Michigan corridor is um something that like the city of Ann Arbor and some other cities have implemented where they have actually taken you know some of that parking space and um pushed that into some seating area for um businesses and restaurants in the area so that you can you know have a little bit more business coming um and enjoy you know the outside when it's nice in Michigan.

Yeah, just because I see it in Bay City and they do line dancing and all that, and I was like, that'd be something like for the younger generation, and that there's nothing to do or whatever, just something like that during a certain peak of time, of course.

We probably can't do it in the winter, but during the summer ice line dancing.

I just want to say too during COVID, we got that request uh to do that on a hundred block north and hundred blocks south of Hamilton.

Okay.

Um and we were kind of all on board to do it, but we had to check with the business owners to make sure they were all on board.

Um plus there's some issues in those two blocks because both of those two parking lots, so we have the big ramp.

Oh, yeah, and also the parking lot by the Hippoly building there, those both have driveways coming onto those sections of road that would have been closed.

So we would have had to build, I mean, for the ramp, we would not be able to reroll to get cars into that ramp.

But in the other lot, we would have had to build another driveway off of court street.

So there's some issues on there, but it's definitely something we looked at for sure.

So thank you.

Council Welling Week is then councilman.

Um you mentioned, of course, distracted driving being one of the high reasons.

Is any part of this plan like a lot of people don't even know now what's illegal to be on your phone while you're in driving?

Is that part of the plan to get that information?

Yeah, so um not just the projects, but there's a whole like Maria, I can't briefly touch on this, but um there's a list of um policies that we recommended back to the city um be looked at and changed as part of that.

And um, there's different education pieces, so distracted driving being one of them, uh getting you know some more driver's ed to our young folk, right?

That's um been something critical as that has been taking out been taken out of schools, right?

We have less young people learning the rules of the road um at the right time, getting um you know safe routes to school back into our school system where you're teaching kids from a really young age, you know, mom, you gotta push that button, you gotta cross at the crosswalk.

I know my kids hold me accountable, um, even though you know they're yay hi, you know, you tend to listen to your kids when they when they say what's up and you want to you know be a good role model for them.

So just some of those pieces, yes, those are all um documented in the plan as well.

Thank you.

Council mean young and then council long and ham.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um I was looking at the prioritization framework on where you're deciding to make the road safer, and when I look over this, you know, I see that um health care facilities, schools, but we have a high speed uh pretty dangerous corridor that I didn't see any mention of in the projects and uh that's his.

We had several bike and walking fatalities on that road, and the speed limit is I believe 40 or 45, and there's no sidewalk.

So a lot of people walk in the roadway.

You know, we had uh fatalities there, so I'm wondering where is that in your prior tourist priorization.

Which section has to be.

Yeah, which is hard.

If you want to take from Gallagher to out of drive, is no sidewalk, and you have a high residence, you have Vista Villa, you have all those apartments and people walk so S and the Albert are split and cover the ways.

Um that railroad track that's right there, yeah.

That's the end of the city's jurisdiction.

So everything east of there is is the road commission.

Um I think Hess on city's jurisdiction at least, the max speed is I think 30.

And then I believe it goes up to 40 when the east of that road track there, that's uh road commission.

So that would be why it's not included in the city.

That's why it's not included on this list, but it's in that really big list.

Isn't really on this project list, but we have identified it previously.

Okay, and that's why we did that project just this summer.

Um to reconstruct tests and actually converted from a one-way to two-way, we had a bike lane to try one lower speeds into make it safer for pedestrians and bicyclists as well.

So just so just to notify there, and we do have future projects to convert the rest of Hass to two-way to kind of help reduce those speeds as well, um, all the way to the bridge.

Okay, well, that's good information because that's right on the line where everything intersect, and I actually live known as Cumberland, so I know like across the street is beautiful.

I'm in the city.

Yeah, the abridged board is right there.

So we all have uh all the border streets.

There was agreements back in the early 1900s on which which organization would handle the maintenance of those roads, whether it was us or the road commission, or MOP for that matter.

So yeah, so we've taken all of those um locations we've identified on other jurisdictions and and passed them off to the proper people and just said, like, hey, your roadway has been identified as part of this plan.

Um, but in terms of that kind of final step of project identification and prioritizing, the city really wanted um roadways that they owned.

Okay.

Yeah.

Calsible.

Thank you.

Um, I have a couple uh just items to point out.

I can't read one of the priority project slides.

Uh it's the one that's made with street mix.

I just wanted to point that out.

I'd love to read the labels.

It says talks about existing typical section, but it looks like somebody did a took a screenshot, and so if I zoom in, I can't read the labels.

Um so just for future reference.

