the-compact
Board Of Trustees Tuesday, February 24, 2026 · 91 min

Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees Meeting on February 23, 2026

Summary

The Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees meeting discussed various proposals, including a new vet clinic, liquor license for a Mediterranean restaurant, and a grocery store, as well as updates to the special assessment district policy and payment processing system.

  • Ross Animal Hospital proposed a new 6,153-square-foot facility at 880 and 970 West Long Lake Road.
  • Tamar Mediterranean restaurant sought special land use approval for a liquor license at Bloomfield Plaza.
  • Western Market presented plans for a new retail package outlet at 42931 Woodward Avenue.
  • The city council discussed updates to the special assessment district policy, including refunding excess funds to property owners.
  • A new payment platform was approved to improve resident experience and department efficiency.

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Topics

Transcript

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  1. Hey, welcome to the Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees meeting on Monday, February the 23rd. If we could all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, welcome everyone. We'll open it up with public comment. If you're here to comment on anything within the township or on the agenda tonight, you can step up to the podium, my right, your left, and we'll ask you to keep your comments to three minutes. Okay, it looks like there's no public comment. We'll close the public comment and consider consent agenda, item 2, A, B, and C. Any motions, changes, approvals, support, suggestions? I just want to pull out payroll and vouchers. Payroll and vouchers, okay, Mark, we'll take out item number C, and we'll move that to item number 8A. I will make a motion that we approve consent agenda, items A and B. Support. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes 7 to nothing. Thank you, Val. Item number 3 will hold a public hearing and site plan and special land use request for Ross Animal Hospital, 880 and 970 West Long Lake Road, presented by our Director of Planning and Building, Andrea Bibby. Welcome. Hi, good evening. Thank you very much. The first item on the agenda this evening is a site plan application. application for a new Ross Animal Hospital proposed at 880 and 970 West Long Lake Road. Highlighted here on your screen, you can see an area of where this property is located. I think we're very familiar where the current animal hospital is located off Long Lake, north and to the east of Telegraph Road. The property here is zoned B1, which is our local business district. Currently, you can see the existing conditions. There's two buildings. The building on the left was formerly occupied by Bob White Cleaners, and the current animal hospital is located on your right-hand side, highlighted towards the rear of the site. The proposal this evening is to demolish the existing buildings and then to develop a one-story commercial building to construct a new 6,153-square-foot Ross Animal Hospital facility located, again, as the site that I just reviewed.

  2. Item number 3 will hold a public hearing and site plan and special land use request for Ross Animal Hospital, 880 and 970 West Long Lake Road, presented by our Director of Planning and Building, Andrea Bibby. Welcome. Hi, good evening. Thank you very much. The first item on the agenda this evening is a site plan application. application for a new Ross Animal Hospital proposed at 880 and 970 West Long Lake Road. Highlighted here on your screen, you can see an area of where this property is located. I think we're very familiar where the current animal hospital is located off Long Lake, north and to the east of Telegraph Road. The property here is zoned B1, which is our local business district. Currently, you can see the existing conditions. There's two buildings. The building on the left was formerly occupied by Bob White Cleaners, and the current animal hospital is located on your right-hand side, highlighted towards the rear of the site. The proposal this evening is to demolish the existing buildings and then to develop a one-story commercial building to construct a new 6,153-square-foot Ross Animal Hospital facility located, again, as the site that I just reviewed. The site has access via both Long Lake Road, and I also want to note that they did obtain a cross-access easement agreement to solidify the existing access drive that does come into the site on the western side of the current Bob White that provides access from the Telegraph Road corridor. So I just want to note that there is an existing access that goes between the gas station. and the Bonaventure Shopping Center, which will allow access to the site as well. In terms of compliance with the provisions of our ordinance, I just want to note that both the circulation as well as the landscaping for the site was reviewed by our various consultants, noting that it does comply with the provisions of our ordinance. I do want to note that the applicant has indicated that they would like to operate within their existing building. That would remain. That was a question from one of the board members that throughout construction and care of their current patients and clientele, if you will, that they would continue to operate until the time that they would have to demolish that building. So I just wanted to point that out. I do want to note that they did receive,

  3. located, again, as the site that I just reviewed. The site has access via both Long Lake Road, and I also want to note that they did obtain a cross-access easement agreement to solidify the existing access drive that does come into the site on the western side of the current Bob White that provides access from the Telegraph Road corridor. So I just want to note that there is an existing access that goes between the gas station. and the Bonaventure Shopping Center, which will allow access to the site as well. In terms of compliance with the provisions of our ordinance, I just want to note that both the circulation as well as the landscaping for the site was reviewed by our various consultants, noting that it does comply with the provisions of our ordinance. I do want to note that the applicant has indicated that they would like to operate within their existing building. That would remain. That was a question from one of the board members that throughout construction and care of their current patients and clientele, if you will, that they would continue to operate until the time that they would have to demolish that building. So I just wanted to point that out. I do want to note that they did receive, they did have to go to the Zoning Board of Appeals. Our ordinance does require that there is a 200-foot setback to adjacent residential. They did seek a variance because if they did incorporate a 200-foot setback, they would essentially have to place the building within Long Lake Road. I do want to note that it was supported, the variance, and note that it is a substantial setback that they're actually going to be increasing in their current location to the new configuration. So with that, the applicant has provided a landscape plan showing a, they're also showing a dumpster enclosure in the rear of the existing building, moving that away from residential as well. And they are proposing to install a six-foot-high masonry. wall along the rear property line where it abuts residential. They have provided a landscape plan that does satisfy the requirements within our zoning ordinance. Additionally, they are going to be, as part of this proposal, they will be removing one of the existing curb cuts off Long Lake Road, which is an improvement, I think, in terms of traffic circulation in that area. And then in terms of the, again, I stated that they had the existing access off Telegraph

  4. I do want to note that they did receive, they did have to go to the Zoning Board of Appeals. Our ordinance does require that there is a 200-foot setback to adjacent residential. They did seek a variance because if they did incorporate a 200-foot setback, they would essentially have to place the building within Long Lake Road. I do want to note that it was supported, the variance, and note that it is a substantial setback that they're actually going to be increasing in their current location to the new configuration. So with that, the applicant has provided a landscape plan showing a, they're also showing a dumpster enclosure in the rear of the existing building, moving that away from residential as well. And they are proposing to install a six-foot-high masonry. wall along the rear property line where it abuts residential. They have provided a landscape plan that does satisfy the requirements within our zoning ordinance. Additionally, they are going to be, as part of this proposal, they will be removing one of the existing curb cuts off Long Lake Road, which is an improvement, I think, in terms of traffic circulation in that area. And then in terms of the, again, I stated that they had the existing access off Telegraph Road. I do want to note that the Fire Department has reviewed and noted in their January 7th memo that they have no concerns or comments, no objections from the Police Department. Engineering Environmental Services has provided a memo noting that they recommend approval of the site plan on the condition that the preliminary approval by the Road Commission of Oakland County and also for the new stormwater sewer connection in the Long Lake Road right of way. So permits would be required from that agency. Also, a letter dated November 17th from our landscape architect found that the landscape plan that you see before you, which includes some addition of some parking lot islands with some vegetation, some foundation plantings, as well as some additional trees that would be provided in accordance with our ordinance. A traffic study was approved and reviewed, or recommended, I should say, for approval, and a letter dated December 2nd, 2025. Here you can see the elephant. that are being provided you can see that there is a brick primarily a brick material that's being proposed and it does meet all the the dimensional standards for the building in terms of setbacks height and then also here is a

  5. And then in terms of the, again, I stated that they had the existing access off Telegraph Road. I do want to note that the Fire Department has reviewed and noted in their January 7th memo that they have no concerns or comments, no objections from the Police Department. Engineering Environmental Services has provided a memo noting that they recommend approval of the site plan on the condition that the preliminary approval by the Road Commission of Oakland County and also for the new stormwater sewer connection in the Long Lake Road right of way. So permits would be required from that agency. Also, a letter dated November 17th from our landscape architect found that the landscape plan that you see before you, which includes some addition of some parking lot islands with some vegetation, some foundation plantings, as well as some additional trees that would be provided in accordance with our ordinance. A traffic study was approved and reviewed, or recommended, I should say, for approval, and a letter dated December 2nd, 2025. Here you can see the elephant. that are being provided you can see that there is a brick primarily a brick material that's being proposed and it does meet all the the dimensional standards for the building in terms of setbacks height and then also here is a floor plan that provides the future layout of the new building I do want to note that the applicant did respond to some current concerns from the neighbors in the rear they were wanted to have the outdoor seating area that was being used by the employees of the veterinarian clinic to be removed from the rear yard that may be something that with the new building perhaps they may want to come back at a later date and do a more formalized outdoor area to provide that amenity to their clients but as earn their staff but currently we do not have that in the plan but mostly you can see that most of the activity has been has actually moved further to the south away from the residential and this is not an expansion of any services there is no overnight care the only overnight care that they would have would be if it was in case of emergency so they don't have any designated outdoor areas for the animals so historically the 200 foot setback was likely considered to be important due to maybe some outdoor activity of animals but in this instance they're going to continue operating under the same operation that they have been for many years the signage is just a rendering at this time

  6. standards for the building in terms of setbacks height and then also here is a floor plan that provides the future layout of the new building I do want to note that the applicant did respond to some current concerns from the neighbors in the rear they were wanted to have the outdoor seating area that was being used by the employees of the veterinarian clinic to be removed from the rear yard that may be something that with the new building perhaps they may want to come back at a later date and do a more formalized outdoor area to provide that amenity to their clients but as earn their staff but currently we do not have that in the plan but mostly you can see that most of the activity has been has actually moved further to the south away from the residential and this is not an expansion of any services there is no overnight care the only overnight care that they would have would be if it was in case of emergency so they don't have any designated outdoor areas for the animals so historically the 200 foot setback was likely considered to be important due to maybe some outdoor activity of animals but in this instance they're going to continue operating under the same operation that they have been for many years the signage is just a rendering at this time you would have to come back before the Design Review Board and possibly the ZBA for any additional signage in the future. And with that, we do have a representative on behalf of the Ross Animal to speak. If you have any questions, I can answer any questions. This did receive a favorable recommendation by the Design Review Board on January 7th. And then they just wanna note that if the board were to consider a motion this evening to approve this, we would ask that you consider the six standards that are provided within your staff report to comply with any of outstanding issues that were identified as part of the review. And again, I can answer any questions as it relates to that. Okay, thank you, Andrea. I think I'll open up for public hearing and then we'll come back to you and the developer, okay? Okay, so open up for public hearing. And if you're here to comment on this special land use for Ross Animal Hospital, now's your time to come up to the microphone and we'll ask you to keep it within three minutes. I don't see anybody coming up. We'll close the public hearing and invite any questions or comments from the board or comment from the developer. Andrea, I think it's a win-win for the neighbors and aesthetically, I mean, to move the building

  7. you would have to come back before the Design Review Board and possibly the ZBA for any additional signage in the future. And with that, we do have a representative on behalf of the Ross Animal to speak. If you have any questions, I can answer any questions. This did receive a favorable recommendation by the Design Review Board on January 7th. And then they just wanna note that if the board were to consider a motion this evening to approve this, we would ask that you consider the six standards that are provided within your staff report to comply with any of outstanding issues that were identified as part of the review. And again, I can answer any questions as it relates to that. Okay, thank you, Andrea. I think I'll open up for public hearing and then we'll come back to you and the developer, okay? Okay, so open up for public hearing. And if you're here to comment on this special land use for Ross Animal Hospital, now's your time to come up to the microphone and we'll ask you to keep it within three minutes. I don't see anybody coming up. We'll close the public hearing and invite any questions or comments from the board or comment from the developer. Andrea, I think it's a win-win for the neighbors and aesthetically, I mean, to move the building from the rear away from residents and it's beautiful new architecture. My brother was a vet for 40 years, so I'm, you know, kind of into vet clinics and rescues and things. So I think it's... a great plan and i think it'll look nice too so thank you any words from the developer not at this time i appreciate the staff and their professionalism and the way that the project has been presented um i'd just go on to further state that we're already in we're already working with uh road commission um we've already done a preliminary submittal with them they've given us their standards we have no issue addressing those we're happy to meet the concerns of the neighbor to the north and really just looking forward to improving the site and extending the service here and could you just introduce yourself please i'm sorry tim wood with no i can press engineers and the consultant engineer thank you thank you questions or just make a motion that we approve as presented to us this evening support support all in favor say aye aye any opposed pass 7-0 thank you and good luck item number four public hearing site plan and special land use request for tamar mediterranean 6608 telegraph road presented by andrea bibby welcome

  8. and aesthetically, I mean, to move the building from the rear away from residents and it's beautiful new architecture. My brother was a vet for 40 years, so I'm, you know, kind of into vet clinics and rescues and things. So I think it's... a great plan and i think it'll look nice too so thank you any words from the developer not at this time i appreciate the staff and their professionalism and the way that the project has been presented um i'd just go on to further state that we're already in we're already working with uh road commission um we've already done a preliminary submittal with them they've given us their standards we have no issue addressing those we're happy to meet the concerns of the neighbor to the north and really just looking forward to improving the site and extending the service here and could you just introduce yourself please i'm sorry tim wood with no i can press engineers and the consultant engineer thank you thank you questions or just make a motion that we approve as presented to us this evening support support all in favor say aye aye any opposed pass 7-0 thank you and good luck item number four public hearing site plan and special land use request for tamar mediterranean 6608 telegraph road presented by andrea bibby welcome back it was a great break thank you um so again another this is a very straightforward i think application before the uh town before the board this evening um anytime we have a restaurant that comes within the township and they're seeking the liquor license that qualifies as a special land use within our zoning ordinance in this instance we have an application we received on behalf of tamar mediterranean they are seeking approval I think we're all very familiar with where the Bloomfield Plaza is located, and this is one of those instances where they're looking to locate within the Bloomfield Plaza. Formally, it was Zao Jun that came before you a few years ago when they asked to reoccupy that space as well from a previous restaurant before that, in which they went through the same process and came before the township board to get approval for their liquor license. This is the existing conditions of the site plan. There's really not... Actually, this needs to be updated as I look at that and see that the former footprint of the theater is there, so that needs to be removed. However, this was the site plan that was provided us on behalf of the applicant, which shows the layout of this center, which we are all very familiar with, I'm sure. And then also this shows highlights on the screen, the other attendants within the building.

  9. special land use request for tamar mediterranean 6608 telegraph road presented by andrea bibby welcome back it was a great break thank you um so again another this is a very straightforward i think application before the uh town before the board this evening um anytime we have a restaurant that comes within the township and they're seeking the liquor license that qualifies as a special land use within our zoning ordinance in this instance we have an application we received on behalf of tamar mediterranean they are seeking approval I think we're all very familiar with where the Bloomfield Plaza is located, and this is one of those instances where they're looking to locate within the Bloomfield Plaza. Formally, it was Zao Jun that came before you a few years ago when they asked to reoccupy that space as well from a previous restaurant before that, in which they went through the same process and came before the township board to get approval for their liquor license. This is the existing conditions of the site plan. There's really not... Actually, this needs to be updated as I look at that and see that the former footprint of the theater is there, so that needs to be removed. However, this was the site plan that was provided us on behalf of the applicant, which shows the layout of this center, which we are all very familiar with, I'm sure. And then also this shows highlights on the screen, the other attendants within the building. And then really in terms of the floor plan they're doing, and the applicant is here to speak to it, they're really just doing some cosmetic upgrades in the interior and maybe some, I believe, some changes to some of their mechanicals, their internal mechanicals in the hood system. But essentially the interior floor plan and the layout is to remain the same. And here is, you can see where the Zao Jun sign is located. That is the tenant space that is looking to be occupied. I just want to note some areas of consideration. The proposed hours of operation for lunch are Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Sundays from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Just want to note, too, that in addition to the liquor license, anything that... operates beyond 9 p.m. is also considered a special land use. So we do look at those criteria as it relates to special land use. We do not see any negative impacts to traffic circulation, parking. There's not going to be any additional noise, sound, lighting related to this request as to impact their special land use request. So with that, I would just ask if there's any questions on behalf of the board. We do have the applicant here. I do would ask that you would consider under what conditions the township board would consider

  10. And then also this shows highlights on the screen, the other attendants within the building. And then really in terms of the floor plan they're doing, and the applicant is here to speak to it, they're really just doing some cosmetic upgrades in the interior and maybe some, I believe, some changes to some of their mechanicals, their internal mechanicals in the hood system. But essentially the interior floor plan and the layout is to remain the same. And here is, you can see where the Zao Jun sign is located. That is the tenant space that is looking to be occupied. I just want to note some areas of consideration. The proposed hours of operation for lunch are Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Sundays from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Just want to note, too, that in addition to the liquor license, anything that... operates beyond 9 p.m. is also considered a special land use. So we do look at those criteria as it relates to special land use. We do not see any negative impacts to traffic circulation, parking. There's not going to be any additional noise, sound, lighting related to this request as to impact their special land use request. So with that, I would just ask if there's any questions on behalf of the board. We do have the applicant here. I do would ask that you would consider under what conditions the township board would consider approval of a new restaurant possessing a Class C liquor license. Within your packet, you also do have it highlighted, the various criteria that we do review as it relates to liquor license. So that has been provided as well. Do want to note that the interior seating area shows a total of 182 seats. That floor plan has been found to be acceptable by the fire marshal. Also gives another overview in terms of the hours of operation. I just want to note that that center, the Bloomfield Plaza Shopping Center, does have an existing shared parking agreement. In this instance, we do not have to revisit that shared parking agreement because essentially this is a one-for-one tradeoff. We're going from a restaurant to a restaurant, so that shared parking agreement does still stand. So we do not have any issues related to that. It did receive a favorable recommendation on January 7th from the Design Review Board. And with that, we would ask that the township board consider under what conditions. And there are... three highlighted suggested conditions, or four, I apologize, that would be a consideration as part of this request, although I don't think that number four is actually accurate, compliance with the requirements of the Township Environmental Consultant. I apologize, I think that was an

  11. I do would ask that you would consider under what conditions the township board would consider approval of a new restaurant possessing a Class C liquor license. Within your packet, you also do have it highlighted, the various criteria that we do review as it relates to liquor license. So that has been provided as well. Do want to note that the interior seating area shows a total of 182 seats. That floor plan has been found to be acceptable by the fire marshal. Also gives another overview in terms of the hours of operation. I just want to note that that center, the Bloomfield Plaza Shopping Center, does have an existing shared parking agreement. In this instance, we do not have to revisit that shared parking agreement because essentially this is a one-for-one tradeoff. We're going from a restaurant to a restaurant, so that shared parking agreement does still stand. So we do not have any issues related to that. It did receive a favorable recommendation on January 7th from the Design Review Board. And with that, we would ask that the township board consider under what conditions. And there are... three highlighted suggested conditions, or four, I apologize, that would be a consideration as part of this request, although I don't think that number four is actually accurate, compliance with the requirements of the Township Environmental Consultant. I apologize, I think that was an additional request that was carried over, but that's not anything that needs to be considered here. The considerations would be compliance with the requirements of the Township's Department, compliance with the requirements of the Township's Landscape Architect, compliance with the requirements of the traffic engineer. And with that, we have the applicant here, he can answer any questions. Okay, thank you, Andrea. We'll open it up for a public hearing, and if you're here to speak about the Tamar Mediterranean Restaurant, now's your time to come up to the podium. You're going to have three minutes. Okay, no one's coming up, so we'll close the public hearing and open up for questions from the board, and if the owner, new owner, would like to come up and make any comments, introduce yourself. Yeah, he's the new owner. Yeah, come on up and introduce yourself and answer any questions that the trustees may have. Hi, my name is Ziyad Batah, and I'm the owner of Tamar Mediterranean. Thank you, Andrea, for the presentation. Thank you, gentlemen, for considering this place. You know, we would love to serve the community with a nice, new, Mediterranean, fusion cuisine. The name Tamar gets its name from, you know, that from...

  12. the requirements of the Township Environmental Consultant. I apologize, I think that was an additional request that was carried over, but that's not anything that needs to be considered here. The considerations would be compliance with the requirements of the Township's Department, compliance with the requirements of the Township's Landscape Architect, compliance with the requirements of the traffic engineer. And with that, we have the applicant here, he can answer any questions. Okay, thank you, Andrea. We'll open it up for a public hearing, and if you're here to speak about the Tamar Mediterranean Restaurant, now's your time to come up to the podium. You're going to have three minutes. Okay, no one's coming up, so we'll close the public hearing and open up for questions from the board, and if the owner, new owner, would like to come up and make any comments, introduce yourself. Yeah, he's the new owner. Yeah, come on up and introduce yourself and answer any questions that the trustees may have. Hi, my name is Ziyad Batah, and I'm the owner of Tamar Mediterranean. Thank you, Andrea, for the presentation. Thank you, gentlemen, for considering this place. You know, we would love to serve the community with a nice, new, Mediterranean, fusion cuisine. The name Tamar gets its name from, you know, that from... Like the restaurant gets its theme from the date palm, which means like the tamar in Hebrew means date palm. So that's going to be like kind of the theme of the restaurants where like, you know, palm dates, dates, like the interior, some palm leaves. I would love, I should have probably just sent you some rendering to show. We have, you know, it's going to be like diverse flavors from the Mediterranean, blending, and culinary traditions of Israel, Greece, North Africa, and Southern Europe, all into a nice modern dining experience. We have also, it's called like, you know, kitchen and bar. The bar complements this journey with craft cocktails, boutique wines, and spirits that capture the son and soul of the Mediterranean coast. We'd love to welcome everybody and meet you with the elegance in class. And I have a question. You're going to be open at 9 a.m. Is that for breakfast? You have a breakfast menu? So the 9 a.m. will be only Saturday and Sunday. Oh, okay. Thank you for the question. Yeah, yeah. Monday through Thursday is going to be 10 to 10. Saturday and Sunday will be open for like brunch, like a breakfast or brunch at 9 a.m.

  13. Like the restaurant gets its theme from the date palm, which means like the tamar in Hebrew means date palm. So that's going to be like kind of the theme of the restaurants where like, you know, palm dates, dates, like the interior, some palm leaves. I would love, I should have probably just sent you some rendering to show. We have, you know, it's going to be like diverse flavors from the Mediterranean, blending, and culinary traditions of Israel, Greece, North Africa, and Southern Europe, all into a nice modern dining experience. We have also, it's called like, you know, kitchen and bar. The bar complements this journey with craft cocktails, boutique wines, and spirits that capture the son and soul of the Mediterranean coast. We'd love to welcome everybody and meet you with the elegance in class. And I have a question. You're going to be open at 9 a.m. Is that for breakfast? You have a breakfast menu? So the 9 a.m. will be only Saturday and Sunday. Oh, okay. Thank you for the question. Yeah, yeah. Monday through Thursday is going to be 10 to 10. Saturday and Sunday will be open for like brunch, like a breakfast or brunch at 9 a.m. Okay. Coffees? Correct, of course, coffee and tea. What kind of coffee are you serving? So we're going to do like traditional American coffee and Turkish coffee. Turkish coffee, I'm sorry. Yes, going to be like, you know, on sand. so it's like you know fresh all the time you have pastries too my husband will ask if i don't ask correct yes we will have a fresh made um like other than the pace we're going to have our own pita bread that's done in-house and we're going to have like you know the canal first some fresh back lovers and when do you anticipate you might be ready to open um hopefully we have like about eight to ten weeks and we're waiting for the um also the liquor license from the state the transfer of the liquor license so uh so far is good we passed the investigative step with the state so hopefully you know eight to ten weeks well good luck to you thank you thank you i'd like to make a comment on when before we go for a motion uh will you be serving arak yes yeah um of course and uh it's on the menu will you be doing the ice cream yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah we'll have that too

  14. Saturday and Sunday will be open for like brunch, like a breakfast or brunch at 9 a.m. Okay. Coffees? Correct, of course, coffee and tea. What kind of coffee are you serving? So we're going to do like traditional American coffee and Turkish coffee. Turkish coffee, I'm sorry. Yes, going to be like, you know, on sand. so it's like you know fresh all the time you have pastries too my husband will ask if i don't ask correct yes we will have a fresh made um like other than the pace we're going to have our own pita bread that's done in-house and we're going to have like you know the canal first some fresh back lovers and when do you anticipate you might be ready to open um hopefully we have like about eight to ten weeks and we're waiting for the um also the liquor license from the state the transfer of the liquor license so uh so far is good we passed the investigative step with the state so hopefully you know eight to ten weeks well good luck to you thank you thank you i'd like to make a comment on when before we go for a motion uh will you be serving arak yes yeah um of course and uh it's on the menu will you be doing the ice cream yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah we'll have that too nice yeah we'll have uh but you have to wait mark until after easter right you're not eating sweets you know the the is okay yes exactly you can forgive that there's not there's not much carbs in it there is not much carbs in it okay any other questions i just want to make sure that we capture two items in the motion i want to make sure we caption capture all signage has to be reviewed by the design you Thank you. review board and I also want to capture that the local the completion of the local liquor license requirement to the township I'm gonna make sure those are captured I think that was taken from another report I apologize and get some typo because there was no environmental consultant review I was wondering if they were doing and if that would require with the open burners if that would require an environmental review I don't know it's on natural gas it's not on charcoal so so it's it's it's all part of the kitchen correct yes part of the kitchen correct just like you know it's not don't jump okay I'm fortunate I mean you know I'd love to have it on charcoal but it's a different flavor it's correct yeah my struggle is a different this like you know it's just like you know natural