Um I also noticed that in the priority project improvement slides that uh were provided that point out the uh kind of the um I don't want to call it the Michigan Avenue project, but you I think you know what I'm talking about, which is the only thing that that that appears in this project with uh rendered slides.

Um I don't see any identifications for bus stop infrastructure, and I'm pretty sure that there are bus stops in that area, and I think it would be a real shame if we had you know project renderings, go through all the phases and then realize that there's a bus stop and we didn't make any infrastructure improvements uh or you know, work with our partners, not just to have you know a sign, but bench and infrastructure and things.

It's always sad to see people standing out in the rain with that.

Um and I think also to kind of to Councilman Young's point.

Um I have noticed with a lot of these project topics.

Obviously, I um I I entrust our engineering department to help, you know, talk about uh how to stack funding and projects and partners to make sure we're getting the most bang for our buck with these projects.

But I would like to identify that oftentimes at this table we see projects that are you know to completion or things that we funded where large swaths of city feel left out, um, whether that is you know in our Genesee Avenue corridor uh or places in the neighborhoods where people feel it's you know safety doesn't care whether you're traversing downtown to buy something or whether you're trying to you know cross the street to go to school.

Um so I think that something I would uh you know, obviously you presented in one item.

Um I'll be looking at all of those items and and seeing if I can you know type something up for um then over the next couple of days.

But I appreciate all the work done, but it is something that I noticed during the project prior to it was listed either downtown or old town, and that's that's something that I think we we put on a lot of our projects, and it ends up you know, we create uh two tiers of areas in the city, one with investment and then one with no investment.

And and that is something feedback that we I get a lot from from citizens, but I just want to I appreciate old town and downtown areas where we're saying focus because they have a higher percentage of pedestrians.

That's that's the key there.

So there are projects on the project identification list that are not in the old town area.

They just received like one of the things that we're gonna do.

That was just one of the factors.

It's a focus because of the high injury network is so focused on vulnerable road users, pedestrians, bicyclists, and you have larger density of those types of road users in the old town and downtown areas than you would in a in a local road subdivision.

That's all.

And I would encourage you to take a look at there's a broader section of the report that that goes directly into um safety countermeasures that could be uh installed anywhere throughout the city based on kind of that crash analysis that we did at the beginning, and those are some of the things that um the engineering staff are going to be implementing on your neighborhood street, right?

And so that those are some of the things that you know we're looking at.

We did have one focus group of just um neighborhood associations, which was a really interesting you know, focus group because everybody kind of came with you know what's in my backyard and what do I see?

I mean, everything from you know, we heard it tonight, shoveling your you know, your sidewalks to trimming your trees and you know, just some of those little things that go a long way for um for the safety.

So thank you very much.

Yeah.

Yes, got through it wrong.

On um Sheridan Street, uh in the area where they took the lights out.

Three three or four different lights have been taken out.

Have they been a study to find them out if there's been less accidents?

Crashes.

Crashes with that with the lights out, but it seemed to me like it would be more accidents.

Have you done the study?

We're reviewing it right now because we saw there's been uh there was a few accidents this past weekend at that intersection.

Crash is trying to crash.

Not an accident, it did happen.

So we we're going through and reviewing whenever we take a signal on or even off the uh signage at an intersection.

We always do uh three six month one year review to make sure um we didn't you know cause a problem, basically.

So we always go through those reviews.

Um and we're we're looking at Sheridan and Weber as well as sure and passenger and a gallery right now.

Y'all could call me I would tell you that wasn't a good idea.

All the data says it was you know, based on the same now.

Well, we have one of the accidents.

Get back with me.

Crashes.

I'd be looking forward, I'd be looking left important to the net report.

Absolutely.

Especially for summertime giving your cost when the summertime beauty is gonna be worse.

Because some I mean, sometimes, you know, we hate to say, but sometimes the crashes, whether you had a signal there, no signage or four-way stop, two-way stop.

Some of them are unavoidable.

Some of them are Groot could tell you too the accidents are on fire in the winter fire traffic control officers going from accident to accident.

Yeah, specifically work travel times in the winter after snow.

That did come up in one of our public meeting comments.

So it is on the radar for sure.

Any other questions?

Okay.

Well, thank you.

It like I said, if you do have anything else after taking a look deeper, um, we'd be happy to answer and clean up anything before this comes before you.

Um in February.

So thank you.

Thank you very much.

So thank you to the end.

And Madam Mayor to do some update.

Do we have any questions for our seating manager?

Yes, Council Longing.

Thank you.

I appreciated Tim the emphasis on the strategic planning session on the 23rd.

I believe you said, because I wrote it down, you said we'll be hearing presentations.

Is it all on that day we're trying to get them from MDOT, CMU, SVSU, Great Lakes Bay Health Center, and the County?