  15. will you be doing the ice cream yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah we'll have that too nice yeah we'll have uh but you have to wait mark until after easter right you're not eating sweets you know the the is okay yes exactly you can forgive that there's not there's not much carbs in it there is not much carbs in it okay any other questions i just want to make sure that we capture two items in the motion i want to make sure we caption capture all signage has to be reviewed by the design you Thank you. review board and I also want to capture that the local the completion of the local liquor license requirement to the township I'm gonna make sure those are captured I think that was taken from another report I apologize and get some typo because there was no environmental consultant review I was wondering if they were doing and if that would require with the open burners if that would require an environmental review I don't know it's on natural gas it's not on charcoal so so it's it's it's all part of the kitchen correct yes part of the kitchen correct just like you know it's not don't jump okay I'm fortunate I mean you know I'd love to have it on charcoal but it's a different flavor it's correct yeah my struggle is a different this like you know it's just like you know natural gas yeah no I'd make a motion that we approve is presented with the additional conditions that Andrew just presented regarding liquor license approval by the state board and their support yes all in favor say aye aye any opposed passive 7-0 good luck I don't make sure that you let us know in every ribbon cutting item number five a site plan special land use request for Western Market 42931 Woodward Avenue presented by Andrea Bibby welcome back thank you Hannah this is actually another example of a reuse of an existing space. This one is located at the corner of Square Lake and Woodward on the southwest corner within the shopping center that currently houses Boyne Country Sports as well as there is a medical facility in there and Starbucks, or actually I'm sorry, I take that back, Starbucks moved out, my apologies. There's a Jimmy John's, I think we're familiar with the shopping center. The property is zoned B3. The request before you is for 42931

  16. yeah my struggle is a different this like you know it's just like you know natural gas yeah no I'd make a motion that we approve is presented with the additional conditions that Andrew just presented regarding liquor license approval by the state board and their support yes all in favor say aye aye any opposed passive 7-0 good luck I don't make sure that you let us know in every ribbon cutting item number five a site plan special land use request for Western Market 42931 Woodward Avenue presented by Andrea Bibby welcome back thank you Hannah this is actually another example of a reuse of an existing space. This one is located at the corner of Square Lake and Woodward on the southwest corner within the shopping center that currently houses Boyne Country Sports as well as there is a medical facility in there and Starbucks, or actually I'm sorry, I take that back, Starbucks moved out, my apologies. There's a Jimmy John's, I think we're familiar with the shopping center. The property is zoned B3. The request before you is for 42931 Woodward Avenue. So this area is specific to the former Rite Aid space. As many of you are aware, there was a period of a closure of many Rite Aid stores across the country. And the applicant that we have before us this evening is seeking to open, in the classification of our zoning ordinances, is actually considered a retail package outlet, which means that they will be seeking both an SDM and an SDD license to allow for the sale of beer and wine and spirits. With that, they are looking to do a complete gutting and remodel of the internal former space, which is approximately 13,880 square feet. The overall multi-tenant building is approximately 46,000 square feet. The exterior work, the proposal is for Western Market. The applicants are here this evening. They do currently have a very very, uh, very, uh, similar operation up the road on Woodward in Ferndale. So they do have experience and knowledge and very much promote the use of local products. So they are actually considered probably a little bit more of a local gourmet and grocer, if you will,

  17. familiar with the shopping center. The property is zoned B3. The request before you is for 42931 Woodward Avenue. So this area is specific to the former Rite Aid space. As many of you are aware, there was a period of a closure of many Rite Aid stores across the country. And the applicant that we have before us this evening is seeking to open, in the classification of our zoning ordinances, is actually considered a retail package outlet, which means that they will be seeking both an SDM and an SDD license to allow for the sale of beer and wine and spirits. With that, they are looking to do a complete gutting and remodel of the internal former space, which is approximately 13,880 square feet. The overall multi-tenant building is approximately 46,000 square feet. The exterior work, the proposal is for Western Market. The applicants are here this evening. They do currently have a very very, uh, very, uh, similar operation up the road on Woodward in Ferndale. So they do have experience and knowledge and very much promote the use of local products. So they are actually considered probably a little bit more of a local gourmet and grocer, if you will, which is a nice compliment, I think, overall to the shopping center. I did hear, and I guess I haven't confirmed it, but I did hear historically that maybe before Rite Aid that this was a grocer at one point. This is certainly a use that is permitted within the B3 classification. I do want to also point out that they are planning on doing some outdoor sales of food, which is very similar to what we have up the road at Nino Savagio's. They are planning on expanding some of the existing windows on the exterior of the building to kind of give more of an open feeling to the inside space. I do want to just point out that the applicant has changed around their signage a few times, so I just want to note that this is only right now for sort of a visual. They will be bringing their finalized signage package back to the design review board, and then if they want additional signage, they will be asking for that for the ZBA. But I just want to note that they will be seeking, again, those liquor licenses through the state as well as through our local process. I do want to note that at the Planning Commission there was a comment that was made regarding the storage of the outdoor carts, as many of you know.

  18. of a local gourmet and grocer, if you will, which is a nice compliment, I think, overall to the shopping center. I did hear, and I guess I haven't confirmed it, but I did hear historically that maybe before Rite Aid that this was a grocer at one point. This is certainly a use that is permitted within the B3 classification. I do want to also point out that they are planning on doing some outdoor sales of food, which is very similar to what we have up the road at Nino Savagio's. They are planning on expanding some of the existing windows on the exterior of the building to kind of give more of an open feeling to the inside space. I do want to just point out that the applicant has changed around their signage a few times, so I just want to note that this is only right now for sort of a visual. They will be bringing their finalized signage package back to the design review board, and then if they want additional signage, they will be asking for that for the ZBA. But I just want to note that they will be seeking, again, those liquor licenses through the state as well as through our local process. I do want to note that at the Planning Commission there was a comment that was made regarding the storage of the outdoor carts, as many of you know. or have frequented our, whether it's Kroger across the street or whether it's Trader Joe's, we like to keep our shopping carts contained and not visible. So what the applicant did do based on that, they did come back. They did provide a shopping cart storage area, which would be to the right of this rendering, although those are the green shopping carts that we will no longer see because they will be behind a nice brick masonry wall. And we did have them add that to the site plan, and then we did have that reviewed by our fire marshal to ensure that there's no impedances in terms of ingress and egress to the site. So I think that will add a nice kind of a shield or screening, if you will, for those type of, for those. So with that, we have received, it did go before the design review board. Here are some renderings of the interior of the space. So you can see it's going to be a very open concept, elevated design in the interior. And there is the existing condition. I will note that they did go before the zoning board at our most recent meeting. At that time, they requested a variance because they do, are providing in the rear of the shopping center in their tenant space,

  19. or have frequented our, whether it's Kroger across the street or whether it's Trader Joe's, we like to keep our shopping carts contained and not visible. So what the applicant did do based on that, they did come back. They did provide a shopping cart storage area, which would be to the right of this rendering, although those are the green shopping carts that we will no longer see because they will be behind a nice brick masonry wall. And we did have them add that to the site plan, and then we did have that reviewed by our fire marshal to ensure that there's no impedances in terms of ingress and egress to the site. So I think that will add a nice kind of a shield or screening, if you will, for those type of, for those. So with that, we have received, it did go before the design review board. Here are some renderings of the interior of the space. So you can see it's going to be a very open concept, elevated design in the interior. And there is the existing condition. I will note that they did go before the zoning board at our most recent meeting. At that time, they requested a variance because they do, are providing in the rear of the shopping center in their tenant space, they will be having deliveries that will occur. And so what they actually got a variance for is because of the way that we measure the required square footage for loading, they actually needed less. that we should come back into than 1st. the list of supposed to be at the same time, Oh, so I did come back to the theory table. Now this is a necessary convenient embaixo with the 별로 piece of the keyпер procrastination So they actually sought a variance and received a variance to have a slightly smaller loading area. We did have some members of the public that attended the Planning Commission meeting. I do know that the applicant has had some conversations with those neighbors. I don't see them here this evening, so I'm confident that that was a smooth conversation, and I know that the applicant is willing to work with the neighbors if they have any concerns. The building has sat vacant for a while, so now it's going to be a little bit more activity that's going to be occurring around there. I just want to note, too, that they will be keeping their dumpster and their garbage and their refuse is actually going to be maintained indoors, which I think actually was a good benefit, I think, to the adjacent neighbors to the rear. With that, I just want to note that their hours of operation are 8 to 8 during winter months, and then during the summer months, 8 to 9, so they're not open overly late. They actually don't extend beyond our hours of operation that are permitted within the B3. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. I do know that we have some very enthusiastic business owners here that are very proud to share their plan for the township,

  20. are providing in the rear of the shopping center in their tenant space, they will be having deliveries that will occur. And so what they actually got a variance for is because of the way that we measure the required square footage for loading, they actually needed less. that we should come back into than 1st. the list of supposed to be at the same time, Oh, so I did come back to the theory table. Now this is a necessary convenient embaixo with the 별로 piece of the keyпер procrastination So they actually sought a variance and received a variance to have a slightly smaller loading area. We did have some members of the public that attended the Planning Commission meeting. I do know that the applicant has had some conversations with those neighbors. I don't see them here this evening, so I'm confident that that was a smooth conversation, and I know that the applicant is willing to work with the neighbors if they have any concerns. The building has sat vacant for a while, so now it's going to be a little bit more activity that's going to be occurring around there. I just want to note, too, that they will be keeping their dumpster and their garbage and their refuse is actually going to be maintained indoors, which I think actually was a good benefit, I think, to the adjacent neighbors to the rear. With that, I just want to note that their hours of operation are 8 to 8 during winter months, and then during the summer months, 8 to 9, so they're not open overly late. They actually don't extend beyond our hours of operation that are permitted within the B3. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. I do know that we have some very enthusiastic business owners here that are very proud to share their plan for the township, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Andrea. At this time, we'll open up for a public hearing, and if you're here to comment on the request from Western Market, now's your time to come up to the podium, and we'll give you three minutes. And it looks like there'll be no public comments, so we'll close public comment, open up for questions from the board. I just wanted to comment. Thank you, first of all, for putting in the brick partition or whatever. wall for the carts certainly adds to the attractiveness and did a great job with the design of the building been to your market and Ferndale and you're certainly going to be a great addition to the township well thank you for that compliment I'm Steve Savagio from I have to look at the address again because I can't remember it four two nine three one Woodward Avenue which is going to be called nourished by Western Market and the reason for the the change of the sign is we're in the middle of rebranding and then the rebranding we came up with the name nourish because we wanted to really set the seed to the customer that our store really does nourish the community the people your mind all of it depends what you want so we really would like to be the provider to within the community of good food and a place where people come to don't have to travel a

  21. I do know that we have some very enthusiastic business owners here that are very proud to share their plan for the township, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Andrea. At this time, we'll open up for a public hearing, and if you're here to comment on the request from Western Market, now's your time to come up to the podium, and we'll give you three minutes. And it looks like there'll be no public comments, so we'll close public comment, open up for questions from the board. I just wanted to comment. Thank you, first of all, for putting in the brick partition or whatever. wall for the carts certainly adds to the attractiveness and did a great job with the design of the building been to your market and Ferndale and you're certainly going to be a great addition to the township well thank you for that compliment I'm Steve Savagio from I have to look at the address again because I can't remember it four two nine three one Woodward Avenue which is going to be called nourished by Western Market and the reason for the the change of the sign is we're in the middle of rebranding and then the rebranding we came up with the name nourish because we wanted to really set the seed to the customer that our store really does nourish the community the people your mind all of it depends what you want so we really would like to be the provider to within the community of good food and a place where people come to don't have to travel a mile and a half to buy a bottle of ketchup you can get it within our four or five aisles which we have in the middle our perimeter is made up of a really nice prepared food set we've hired some really high-end consultants to help us put that together we haven't in Ferndale now but this one will be better and we've been in business since 1983 so we know a thing or three about fresh foods that's our main platform but the grocery items are kind of convenience for our store as well as the beer wine and spirits is kind of what we're intention of providing to our customers here in Bloomfield Township no again What trustee Barnett said I think it's gonna be a great addition. It's great for that little area I'm looking forward to going there you try to address every concern from anybody at the ZBA meeting and met with the neighbors Which is again just shows your commitment to invest in the township and invest in those neighbors So I'm really excited by the way I just want to speak on that for a minute. So during the meeting they raised some concerns We asked if we could talk to them after they were so pleasant We exchanged numbers and contacts so that we can be in touch with them and our attention is fully to Be compliant to all their needs one of the things was open garbage

  22. community of good food and a place where people come to don't have to travel a mile and a half to buy a bottle of ketchup you can get it within our four or five aisles which we have in the middle our perimeter is made up of a really nice prepared food set we've hired some really high-end consultants to help us put that together we haven't in Ferndale now but this one will be better and we've been in business since 1983 so we know a thing or three about fresh foods that's our main platform but the grocery items are kind of convenience for our store as well as the beer wine and spirits is kind of what we're intention of providing to our customers here in Bloomfield Township no again What trustee Barnett said I think it's gonna be a great addition. It's great for that little area I'm looking forward to going there you try to address every concern from anybody at the ZBA meeting and met with the neighbors Which is again just shows your commitment to invest in the township and invest in those neighbors So I'm really excited by the way I just want to speak on that for a minute. So during the meeting they raised some concerns We asked if we could talk to them after they were so pleasant We exchanged numbers and contacts so that we can be in touch with them and our attention is fully to Be compliant to all their needs one of the things was open garbage Which we don't have and then lighting some of the lights that are there now. They're gonna be gone We're taking them off. They're shining into their backyards and we told for sure We'll have down lights on the building so you can see where you're at but not outward towards their yards That was a concern and they couldn't have been nicer to us after the meeting and their concerns were valid And again, it just shows that you're not only willing to invest in it You're willing to make sure that we invest in those neighbors those relationships That's kind of businesses we want in our township so I'm obviously very excited to put this forward and anybody else has anything I'd like to make a motion just please include the same conditions I put on the last one It would be township departments, and I want to say drb for signage and local liquor license approval Perfect, so I'd like to make a motion that we approve as submitted including design review board for your signage as well as liquor license as well as any other statutes Support all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed Thank you very much. I really appreciate it Good luck Congratulations I think we'll We're going to have some people down in our building department tomorrow looking for permits. Good. Item number six, consider revised special assessment district presented by our treasurer and professor, Michael Shostak. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. In your packet, we submitted a revised SAD policy.

  23. Be compliant to all their needs one of the things was open garbage Which we don't have and then lighting some of the lights that are there now. They're gonna be gone We're taking them off. They're shining into their backyards and we told for sure We'll have down lights on the building so you can see where you're at but not outward towards their yards That was a concern and they couldn't have been nicer to us after the meeting and their concerns were valid And again, it just shows that you're not only willing to invest in it You're willing to make sure that we invest in those neighbors those relationships That's kind of businesses we want in our township so I'm obviously very excited to put this forward and anybody else has anything I'd like to make a motion just please include the same conditions I put on the last one It would be township departments, and I want to say drb for signage and local liquor license approval Perfect, so I'd like to make a motion that we approve as submitted including design review board for your signage as well as liquor license as well as any other statutes Support all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed Thank you very much. I really appreciate it Good luck Congratulations I think we'll We're going to have some people down in our building department tomorrow looking for permits. Good. Item number six, consider revised special assessment district presented by our treasurer and professor, Michael Shostak. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. In your packet, we submitted a revised SAD policy. This policy is used to provide a roadmap and rules and requirements for setting up special assessment districts. I'll go through, I'll highlight some of the changes and then there's a couple things I want to change. But so basically this applies not just to road SADs, but also to water main and sanitary sewer SADs. So it outlines who would serve as the SAD representative, how the petition process works, the EOI, et cetera. All of that is unchanged from the previous or current policy. On page four, we also added in private roads. So we have roads that are under RCOC jurisdiction, which are most of our neighborhood roads. We do have some private roads that are owned by the homeowners on that street. quindi? Oke.

  24. In your packet, we submitted a revised SAD policy. This policy is used to provide a roadmap and rules and requirements for setting up special assessment districts. I'll go through, I'll highlight some of the changes and then there's a couple things I want to change. But so basically this applies not just to road SADs, but also to water main and sanitary sewer SADs. So it outlines who would serve as the SAD representative, how the petition process works, the EOI, et cetera. All of that is unchanged from the previous or current policy. On page four, we also added in private roads. So we have roads that are under RCOC jurisdiction, which are most of our neighborhood roads. We do have some private roads that are owned by the homeowners on that street. quindi? Oke. And there are a couple that have expressed interest in pursuing an SAD for road repavement. And so since it doesn't go through the RCOC, there is a slightly different procedure. And so here we have to use our engineering consultant to draw up the plans. And we want the SAD or the potential SAD to cover our costs of that engineering. So we would require that the SAD representative, on behalf of all of the owners, deposit what the proposal amount is from our engineering consultant to draw up the plans. Those plans are then used to come up with a cost estimate, which is then put on the official petition. So this may become kind of a hurdle for the private roads because we're asking them to put up money before they even go to petition. I don't know that it's necessarily a lot of money because these roads don't tend to be that big. But on page four, I'd like to change the wording to say proposal amount on deposit with the township instead of an escrow account. They're not going to set up an escrow account. So it will say proposal amount on deposit with the township for a private road.

  25. And there are a couple that have expressed interest in pursuing an SAD for road repavement. And so since it doesn't go through the RCOC, there is a slightly different procedure. And so here we have to use our engineering consultant to draw up the plans. And we want the SAD or the potential SAD to cover our costs of that engineering. So we would require that the SAD representative, on behalf of all of the owners, deposit what the proposal amount is from our engineering consultant to draw up the plans. Those plans are then used to come up with a cost estimate, which is then put on the official petition. So this may become kind of a hurdle for the private roads because we're asking them to put up money before they even go to petition. I don't know that it's necessarily a lot of money because these roads don't tend to be that big. But on page four, I'd like to change the wording to say proposal amount on deposit with the township instead of an escrow account. They're not going to set up an escrow account. So it will say proposal amount on deposit with the township for a private road. Then the petition process, all of that's the same as currently they have to circulate it. How the verification works, they need 50% or more total land area and property owners. owners, et cetera. Same thing would apply for the private roads than the public hearings. Again, nothing has changed. Public hearing necessity, public bidding, final assessment rule. If the actual costs come in 10% more, we have an additional hearing. If they come in by 15% or more, the project is automatically put on hold and the township board decides whether we want to require new petitions. None of that has changed and is all in compliance with Act 188, followed by the public hearing of the assessment role when we as the board set the actual assessment. Under financing, we made one change here to allow the bonding for either the water projects or the road projects, but also the ability to use internal funding to act as the financing source if we so choose. So we could pay for it with a loan out of

  26. So it will say proposal amount on deposit with the township for a private road. Then the petition process, all of that's the same as currently they have to circulate it. How the verification works, they need 50% or more total land area and property owners. owners, et cetera. Same thing would apply for the private roads than the public hearings. Again, nothing has changed. Public hearing necessity, public bidding, final assessment rule. If the actual costs come in 10% more, we have an additional hearing. If they come in by 15% or more, the project is automatically put on hold and the township board decides whether we want to require new petitions. None of that has changed and is all in compliance with Act 188, followed by the public hearing of the assessment role when we as the board set the actual assessment. Under financing, we made one change here to allow the bonding for either the water projects or the road projects, but also the ability to use internal funding to act as the financing source if we so choose. So we could pay for it with a loan out of water and sewer instead of bonding it or a loan out of road fund or general fund instead of bonding it. This presumably we'd only do on really small projects where selling bonds bonds just doesn't make sense. And so we have one coming up that may be coming up. We'll see that actually makes it through to us. And then the interest rates so it's the same thing if bonds are sold it's one percent above the interest rate on the bonds is what the sad pays in interest if we use township funds to finance it it's one percent above the yield on the five-year treasury note at the time of project commencement capped at six percent so again this is basically repaying us for the lost interest that we aren't getting by loaning them the money they pay us that interest instead but it's capped at six percent as per the uh law act 188 um the other chain another change um is the administrative fee it used to be tiered half a percent one percent one and a half percent depending on the size of the project

  27. to act as the financing source if we so choose. So we could pay for it with a loan out of water and sewer instead of bonding it or a loan out of road fund or general fund instead of bonding it. This presumably we'd only do on really small projects where selling bonds bonds just doesn't make sense. And so we have one coming up that may be coming up. We'll see that actually makes it through to us. And then the interest rates so it's the same thing if bonds are sold it's one percent above the interest rate on the bonds is what the sad pays in interest if we use township funds to finance it it's one percent above the yield on the five-year treasury note at the time of project commencement capped at six percent so again this is basically repaying us for the lost interest that we aren't getting by loaning them the money they pay us that interest instead but it's capped at six percent as per the uh law act 188 um the other chain another change um is the administrative fee it used to be tiered half a percent one percent one and a half percent depending on the size of the project we made it just flat one percent for all projects and that township fee would cover our in-house staff time for preparing the sad administering it reviewing the petitions etc getting it through the process project management during construction project management over the lifetime of the assessment so that's our accounting team and our treasury team collecting all of the special assessments and properly booking them and i do want to strike the last bullet here that says legal fees incurred by the township that should just be we'll keep that as directly billed to the sad and not part of the the sad and the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad fee um other than that um the biggest change is the addition of special assessment district refunds so as we've seen with these projects that we've done over the last couple of years um you know good news they've come in under budget um and they've come in under budget in such a way that i feel we need to refund that money to our residents because we don't we didn't need it

  28. tiered half a percent one percent one and a half percent depending on the size of the project we made it just flat one percent for all projects and that township fee would cover our in-house staff time for preparing the sad administering it reviewing the petitions etc getting it through the process project management during construction project management over the lifetime of the assessment so that's our accounting team and our treasury team collecting all of the special assessments and properly booking them and i do want to strike the last bullet here that says legal fees incurred by the township that should just be we'll keep that as directly billed to the sad and not part of the the sad and the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad and not part of the sad fee um other than that um the biggest change is the addition of special assessment district refunds so as we've seen with these projects that we've done over the last couple of years um you know good news they've come in under budget um and they've come in under budget in such a way that i feel we need to refund that money to our residents because we don't we didn't need it but there was no mechanism in the existing policy to provide for these refunds so section eight here on page nine refers to two different types of refunds the first is when the project is complete so after the construction is done and all of the costs and stuff have been worked out the financing costs if we sold bonds etc we know what the total costs of the project were if that results in a surplus of five hundred dollars or more per unit of benefit then the township will issue a refund to the property owners if they paid in full so we have some people who pay the assessment in full at the time that we start the sad we would send them a check for the refund that they paid in full for the people who are paying in annual installments we can't just refund the money they haven't paid us all yet so we will apply the refund as a credit towards future payments so if they let's say you know have a refund of five thousand dollars and they have a four thousand dollar assessment it'll cover one year of four thousand and one thousand towards the next year so it just it would just be kept and applied towards

  29. that i feel we need to refund that money to our residents because we don't we didn't need it but there was no mechanism in the existing policy to provide for these refunds so section eight here on page nine refers to two different types of refunds the first is when the project is complete so after the construction is done and all of the costs and stuff have been worked out the financing costs if we sold bonds etc we know what the total costs of the project were if that results in a surplus of five hundred dollars or more per unit of benefit then the township will issue a refund to the property owners if they paid in full so we have some people who pay the assessment in full at the time that we start the sad we would send them a check for the refund that they paid in full for the people who are paying in annual installments we can't just refund the money they haven't paid us all yet so we will apply the refund as a credit towards future payments so if they let's say you know have a refund of five thousand dollars and they have a four thousand dollar assessment it'll cover one year of four thousand and one thousand towards the next year so it just it would just be kept and applied towards future payments that is also um in line with um act 188 if the surplus is less than five hundred dollars per unit of benefit then that money will not be refunded it'll just be transferred over to the debt service fund which will be used to pay back the bonds and that's where we will collect all of the assessments then at the end of the district so after the 15 or 20 years whenever the sad is done the bonds are paid off all the assessments have been collected we will do another accounting and if we have um more than five percent of the original role uh in on whole on a deposit that we have in our in our debt service fund then according to act 188 we will refund that pro rata to the people who paid over installments um and i haven't heard this should occur within 180 days right once we get the final accounting we shouldn't be sitting on that money we should be refunding it if the if the surplus is less than five percent of the assessment then it can be