Yeah, all that day.

Okay.

And how are you looking at formatting those presentations?

Well, they're um the in the organizations can bring whoever they want from their teams to present.

So I think we're giving them about a half hour plus questions, so I think we have about 45 minutes on the agenda for each one.

Um the M dot one will be the consultants.

Okay.

The um CMU is going to be, and this is the well, actually, getting my order mixed up again.

MDOT is first, that's the consultants.

They're going to be probably virtual, but they'll have some staff there.

Um next is Saginaw County Health Department.

And that will be uh Chris Harrington again, I believe, and I don't know who else from her staff.

And then CMU, and that is going to be likely uh Kramer group, who is the owner reps, and then SVSU would be the next one, and that is going to be um uh Dr.

Marcia Dittmeyer, who's head of the health education, and John Kaczynski.

And then finally um Great Lake Spay Health, it'd be Dr.

Coughlin.

Uh and um she will likely bring people other people from her team.

But I invited them all to attend for the whole time if they want to.

So we'll see if if they they want to dedicate that time.

But I'm sure there will be, you know, we'll have breaks built in, so if you guys want to talk to them in between breaks, and I'm sure they'll have additional communication that they can do to you.

So we wanted to try to get actually I started with two organizations because I didn't know.

Well, I asked all of them, but I didn't think they would all say they wanted willing to present or would be available that day, but it turned out each one kept saying, Yeah, we can present.

We didn't initially include MDOT, and Phil reached out to them and um they said they wanted to present.

So it's great to have that interest in there, so it'll be a good at least a good starting point to get where they are at the project and what they have planned out there.

I'll ask one after.

Councilman Block.

I like to is Mr.

Shaheen coming.

I mean, what happened to him?

He may be part of one of the teams.

I want to do a um a uh opening of kind of what is the overall project concept.

So I asked initially I've asked Tom Miller to do that, uh, if he's gonna reach out to Dr.

Shaheen to see if he wants to do it or not.

I'm gonna say, I mean, we we uh put a lot of money in his hand.

I would hope that he would be there to say something.

Yeah, I named these Central Michigan.

So I'm just no, it was for Great Lakes Bay.

Yeah, I guess we'll money went to Great Lakes Bay.

Behavior.

We didn't go to Central Michigan.

And that's who Shaheen would run in that.

So talk much talk about you.

Yes, that's what I'm asking.

I was wondering why he's is he gonna be there.

So he came to show up when it's trying to pass out the money.

I was hoping that he would show up again, so it was actually so we didn't award funding.

We awarded funding to Great Lakes Bay Health.

It's they're the ones that are going to present.

So they can bring other people from their team if they would like.

We could do that.

Yes.

Appreciate it.

Um could we?

I I assume there's probably going to be a press release that goes out usually for strategic planning session and community engagement.

Uh, could we have some specific ways in the press release that the public can engage?

Obviously, there's going to be a three-minute commentary portion, but if we're anticipating the agenda, people participating in the work groups, like kind of just like, hey, here's the times that if you show up, you'll be able to participate with some of this stuff.

Yeah, we'll have the timeline.

Um, remember though, it's the um Saginaw County Health Department.

That's not our project.

So if they want to, however, they want to interact, it's up to them.

However, CMU wants to interact, it's up to them.

CMU is not going on city property, they're not getting any city money.

So we want to be uh a partner for them, but we don't want to dictate how they communicate, but there will be I'm sure an opportunity to do that.

So we'll make sure the times are in there, and I mean they're very open about their project, so I'm sure they'd be available to talk to people if they have questions.

I just meant for us for our portion.

Last time we did some round table work group stuff, and it was cool for the people who are there in the room to be able to participate in some of the discussions.

Yeah, I don't we won't have any updates on their trying to fit everything in for our project.

Our big project for that will be the infrastructure and the park project.

I don't think we want to try to fit that in on this meeting, but we can always do that as a session at a council meeting of the community uh committee of the whole or something like that too.

Thank you.

Maybe you have a question.

Um to do public club.

Okay.

On to the consent agenda.

The agenda has been available and has been available in City Hall and on the city.

That's a I need a motion to approve the consent agenda leave removed for exceptions.

So moved.

Second.

Do I have any exception?

Yes.

Number three.

Do I have any more exceptions?

So I vote.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, nay.

Madam Clerk.

Item number three is to approve the amendments to the fiscal year 2026 approved budget to recognize changes that have occurred during the December period.

That was Councilmember Hammond.

Thank you, Yolanda.

I just have a really quick question.

Um, I noticed in my uh last review of the agenda.

The first item was about increased, I think it was membership dues from Michigan Municipal League.

How much do we spend on Michigan Municipal League?