  30. one thousand towards the next year so it just it would just be kept and applied towards future payments that is also um in line with um act 188 if the surplus is less than five hundred dollars per unit of benefit then that money will not be refunded it'll just be transferred over to the debt service fund which will be used to pay back the bonds and that's where we will collect all of the assessments then at the end of the district so after the 15 or 20 years whenever the sad is done the bonds are paid off all the assessments have been collected we will do another accounting and if we have um more than five percent of the original role uh in on whole on a deposit that we have in our in our debt service fund then according to act 188 we will refund that pro rata to the people who paid over installments um and i haven't heard this should occur within 180 days right once we get the final accounting we shouldn't be sitting on that money we should be refunding it if the if the surplus is less than five percent of the assessment then it can be transferred either into the water and sewer fund if it's a water project or into the road improvement fund the road fund if it's a road project um and again part of that is that if the refunds become so small then it's more cumbersome um and complicated to actually go through the process of refunding them than the amount of money that we're talking about um so that is so that is it so we're hoping that with your approval tonight we will have now a mechanism in place uh to issue refunds and i would expect uh at some point uh in the next couple of meetings i'll be coming back with some requested refunds so take any questions so i have a question what have we done prior to this when you had a reasonable amount of excess um prior to the last few there was never that much of an excess and it was just transferred into the debt service fund and so it would be held for 15 years and then at the end of the 15 years all of that extra money gets refunded the problem is it gets refunded to the people who own the properties in 15 years

  31. transferred either into the water and sewer fund if it's a water project or into the road improvement fund the road fund if it's a road project um and again part of that is that if the refunds become so small then it's more cumbersome um and complicated to actually go through the process of refunding them than the amount of money that we're talking about um so that is so that is it so we're hoping that with your approval tonight we will have now a mechanism in place uh to issue refunds and i would expect uh at some point uh in the next couple of meetings i'll be coming back with some requested refunds so take any questions so i have a question what have we done prior to this when you had a reasonable amount of excess um prior to the last few there was never that much of an excess and it was just transferred into the debt service fund and so it would be held for 15 years and then at the end of the 15 years all of that extra money gets refunded the problem is it gets refunded to the people who own the properties in 15 years not necessarily to the people who paid for it today so um i think we need to um refund the money at the end of the project if there's money to be refunded to the people today as quickly as possible so we get as many of the people who paid it to get to get the refund refunded or credited refunded or credited depending on the situation it seems like maybe the threshold should be less than 500 for some people that that's a significant thing to say hey we've got five hundred dollars we can give you back because I've done the door-to-door on the road assessments and I know because like the last SAT we just approved was 199 houses that's almost a hundred thousand dollars that's not an insignificant amount and to keep that and just put that in another fund and act like we're done well the money is kept in the debt service fund and then it will be refunded in 15 or 20 years right I get that so what do you think is a more appropriate number 250 or 300 okay whatever the board decides I mean again that number was chosen based on what is administratively you know worth it

  32. money gets refunded the problem is it gets refunded to the people who own the properties in 15 years not necessarily to the people who paid for it today so um i think we need to um refund the money at the end of the project if there's money to be refunded to the people today as quickly as possible so we get as many of the people who paid it to get to get the refund refunded or credited refunded or credited depending on the situation it seems like maybe the threshold should be less than 500 for some people that that's a significant thing to say hey we've got five hundred dollars we can give you back because I've done the door-to-door on the road assessments and I know because like the last SAT we just approved was 199 houses that's almost a hundred thousand dollars that's not an insignificant amount and to keep that and just put that in another fund and act like we're done well the money is kept in the debt service fund and then it will be refunded in 15 or 20 years right I get that so what do you think is a more appropriate number 250 or 300 okay whatever the board decides I mean again that number was chosen based on what is administratively you know worth it for our staff to be able to prepare all that and issue the checks and and do the credits and I mean again can it be done yeah I mean we could do it if the refund is one dollar but it's just what you know where do you draw the line as to what is you know worth it to go through the process so if the board tells me no it needs to be 250 So are you saying if it is less than $500, it's costing in staff time to prepare everything and their use administratively, so it's almost not worth it? Well, again, it's not like we're keeping that money. I understand. Right? It's just going into the debt service fund, and then it'll be refunded at the end when we make sure that all the bonds have been paid off, et cetera. So in terms of staff time and, you know, postage for mailing checks, I mean, things like that, like, you know, hard to quantify. So, you know, I'll defer to whatever this board feels is a fair number. If you want to see refunds below that, then, you know, I'll go with whatever this board decides.

  33. mean again that number was chosen based on what is administratively you know worth it for our staff to be able to prepare all that and issue the checks and and do the credits and I mean again can it be done yeah I mean we could do it if the refund is one dollar but it's just what you know where do you draw the line as to what is you know worth it to go through the process so if the board tells me no it needs to be 250 So are you saying if it is less than $500, it's costing in staff time to prepare everything and their use administratively, so it's almost not worth it? Well, again, it's not like we're keeping that money. I understand. Right? It's just going into the debt service fund, and then it'll be refunded at the end when we make sure that all the bonds have been paid off, et cetera. So in terms of staff time and, you know, postage for mailing checks, I mean, things like that, like, you know, hard to quantify. So, you know, I'll defer to whatever this board feels is a fair number. If you want to see refunds below that, then, you know, I'll go with whatever this board decides. Well, and I do like that we're funding it sooner than later because in 15 years, some of those houses will have been sold. You might not know where to find the people that actually paid it, and then it gets complicated with the late payments. By law, we have to refund it to the owner of record at the time. Okay. So we're not going to be trying to find people who moved, you know. Right. It's whoever owns the house in 15 years gets the refund. So if you buy that house at year 14 and then you get a $5,000 check the next year, even though you didn't pay, that's the way it goes. Well, we're capping it. Right now you're capping it at $500. Well, $500 for the initial refund at the end of the month. project but at the end of the 15 year life it it would get refunded at that point based on how much money is there and these these these SATs because of the 1% over the bond rate like we're you know we're finding that they have money to be refunded let me clarify that then just to make sure I understand it so let's say the assessment and we'll just take like the red and blue section that was what forty thousand dollars a household and as you get the numbers everything's put together and let's say each one of those houses right now could

  34. If you want to see refunds below that, then, you know, I'll go with whatever this board decides. Well, and I do like that we're funding it sooner than later because in 15 years, some of those houses will have been sold. You might not know where to find the people that actually paid it, and then it gets complicated with the late payments. By law, we have to refund it to the owner of record at the time. Okay. So we're not going to be trying to find people who moved, you know. Right. It's whoever owns the house in 15 years gets the refund. So if you buy that house at year 14 and then you get a $5,000 check the next year, even though you didn't pay, that's the way it goes. Well, we're capping it. Right now you're capping it at $500. Well, $500 for the initial refund at the end of the month. project but at the end of the 15 year life it it would get refunded at that point based on how much money is there and these these these SATs because of the 1% over the bond rate like we're you know we're finding that they have money to be refunded let me clarify that then just to make sure I understand it so let's say the assessment and we'll just take like the red and blue section that was what forty thousand dollars a household and as you get the numbers everything's put together and let's say each one of those houses right now could qualify for a thirty five hundred dollar I'm just pulling a number out of the air credit or refund right we're gonna give that back to them now but there's still gonna be some money left over but we well there won't be any money left over from this portion of the project the money that will accumulate in the debt service fund will be the one percent over the bond rate and the reason that we do that is because by law we have to accept prepayments at any time so if we bond for something and we're on the hook now to pay it back with interest over 15 years and somebody prepays the next day so that they're not paying that interest we're still on the hook for that interest so that's why we charge the one percent to make sure that there's enough cash in the fund that if people prepay we can still meet the obligation to pay the bonds At the end of the 15 years when the bonds are paid off, at that point, whatever's left over gets refunded to the owners of record at that time. Because primarily it's because something was paid off and we've had to still pay that interest.

  35. everything's put together and let's say each one of those houses right now could qualify for a thirty five hundred dollar I'm just pulling a number out of the air credit or refund right we're gonna give that back to them now but there's still gonna be some money left over but we well there won't be any money left over from this portion of the project the money that will accumulate in the debt service fund will be the one percent over the bond rate and the reason that we do that is because by law we have to accept prepayments at any time so if we bond for something and we're on the hook now to pay it back with interest over 15 years and somebody prepays the next day so that they're not paying that interest we're still on the hook for that interest so that's why we charge the one percent to make sure that there's enough cash in the fund that if people prepay we can still meet the obligation to pay the bonds At the end of the 15 years when the bonds are paid off, at that point, whatever's left over gets refunded to the owners of record at that time. Because primarily it's because something was paid off and we've had to still pay that interest. Correct. But unless it was over $500, even at the end of the 15 years, you wouldn't get it. No, at the end of the 15 years, Act 188 says that it's 5%. So if it's under 5% of the initial assessment, so using the red and blue example, if it's $40,000, 5% of that is, what, $200? $2,000. $2,000? $2,000, sorry. That's okay. Late. $2,000, right, so it's $2,000. So if we calculated it and the refund would be $1,999, technically we would put that into either the road fund or the water and sewer fund, depending on what type of SAD it was. Now, as a board, we can come in and say, well, no, if it's that, we should just refund it. I mean, we can change that number. It just means that if it's below 5%, we are allowed to keep it and not make the refunds. But we don't have to do that. Well, but so 5% of the $40,000 assessment is about $2,000. Right. And then say there's like, I think the last one had 199 houses. That's 300.

  36. Correct. But unless it was over $500, even at the end of the 15 years, you wouldn't get it. No, at the end of the 15 years, Act 188 says that it's 5%. So if it's under 5% of the initial assessment, so using the red and blue example, if it's $40,000, 5% of that is, what, $200? $2,000. $2,000? $2,000, sorry. That's okay. Late. $2,000, right, so it's $2,000. So if we calculated it and the refund would be $1,999, technically we would put that into either the road fund or the water and sewer fund, depending on what type of SAD it was. Now, as a board, we can come in and say, well, no, if it's that, we should just refund it. I mean, we can change that number. It just means that if it's below 5%, we are allowed to keep it and not make the refunds. But we don't have to do that. Well, but so 5% of the $40,000 assessment is about $2,000. Right. And then say there's like, I think the last one had 199 houses. That's 300. $98,000, that's a lot of money. That would be sitting in the debt service fund, yes. So, but at the end, that would just get divvied up? By the owners who paid over time. Just all the way down to zero, while there were small administrative fees. Well, if it's over 5%, then yes, we would pay it all the way down to zero. The township would not keep any money. It would be refunded in full to the property owners. But if it was 4%, it would be? If it was 4%, then by law, we could keep the money, again, to be used either towards maintenance of the water system or maintenance of our road system. But 4% would be like $275,000 if I'm doing my mental math right? Yeah. That's a significant. Understood. And we, as a board, can decide to make refunds if it's less than 5%, but we are not obligated to. So I suggest that for the policy, we leave it at that 5% number and that as these districts, we're going to start to see some of those districts come closed from, I mean, I mean, Neil, when did we start doing SADs? Like 2011, 2012? Right. So theoretically, there could be a couple districts this year or next year that are going to be the, that are going to hit their 15 years and are going to finish.

  37. $98,000, that's a lot of money. That would be sitting in the debt service fund, yes. So, but at the end, that would just get divvied up? By the owners who paid over time. Just all the way down to zero, while there were small administrative fees. Well, if it's over 5%, then yes, we would pay it all the way down to zero. The township would not keep any money. It would be refunded in full to the property owners. But if it was 4%, it would be? If it was 4%, then by law, we could keep the money, again, to be used either towards maintenance of the water system or maintenance of our road system. But 4% would be like $275,000 if I'm doing my mental math right? Yeah. That's a significant. Understood. And we, as a board, can decide to make refunds if it's less than 5%, but we are not obligated to. So I suggest that for the policy, we leave it at that 5% number and that as these districts, we're going to start to see some of those districts come closed from, I mean, I mean, Neil, when did we start doing SADs? Like 2011, 2012? Right. So theoretically, there could be a couple districts this year or next year that are going to be the, that are going to hit their 15 years and are going to finish. And we'll do the accounting, and at that point, I'll bring it to the board and say, okay, here was the accounting. If it's less than 5%, we can keep it or we can refund it. If it's more than 5%. percent we have to refund it just out of curiosity since i was part of an sad but before we went through the county did they what did they do at the county if they don't know do they have to they have to follow act 188 or something presumably they have to fund under act 188 so if they funded it under act 188 then technically if it was five percent or more they had to refund it but if it was less than five percent they didn't okay right quick question on the administrative fees yes the administrative fees so you said that covers a lot of our internal expenses cover 100 of them or is there anything left over that goes into goes into funds i mean it's it's discretionary i think that the fee was added what three four years ago yeah um um and before that we were just charging direct expenses to the sads the legal fees consulting whatever the engineering like that was all charged but we were not taking anything for our internal

  38. So theoretically, there could be a couple districts this year or next year that are going to be the, that are going to hit their 15 years and are going to finish. And we'll do the accounting, and at that point, I'll bring it to the board and say, okay, here was the accounting. If it's less than 5%, we can keep it or we can refund it. If it's more than 5%. percent we have to refund it just out of curiosity since i was part of an sad but before we went through the county did they what did they do at the county if they don't know do they have to they have to follow act 188 or something presumably they have to fund under act 188 so if they funded it under act 188 then technically if it was five percent or more they had to refund it but if it was less than five percent they didn't okay right quick question on the administrative fees yes the administrative fees so you said that covers a lot of our internal expenses cover 100 of them or is there anything left over that goes into goes into funds i mean it's it's discretionary i think that the fee was added what three four years ago yeah um um and before that we were just charging direct expenses to the sads the legal fees consulting whatever the engineering like that was all charged but we were not taking anything for our internal staff time and our management of the district for 15 years right my office is collecting all the assessments accounting is you know accounting for it um and so it was decided whatever it was four five years ago to institute this fee um and the fee was tiered so the smaller districts paid less the bigger districts paid more but it was never meant to be one for one it was like We're going to charge a fee of 1%, 1.5%, and that's just going to cover our time. And so, you know, because, again, we don't track our time. We don't know how much time Jan and Darren and everybody spends on this stuff. You know, if the board doesn't like that, we can pull it out and just say, we're not going to charge an admin fee. We're just going to take the direct expenses and charge them to the SAD, and we're going to, our staff time is internal. It costs us nothing. We're paying salaries anyway, so we could do that, but I left it in there because that was what was decided four or five years ago. I understand. I've always had a problem with the administrative fee, only because, first of all,

  39. whatever the engineering like that was all charged but we were not taking anything for our internal staff time and our management of the district for 15 years right my office is collecting all the assessments accounting is you know accounting for it um and so it was decided whatever it was four five years ago to institute this fee um and the fee was tiered so the smaller districts paid less the bigger districts paid more but it was never meant to be one for one it was like We're going to charge a fee of 1%, 1.5%, and that's just going to cover our time. And so, you know, because, again, we don't track our time. We don't know how much time Jan and Darren and everybody spends on this stuff. You know, if the board doesn't like that, we can pull it out and just say, we're not going to charge an admin fee. We're just going to take the direct expenses and charge them to the SAD, and we're going to, our staff time is internal. It costs us nothing. We're paying salaries anyway, so we could do that, but I left it in there because that was what was decided four or five years ago. I understand. I've always had a problem with the administrative fee, only because, first of all, with these SADs, you know, they're extremely expensive. People are paying a lot of money, plus, you know, of course, the 1% on top. So it just seems like it's, I understand we want to cover costs of our staff, but at the same time, it just seems like it's a real add-on, which is unnecessary and almost insulting, when people are paying $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 in an SAD, and then we throw this on top of it. Yeah, but, I mean, if you take an $8 million SAD, like one of the villages, and that's $80,000 split among 200, you know, homeowners, I mean, what is it, $40? I mean, it's not, you know, it's not a big number, but. But they see it, and it's, it doesn't look good. I hear you, I mean, if a guy. if the board feels that we shouldn't charge it then we can take it out so i do understand where neil's coming from in terms of it seems like just another fee but we have had to make some investments because of this ads we brought on mark messler right as a consultant so that's additional costs that we took on to help streamline these processes and make it um easier for our residents and hopefully be able to do them internal to help us um not always rely on the county and then uh jen and darren spent a fair amount of their time not just doing assessing but doing special

  40. I've always had a problem with the administrative fee, only because, first of all, with these SADs, you know, they're extremely expensive. People are paying a lot of money, plus, you know, of course, the 1% on top. So it just seems like it's, I understand we want to cover costs of our staff, but at the same time, it just seems like it's a real add-on, which is unnecessary and almost insulting, when people are paying $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 in an SAD, and then we throw this on top of it. Yeah, but, I mean, if you take an $8 million SAD, like one of the villages, and that's $80,000 split among 200, you know, homeowners, I mean, what is it, $40? I mean, it's not, you know, it's not a big number, but. But they see it, and it's, it doesn't look good. I hear you, I mean, if a guy. if the board feels that we shouldn't charge it then we can take it out so i do understand where neil's coming from in terms of it seems like just another fee but we have had to make some investments because of this ads we brought on mark messler right as a consultant so that's additional costs that we took on to help streamline these processes and make it um easier for our residents and hopefully be able to do them internal to help us um not always rely on the county and then uh jen and darren spent a fair amount of their time not just doing assessing but doing special assessment districts so while we were paying the salaries anyways we are having them do um work that are tied more to special assessment districts than it is just normal assessing so there has been increased costs to the township and to the residents because of this so i think we need to recoup some of those costs in some way whether it's one percent i'm not but maybe we go to half a person right and that's what i was going to say if we're going to keep it go back maybe go to a half half a percent across the board and not have it uh you know great creation on that just keep it a half percent so my only concern is the way the policy reads and the way it reads today is that the fee is meant to cover project management during construction which to me means that mark mesler's fees would be paid for by the township and the admin is meant to cover that if we lower it down to half a percent there's a chance that you know we he he may bill us more than that half a person especially on the smaller sads

  41. then uh jen and darren spent a fair amount of their time not just doing assessing but doing special assessment districts so while we were paying the salaries anyways we are having them do um work that are tied more to special assessment districts than it is just normal assessing so there has been increased costs to the township and to the residents because of this so i think we need to recoup some of those costs in some way whether it's one percent i'm not but maybe we go to half a person right and that's what i was going to say if we're going to keep it go back maybe go to a half half a percent across the board and not have it uh you know great creation on that just keep it a half percent so my only concern is the way the policy reads and the way it reads today is that the fee is meant to cover project management during construction which to me means that mark mesler's fees would be paid for by the township and the admin is meant to cover that if we lower it down to half a percent there's a chance that you know we he he may bill us more than that half a person especially on the smaller sads that that's my concern so if you want to say that all of the direct costs including external project management get billed and then we charge a half a percent to cover for the in-house staff time then i'd be okay with that that's fine that's fine with me okay so are we consensus on that half percent half percent plus plus the plus the direct costs being paid for right okay that way we it's more justified it's more and we continue to try to reduce those costs and that burden on the residents right because to take the fee completely away residents that have nothing to do with having roads done are supplementing those other residents so this is a way for them to have to pay for that right but one percent really kind of adds up and i agree with neil it seems like you know they're already paying for the roads it's a lot i'd prefer to get it passed um i mean i mean if it passes um okay well hold on one second we got to go back to the um point that val made

  42. you know we he he may bill us more than that half a person especially on the smaller sads that that's my concern so if you want to say that all of the direct costs including external project management get billed and then we charge a half a percent to cover for the in-house staff time then i'd be okay with that that's fine that's fine with me okay so are we consensus on that half percent half percent plus plus the plus the direct costs being paid for right okay that way we it's more justified it's more and we continue to try to reduce those costs and that burden on the residents right because to take the fee completely away residents that have nothing to do with having roads done are supplementing those other residents so this is a way for them to have to pay for that right but one percent really kind of adds up and i agree with neil it seems like you know they're already paying for the roads it's a lot i'd prefer to get it passed um i mean i mean if it passes um okay well hold on one second we got to go back to the um point that val made earlier about the refunds at 500 for the initial refunds after the project is completed. I have it in here as 500 or more gets refunded 500 or less than 500 goes into the debt service fund. Val suggested 250? 300? Something less. I mean that's a significant amount of money for some people and just to say well it's just we're just going to keep it especially when it or should we look at the terms of the total dollar amount you know if it's a tiny stream it's 10 houses. We won't know until we get to the end of it. Well no but I mean the 250 or the 500 but I mean the like for 200 homes that was a significant amount of money but if it was 10 homes. Right I mean I initially thought of making this as a percentage just like for the closing refunds but at the end of the day the percentage if it's a smaller SAD that percentage is going to be a lower number and I'm thinking about you know our time and administrative burden

  43. earlier about the refunds at 500 for the initial refunds after the project is completed. I have it in here as 500 or more gets refunded 500 or less than 500 goes into the debt service fund. Val suggested 250? 300? Something less. I mean that's a significant amount of money for some people and just to say well it's just we're just going to keep it especially when it or should we look at the terms of the total dollar amount you know if it's a tiny stream it's 10 houses. We won't know until we get to the end of it. Well no but I mean the 250 or the 500 but I mean the like for 200 homes that was a significant amount of money but if it was 10 homes. Right I mean I initially thought of making this as a percentage just like for the closing refunds but at the end of the day the percentage if it's a smaller SAD that percentage is going to be a lower number and I'm thinking about you know our time and administrative burden of putting together these refunds you know applying the credits bailing out the checks like all that kind of stuff like I thought a flat number would just be better rather than a percentage so I think it's going to be better than a percentage so So if you think it should be $300 and if everybody agrees, then let's just make it $300. One point, or it's a point and a question. So the first point is I'm really glad you're bringing this back, right? I mean, previously there was no provision at all to refund money in an SAD situation, and we filed the statute, which meant, you know, at the end things were figured out. This is a great idea to provide refunds now. And it's just, I don't want to just nitpick it around the edges. The key point here is the policy change you're suggesting, which is a great policy change, that refunds would be determined as soon as possible so that the people. When the project is completed. Right. So the people who did, you know, really did the work of doing this project and are actually going to benefit from it, the homeowners mostly were involved. And I mean, you think it's $500 is the right number. I think that makes sense, you know, you've got to snap the line somewhere. But overall, the policy you're suggesting is that folks will get a refund sooner than later,

  44. Right I mean I initially thought of making this as a percentage just like for the closing refunds but at the end of the day the percentage if it's a smaller SAD that percentage is going to be a lower number and I'm thinking about you know our time and administrative burden of putting together these refunds you know applying the credits bailing out the checks like all that kind of stuff like I thought a flat number would just be better rather than a percentage so I think it's going to be better than a percentage so So if you think it should be $300 and if everybody agrees, then let's just make it $300. One point, or it's a point and a question. So the first point is I'm really glad you're bringing this back, right? I mean, previously there was no provision at all to refund money in an SAD situation, and we filed the statute, which meant, you know, at the end things were figured out. This is a great idea to provide refunds now. And it's just, I don't want to just nitpick it around the edges. The key point here is the policy change you're suggesting, which is a great policy change, that refunds would be determined as soon as possible so that the people. When the project is completed. Right. So the people who did, you know, really did the work of doing this project and are actually going to benefit from it, the homeowners mostly were involved. And I mean, you think it's $500 is the right number. I think that makes sense, you know, you've got to snap the line somewhere. But overall, the policy you're suggesting is that folks will get a refund sooner than later, and I think that's, you know, a really great idea. And the question is, we've done a final accounting of the revenue and cost when the project's completed, but is there a risk that, that there are additional costs? I mean, if there's challenges in court? The MTTs would already be done for this, before this would happen. Those would be done, okay. Okay. I mean, typically... the mtt's are done because you have to file uh your i believe it's 30 days you know 30 days you have to file for the mtt if you're protesting yeah i think it's like i think it's really short like 30 or 60 days and then it takes maybe a year to work its way through the system i think i mean so that in the last i can only speak to the last three years like all the village projects are the all the mtt's are done before we got to the project completed okay great so i think that's a great question and a great thought because we don't want to put the township at risk for a certain section or a certain area where that is their choice to put this on right i think if if the if the so when it says yes if there were mtt's that were still outstanding i think as a board we

  45. But overall, the policy you're suggesting is that folks will get a refund sooner than later, and I think that's, you know, a really great idea. And the question is, we've done a final accounting of the revenue and cost when the project's completed, but is there a risk that, that there are additional costs? I mean, if there's challenges in court? The MTTs would already be done for this, before this would happen. Those would be done, okay. Okay. I mean, typically... the mtt's are done because you have to file uh your i believe it's 30 days you know 30 days you have to file for the mtt if you're protesting yeah i think it's like i think it's really short like 30 or 60 days and then it takes maybe a year to work its way through the system i think i mean so that in the last i can only speak to the last three years like all the village projects are the all the mtt's are done before we got to the project completed okay great so i think that's a great question and a great thought because we don't want to put the township at risk for a certain section or a certain area where that is their choice to put this on right i think if if the if the so when it says yes if there were mtt's that were still outstanding i think as a board we would wait to do the refund okay so what costs include the mtt's yes okay yes because the cost that cost is incurred by the sad the legal cost yes it's incurred by the sad so that those costs and hypothetically not that this has happened and i don't expect it to happen but if the mtt were to rule against us and to change the per the protesters assessment that would be borne by the sad and affect whether or not there's a refund good yeah yeah yeah so and by the way no mtt's is ruled against us correct correct yeah we won all of them yeah my next question was going to be how often do we get no we've never lost okay well because it just made me curious the more you kept including that that was a valid point but i think martin's point is that we will incur fees in defending them so we want to make sure that all of the matters are completed so we know that we're not going to incur any other fees it was a great question right so okay so let's just let's just bring this to a head here so is it 500 or 300. i'm working with 500 because we're already reducing the expense that's fair and um again if if if the costs associated with it are troublesome to our residents there are ways