Uh that's allocated for in the budget every year.

So I think we think it's under managers.

Well, normally we allocate about 22 to 23,000 dollars in that line item.

But you have more than just one than Michigan Municipal League.

You have like three other four other uh dues that you're paying out of it, and what we're experiencing over the last couple years that we see in a steady increase to the dues costs.

So that's why we're increasing your dues at this point.

Okay.

But if you want a specific number, I can email that to the manager's office and get it to you by tomorrow.

I I appreciate that.

If I could get some specific numbers and just over like the past two or three years, I'd appreciate it with yeah.

I can tell you that I can actually tell you off the top of my head, just looking at the line item the other day that you are increasing each year, and it's normally it's going from like 19,000 to 22,000.

Oh you're expecting to increase even for next year.

Okay, yeah.

I I didn't I did not know what that ballpark amount was.

So um if you could please send that to me or I will make sure the manager's office will have it.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Yep.

With that, a motion to approve.

Support it will just support all those famous things.

Aye.

All those opposed, nay.

Madam Club.

Takes us to board commission and committee reports.

Is there any more commission?

Committee the same day.

Okay.

Well, I guess, yeah, I guess we can we can talk on the uh on the youth council.

Um we did have that meeting today.

Uh city manager did mention that it was uh appreciate the staff for for showing up and doing that and not making it boring.

The kids are very engaged.

I appreciate that.

Um answered some questions about uh general uh procedures, what the council does and how we we um do what we do, and it was a very good meeting.

Um looking forward to being designated and assigned given uh one of the one of the participants as a as a men mentee, so we all get to do that.

So that's coming up pretty soon.

Yeah, okay.

Anyone else, yes, sir?

Yeah, I was there too, and I uh I thought that we we probably will be picking up a uh mentee.

Yes.

I'm afraid I'm gonna be in Mentee when we get picked on the two, but they're extremely astute, some of the students will uh we we want some good students out of the uh the district that you guys know that we went out, madam clerk on two resolutions.

Our first on the agenda is approving the issuance of hospital revenue and revenue refunding bonds by the city of Saginaw Hospital Finance Authority for the benefit of Covenant Medical Center Incorporated.

I need a motion to adopt.

So moved.

Second.

And moved to second.

Any discussion.

All those opposite signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, nay.

Madam Clerk.

Our next resolution is authorizing sponsors of specified community events to use amplifying equipment for 2026.

So moved.

I need a motion to adopt.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Any discussion.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, nay.

Madam Clerk.

Third resolution is authorizing the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages during specified community events for 2026.

I need a motion to adopt.

So moved.

Second.

It's been moved or second.

Any discussion.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, nay.

Madam Clerk.

Our final resolution is placing a temporary moratorium on the development of data centers.

I need a motion to accept to adopt upside.

So moved.

Support.

It's been moved and support any discussion.

Yes.

Hi, thank you.

Um, I just wanted to briefly thank the staff for working on this, and I look forward to working with uh staff and the public over the six month period.

Uh what I liked about this uh specific piece was that the maturator moratorium has a six-month sunset provision essentially.

So whether we develop the policy first or six months goes by, it ends, so it lights a little bit of a fire under us to be able to have these discussions.

Um I know a lot of communities are talking about this now.

A couple things that I wanted to mention uh for public awareness.

Number one is the idea that the city of Saginaw had there's the has nothing to do with data centers and data centers would never come here for any reason.

Um and that is I I wish that were true.

Unfortunately, uh the city of Southfield has, I believe, six data centers now.

Um City of Lansing is looking at a data center currently they have public engagement for, which is a 24 megawatt facility on a half an acre.

And that's coming before their Board of Water and Light right now.

Um and one of the major discussions that I want to make sure that we have is looking to the future of data centers as a possibility for use in brown fields.

Uh right now, a lot of the legislation uh in a lot of these data centers are coming through on greenfield sites, which is agriculturally zoned.

However, I think it's gonna take about two seconds for people to realize that if there's some kind of environmental uh push for brown fields for cleanup sites, that that's gonna be something that the state legislature perhaps creates a fast track for.

I don't know, but I want to make sure that we are prepared to have that discussion here so that we can make sure that the proper regulations are in place, um, that we can have discussions with our partners, um with employers in the region, and with folks who are in just are are interested um in everything from maintaining neighborhood character to people interested in data facilities in this area.

So I wanted to thank everybody for their work so far.

Looking forward to continue to work on this and uh taking a forward thinking proactive step.

Any other questions?

Any electoral side call for the vote.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, nay.

Madam Clerk.

Takes you to miscellaneous business.

Do we have any motions or anything on the table?

Anyway, I need a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second.

All those opposed, thank you.