  46. the if the so when it says yes if there were mtt's that were still outstanding i think as a board we would wait to do the refund okay so what costs include the mtt's yes okay yes because the cost that cost is incurred by the sad the legal cost yes it's incurred by the sad so that those costs and hypothetically not that this has happened and i don't expect it to happen but if the mtt were to rule against us and to change the per the protesters assessment that would be borne by the sad and affect whether or not there's a refund good yeah yeah yeah so and by the way no mtt's is ruled against us correct correct yeah we won all of them yeah my next question was going to be how often do we get no we've never lost okay well because it just made me curious the more you kept including that that was a valid point but i think martin's point is that we will incur fees in defending them so we want to make sure that all of the matters are completed so we know that we're not going to incur any other fees it was a great question right so okay so let's just let's just bring this to a head here so is it 500 or 300. i'm working with 500 because we're already reducing the expense that's fair and um again if if if the costs associated with it are troublesome to our residents there are ways for them to talk to the uh we have um special provision for them to right you're talking about the sadp yeah yeah so we have yeah but this yeah i mean but this would what i'm saying if there are costs that 500 is material to them right there are ways for us right that's a good point if since we are already uh reducing the administrative fee half a percent which is yeah so okay so uh with that we'll leave it at 500 and unless there are any other questions i'm just going to summarize the changes um i have you sure are you gonna so we're doing the half percent half percent plus but the direct costs get built to the sad so like like mark mark mark mark mesler who's our contracted project manager would be built to the sad so the half percent would really only be paying for in-house staff time okay and uh how will we um will we go back and change the current sads that are at one no no this would be going forward some of them are one and a half percent because it was tiered because it was tiered right yeah this is only we we have to i don't believe we can

  47. and um again if if if the costs associated with it are troublesome to our residents there are ways for them to talk to the uh we have um special provision for them to right you're talking about the sadp yeah yeah so we have yeah but this yeah i mean but this would what i'm saying if there are costs that 500 is material to them right there are ways for us right that's a good point if since we are already uh reducing the administrative fee half a percent which is yeah so okay so uh with that we'll leave it at 500 and unless there are any other questions i'm just going to summarize the changes um i have you sure are you gonna so we're doing the half percent half percent plus but the direct costs get built to the sad so like like mark mark mark mark mesler who's our contracted project manager would be built to the sad so the half percent would really only be paying for in-house staff time okay and uh how will we um will we go back and change the current sads that are at one no no this would be going forward some of them are one and a half percent because it was tiered because it was tiered right yeah this is only we we have to i don't believe we can make this retro retroactive so this would be going forward it's just a policy change but it would apply like the green section would fall under this change which would provide them savings yeah right does the um uh when properties are sold and are these details provided regarding the balances on the properties to the uh title companies the balance on the assessment yeah yes okay if a title company contacts us we have no obligation to no they don't have a statement if somebody's looking to buy a property and is just curious they could call our office although actually going pretty soon it's going to be available on bsna online so you'll be able to go to the property on bsna online you'll see special assessment and you'll see what the balance is it's not there yet right okay but it will be very soon um so that's one way the other way is they could just call my office and we'll tell them the balance but the the asset the uh title companies always call us before closing because

  48. make this retro retroactive so this would be going forward it's just a policy change but it would apply like the green section would fall under this change which would provide them savings yeah right does the um uh when properties are sold and are these details provided regarding the balances on the properties to the uh title companies the balance on the assessment yeah yes okay if a title company contacts us we have no obligation to no they don't have a statement if somebody's looking to buy a property and is just curious they could call our office although actually going pretty soon it's going to be available on bsna online so you'll be able to go to the property on bsna online you'll see special assessment and you'll see what the balance is it's not there yet right okay but it will be very soon um so that's one way the other way is they could just call my office and we'll tell them the balance but the the asset the uh title companies always call us before closing because ask for if there are any open assessments if there's any building permits that are open if there's any ordinance violations that need to get paid anything that would need to get paid as part of the transfer we they tell they ask we tell them so yes so they are aware of what they were there and we give them the payoff on the assessment and we're currently in the process of doing an analysis of in the last two or three years how many properties paid off the assessment at closing of a transfer versus carried it on to the new owner I'm hoping to have that soon I have questions about the private roads portion sure do you want to address what we just talked about first to keep everything together what do you mean what we just talked about so the the questions Val had well I want to summarize the changes and then we can vote but if you have a question we should go ahead and ask your question okay well it was for a different part of the it's okay let's just we'll summarize all them together for the private roads how would those be funded so the private roads if they're large enough we could bond for it just like we would for a public road if

  49. ask for if there are any open assessments if there's any building permits that are open if there's any ordinance violations that need to get paid anything that would need to get paid as part of the transfer we they tell they ask we tell them so yes so they are aware of what they were there and we give them the payoff on the assessment and we're currently in the process of doing an analysis of in the last two or three years how many properties paid off the assessment at closing of a transfer versus carried it on to the new owner I'm hoping to have that soon I have questions about the private roads portion sure do you want to address what we just talked about first to keep everything together what do you mean what we just talked about so the the questions Val had well I want to summarize the changes and then we can vote but if you have a question we should go ahead and ask your question okay well it was for a different part of the it's okay let's just we'll summarize all them together for the private roads how would those be funded so the private roads if they're large enough we could bond for it just like we would for a public road if they're small then we now have the option of using our available you know either road cash or general fund cash to basically fund it then we will get paid off over 15 years i would anticipate that that would only be the case on a extremely small road like a road with six or eight houses correct nothing bigger than that because if if you let's say the assessment for a road that's like six or eight houses let's say that's a four hundred thousand dollar um project right we're not going to bond for a four hundred thousand dollar project um it's just it's cost prohibitive um if the road fund puts up their part of their reserves to from that project yes do they keep the interest yes okay michael i one last question um something that we encountered when we did our road assessment years ago it went through the county but we refinanced our house because the interest rates had been horrible and they were coming down but the interest rate on the roads was lower because it came through the county but when we went to refinance we wanted to leave the road payment

  50. they're large enough we could bond for it just like we would for a public road if they're small then we now have the option of using our available you know either road cash or general fund cash to basically fund it then we will get paid off over 15 years i would anticipate that that would only be the case on a extremely small road like a road with six or eight houses correct nothing bigger than that because if if you let's say the assessment for a road that's like six or eight houses let's say that's a four hundred thousand dollar um project right we're not going to bond for a four hundred thousand dollar project um it's just it's cost prohibitive um if the road fund puts up their part of their reserves to from that project yes do they keep the interest yes okay michael i one last question um something that we encountered when we did our road assessment years ago it went through the county but we refinanced our house because the interest rates had been horrible and they were coming down but the interest rate on the roads was lower because it came through the county but when we went to refinance we wanted to leave the road payment and just refinance the house because that was stupid high interest rate and the bank made a mistake and didn't tell us till we were like finalizing things that the bank wants to be number one lien so they unless they wiped out the road assessment that would be number one and so they said but we'll loan you the extra money at a higher interest rate oh of course so now that these assessments can be more easily passed along yes because I think we would have had to pay it off if we'd sold the house but that they can be passed to the next owner does that complicate the financing no I don't know if Tony if you want to answer that but basically because the only the current assessment is treated as a lien all of the future assessments are not treated as a lien on a refi they should not require you to pay off the assessment because the whole assessment is not the lien only the current portion okay because that was something that I mean right this this is the loan officer told us no it's no problem and then when we went to closing they said oh yeah he he's hiding in his room he didn't understand yeah but the lot the law

  51. it came through the county but when we went to refinance we wanted to leave the road payment and just refinance the house because that was stupid high interest rate and the bank made a mistake and didn't tell us till we were like finalizing things that the bank wants to be number one lien so they unless they wiped out the road assessment that would be number one and so they said but we'll loan you the extra money at a higher interest rate oh of course so now that these assessments can be more easily passed along yes because I think we would have had to pay it off if we'd sold the house but that they can be passed to the next owner does that complicate the financing no I don't know if Tony if you want to answer that but basically because the only the current assessment is treated as a lien all of the future assessments are not treated as a lien on a refi they should not require you to pay off the assessment because the whole assessment is not the lien only the current portion okay because that was something that I mean right this this is the loan officer told us no it's no problem and then when we went to closing they said oh yeah he he's hiding in his room he didn't understand yeah but the lot the law changed and I believe it was our supervisor who got that law changed when he was in the legislature supervisor and previous supervisor Leo Savoy went to the legislature and it had that had the law changed had the law changed so now only the current portion is the lien just like Texas we currently had that early on that was the best bill of the year yes I'm showing my age that this didn't affect me because it was years ago you also did the county and it didn't affect this was just for townships but the idea was because you had seniors that just didn't want to pay for a road and held up things yeah understandably any other thoughts before I summarize okay so to summarize the changes from what was presented on page 4 we're going to change it to on deposit with the township instead of in an escrow account and then we're going to change on page 8 section 6.1 the purpose of the fee will say that all direct expenses will be charged to the sad and then in 6.2 it'll say a half a percent administrative fee

  52. he's hiding in his room he didn't understand yeah but the lot the law changed and I believe it was our supervisor who got that law changed when he was in the legislature supervisor and previous supervisor Leo Savoy went to the legislature and it had that had the law changed had the law changed so now only the current portion is the lien just like Texas we currently had that early on that was the best bill of the year yes I'm showing my age that this didn't affect me because it was years ago you also did the county and it didn't affect this was just for townships but the idea was because you had seniors that just didn't want to pay for a road and held up things yeah understandably any other thoughts before I summarize okay so to summarize the changes from what was presented on page 4 we're going to change it to on deposit with the township instead of in an escrow account and then we're going to change on page 8 section 6.1 the purpose of the fee will say that all direct expenses will be charged to the sad and then in 6.2 it'll say a half a percent administrative fee and then we're going to leave the $500 as is and I believe those are the only changes so I would like to make a motion that we adopt the special assessment district policy based on the amended changes in our meeting support all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed passes seven to nothing thank you professor item number seven consider approval payment processing contract with BS and a software presented by our deputy treasurer Mary Javarian did I pronounce that right now Javaharian Javaharian Javaharian yeah gotta put that extra little pump in there that's all right not a problem that's why I go by MJ or Mary J good evening board included in your packet is information regarding a transition to a new electronic payment platform for township residents and vendors as you know the treasurer's office collects almost all of the revenue you for the township we accept cash checks credit cards and electronic payments the current electronic payment platforms which there are more than one are antiquated and do not allow for residents to easily make their payments also our current vendor for direct deposits which is the ach portion of

  53. be charged to the sad and then in 6.2 it'll say a half a percent administrative fee and then we're going to leave the $500 as is and I believe those are the only changes so I would like to make a motion that we adopt the special assessment district policy based on the amended changes in our meeting support all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed passes seven to nothing thank you professor item number seven consider approval payment processing contract with BS and a software presented by our deputy treasurer Mary Javarian did I pronounce that right now Javaharian Javaharian Javaharian yeah gotta put that extra little pump in there that's all right not a problem that's why I go by MJ or Mary J good evening board included in your packet is information regarding a transition to a new electronic payment platform for township residents and vendors as you know the treasurer's office collects almost all of the revenue you for the township we accept cash checks credit cards and electronic payments the current electronic payment platforms which there are more than one are antiquated and do not allow for residents to easily make their payments also our current vendor for direct deposits which is the ach portion of those payments which we have utilized for almost 25 years recently gave us notice that it will cease operations in our by april 30th 2026 so we have investigated several payment platforms over the last year and a change to a new platform will not only increase efficiencies in the treasurer's office but will also allow for an enhanced resident or user experience bsna our current software provider for various departments including assessing pbo dpw water and treasury offers a robust payment portal solution which will integrate with the current cloud-based system that we currently use in your packet is a draft of the addendum from bsna showing contract terms and pricing we request we are requesting approval from the board of trustees to move forward with the bsna payment platform with the addendum of course subject to legal review with a planned implementation implementation date of may 1st 2026

  54. easily make their payments also our current vendor for direct deposits which is the ach portion of those payments which we have utilized for almost 25 years recently gave us notice that it will cease operations in our by april 30th 2026 so we have investigated several payment platforms over the last year and a change to a new platform will not only increase efficiencies in the treasurer's office but will also allow for an enhanced resident or user experience bsna our current software provider for various departments including assessing pbo dpw water and treasury offers a robust payment portal solution which will integrate with the current cloud-based system that we currently use in your packet is a draft of the addendum from bsna showing contract terms and pricing we request we are requesting approval from the board of trustees to move forward with the bsna payment platform with the addendum of course subject to legal review with a planned implementation implementation date of may 1st 2026 I have a few notes and comments I'd like to share first before taking your questions or comments. So I've been actively investigating payment platforms almost for the two years that I've been here because as a resident, I've also found that they've been antiquated and they were difficult. But I also saw on the other side of the coin in the treasurer's office, no pun intended by coin, of course, in the treasurer's office, how difficult it was and how inefficient we were at posting those payments. I started talking with a lot of deputies from other CVTs and within Oakland County, I started looking at several vendors starting at about four and we narrowed it down or I narrowed it down to two. And the focusing on the main focus should be the resident experience and the department efficiency is where I was headed with this because we really needed to address those antiquated portals. So in terms of a new payment platform that BSNA offers, from a resident perspective, they can now see their amounts due. This didn't happen before, which was very frustrating, not only to the residents, but also from the treasurer's office, constantly getting phone calls.

  55. I have a few notes and comments I'd like to share first before taking your questions or comments. So I've been actively investigating payment platforms almost for the two years that I've been here because as a resident, I've also found that they've been antiquated and they were difficult. But I also saw on the other side of the coin in the treasurer's office, no pun intended by coin, of course, in the treasurer's office, how difficult it was and how inefficient we were at posting those payments. I started talking with a lot of deputies from other CVTs and within Oakland County, I started looking at several vendors starting at about four and we narrowed it down or I narrowed it down to two. And the focusing on the main focus should be the resident experience and the department efficiency is where I was headed with this because we really needed to address those antiquated portals. So in terms of a new payment platform that BSNA offers, from a resident perspective, they can now see their amounts due. This didn't happen before, which was very frustrating, not only to the residents, but also from the treasurer's office, constantly getting phone calls. What do I owe when they go on to the electronic payment platform? Also, when they were on there, they might pay the wrong amount, which ultimately resulted in inefficiencies on our end, overpayments, underpayments, everything. They can set up on this new payment portal a user login. They can set up their own user login with information specific to them or they can pay as a guest. But if they set up an account with their information, they can set up automatic payments, they can set up text to pay, text reminders, email reminders, and notifications. All of this is just exciting because so many people forget sometimes the time of year it is. We've had so many residents even today come in. I was on break. I totally forgot to pay. Well, if they would have a text reminder or an email reminder and they can text to pay or they can pay from their phone or they can get on a computer and pay, it's just going

  56. This didn't happen before, which was very frustrating, not only to the residents, but also from the treasurer's office, constantly getting phone calls. What do I owe when they go on to the electronic payment platform? Also, when they were on there, they might pay the wrong amount, which ultimately resulted in inefficiencies on our end, overpayments, underpayments, everything. They can set up on this new payment portal a user login. They can set up their own user login with information specific to them or they can pay as a guest. But if they set up an account with their information, they can set up automatic payments, they can set up text to pay, text reminders, email reminders, and notifications. All of this is just exciting because so many people forget sometimes the time of year it is. We've had so many residents even today come in. I was on break. I totally forgot to pay. Well, if they would have a text reminder or an email reminder and they can text to pay or they can pay from their phone or they can get on a computer and pay, it's just going to be amazing. There's also going to be access to how-to videos on our website where they will walk a resident through how to make this payment, right? So many times we get phone calls in the treasurer's office having to walk residents through the antiquated systems that we have, waiting on the phone for 15 to 16 minutes sometimes, that creates inefficiency. so our frustrate our residents get very frustrated with these old archaic payment platforms and they want and they need a change from the treasurer's office perspective the payments also when they're made online electronically will automatically post we don't we don't have that ability today we manually post those payments we literally print out a report and we manually post those payments so it's going to increase our efficiency of our team members within the treasurer's office it's also going to reduce resident phone calls and requiring that hand-holding like I said with some of those video instructions and another positive is that currently for our water automatic

  57. or they can pay from their phone or they can get on a computer and pay, it's just going to be amazing. There's also going to be access to how-to videos on our website where they will walk a resident through how to make this payment, right? So many times we get phone calls in the treasurer's office having to walk residents through the antiquated systems that we have, waiting on the phone for 15 to 16 minutes sometimes, that creates inefficiency. so our frustrate our residents get very frustrated with these old archaic payment platforms and they want and they need a change from the treasurer's office perspective the payments also when they're made online electronically will automatically post we don't we don't have that ability today we manually post those payments we literally print out a report and we manually post those payments so it's going to increase our efficiency of our team members within the treasurer's office it's also going to reduce resident phone calls and requiring that hand-holding like I said with some of those video instructions and another positive is that currently for our water automatic payments we have the residents submit a form that includes the banking information and we include this information in the cloud environment all of this information now on a new platform will be X will be exported into their system and we don't have to touch it the the residents will be responsible for updating their bank account information their routing number and their account number and on this new payment platform there's some electronic checking right of this information which reduces the number of errors and returned items because we're only human and sometimes we can make a mistake on those forms we can read a seven as a two and we put in the wrong information and then the payment doesn't work it doesn't happen it doesn't pull and then we have to contact the resident just another way that we're being inefficient also there's going to be efficiencies from our finance and accounting department end so currently with so many payment platforms that we have the bank statements some months can be almost 40 pages long that they have

  58. some of those video instructions and another positive is that currently for our water automatic payments we have the residents submit a form that includes the banking information and we include this information in the cloud environment all of this information now on a new platform will be X will be exported into their system and we don't have to touch it the the residents will be responsible for updating their bank account information their routing number and their account number and on this new payment platform there's some electronic checking right of this information which reduces the number of errors and returned items because we're only human and sometimes we can make a mistake on those forms we can read a seven as a two and we put in the wrong information and then the payment doesn't work it doesn't happen it doesn't pull and then we have to contact the resident just another way that we're being inefficient also there's going to be efficiencies from our finance and accounting department end so currently with so many payment platforms that we have the bank statements some months can be almost 40 pages long that they have to take and reconcile because each of these payment platforms may have several line item transactions on a daily basis sometimes in excess of eight to ten transactions a day and under the new payment platform these will be condensed and reduced and hopefully result in efficiencies for their department as well so i would hope that you would consider and approve um we've we have included the addendum uh and if you have if you have any questions i'd be happy to answer okay thank you mary can i just supplement that for a second first of all i want to thank mary she has put in so much time and energy when she's going to conferences she's talking to people and uh vetting these different uh payment processors ultimately we arrived at this one so thank you for all of the hard work that you've put into it the other thing i think uh one one point uh that you did miss is that this new processor will be less expensive for our residents so right now to use our credit card either in our office or online

  59. platforms that we have the bank statements some months can be almost 40 pages long that they have to take and reconcile because each of these payment platforms may have several line item transactions on a daily basis sometimes in excess of eight to ten transactions a day and under the new payment platform these will be condensed and reduced and hopefully result in efficiencies for their department as well so i would hope that you would consider and approve um we've we have included the addendum uh and if you have if you have any questions i'd be happy to answer okay thank you mary can i just supplement that for a second first of all i want to thank mary she has put in so much time and energy when she's going to conferences she's talking to people and uh vetting these different uh payment processors ultimately we arrived at this one so thank you for all of the hard work that you've put into it the other thing i think uh one one point uh that you did miss is that this new processor will be less expensive for our residents so right now to use our credit card either in our office or online we charge three and a half percent we don't get that that goes to the payment processor right all we get is whatever the payment was uh we were able to negotiate with this new processor down to 2.9 percent um so that will that will save again we don't get that money but it's it's a lower fee that the resident will have to pay correct and that 3.5 system is actually oakland county's credit card payment processing system we have been linked up with oakland county's system for a number of years and just within the last year we pulled our data away from oakland county put it up into the cloud with bsna and and now this would be the last item that we would we would ultimately pull away and and save our residents some money too yes and and the county took a skim of that three and a half percent what about the difference between how we've been doing it and what we pay for bsna how does that compare um in well in terms of the like the transactional cost the cost of the township for using the ach system versus the bsna so what's what's difficult to uh is to understand and we've put some money in the in next year's budget for payment processing fees but what's really

  60. expensive for our residents so right now to use our credit card either in our office or online we charge three and a half percent we don't get that that goes to the payment processor right all we get is whatever the payment was uh we were able to negotiate with this new processor down to 2.9 percent um so that will that will save again we don't get that money but it's it's a lower fee that the resident will have to pay correct and that 3.5 system is actually oakland county's credit card payment processing system we have been linked up with oakland county's system for a number of years and just within the last year we pulled our data away from oakland county put it up into the cloud with bsna and and now this would be the last item that we would we would ultimately pull away and and save our residents some money too yes and and the county took a skim of that three and a half percent what about the difference between how we've been doing it and what we pay for bsna how does that compare um in well in terms of the like the transactional cost the cost of the township for using the ach system versus the bsna so what's what's difficult to uh is to understand and we've put some money in the in next year's budget for payment processing fees but what's really hard to understand trustee Murray is how many people how many people don't pay because of the antiquated payment platforms that we have now right we have a lot of people that say it's too difficult to pay online so I'm going to send you in a check or I'm going to come to the counter and pay cash whatever that might be so I can I took a lot of information from you know and tried to figure out statistically what we could be what a potential expense would be and we put it in next year's budget but I think in terms of the in terms of the savings and efficiencies in all the departments right and then in terms of the reduced risk I think our residents will feel more safe in a in a payment portal that looks like Amazon's payment portal or any other payment portal that's out there nowadays right that that's not ours I mean just the mere fact that I'm going to be able to log in and put in my address right and see my water bill and see my tax bill I can make everything my permits my special assessments it will all be there and I can set up all different payment methods I can put in

  61. hard to understand trustee Murray is how many people how many people don't pay because of the antiquated payment platforms that we have now right we have a lot of people that say it's too difficult to pay online so I'm going to send you in a check or I'm going to come to the counter and pay cash whatever that might be so I can I took a lot of information from you know and tried to figure out statistically what we could be what a potential expense would be and we put it in next year's budget but I think in terms of the in terms of the savings and efficiencies in all the departments right and then in terms of the reduced risk I think our residents will feel more safe in a in a payment portal that looks like Amazon's payment portal or any other payment portal that's out there nowadays right that that's not ours I mean just the mere fact that I'm going to be able to log in and put in my address right and see my water bill and see my tax bill I can make everything my permits my special assessments it will all be there and I can set up all different payment methods I can put in my you know my credit card information it can store it or maybe I tell it not to store it right I can put in my cell phone for text reminders my email for email it's it's just it's I think that we've just been just sailing along using the same processing methods for a number of years and I just think we haven't caught up with where we should be especially from our residents from a residents perspective can I just to answer Valerie more directly the credit card fees are paid by the user right okay so we don't pay for that so nothing's going to change except that the resident instead of paying three and a half percent is now going to pay 2.9 percent we never got any of that money so it doesn't affect us we don't have to pay for that what we do pay for what Mary was referring to is money in the budget is that we have traditionally paid a fee for every electronic transfer we have absorbed that fee that fee I believe right now is about 50 cents yeah it was it's it's minimal yeah it's about 50 cents a transaction and we've absorbed that and I believe that the reason that we've always done that is because we want to encourage people to pay online and pay electronically for all of the reasons that it makes things easier etc so we've

  62. all be there and I can set up all different payment methods I can put in my you know my credit card information it can store it or maybe I tell it not to store it right I can put in my cell phone for text reminders my email for email it's it's just it's I think that we've just been just sailing along using the same processing methods for a number of years and I just think we haven't caught up with where we should be especially from our residents from a residents perspective can I just to answer Valerie more directly the credit card fees are paid by the user right okay so we don't pay for that so nothing's going to change except that the resident instead of paying three and a half percent is now going to pay 2.9 percent we never got any of that money so it doesn't affect us we don't have to pay for that what we do pay for what Mary was referring to is money in the budget is that we have traditionally paid a fee for every electronic transfer we have absorbed that fee that fee I believe right now is about 50 cents yeah it was it's it's minimal yeah it's about 50 cents a transaction and we've absorbed that and I believe that the reason that we've always done that is because we want to encourage people to pay online and pay electronically for all of the reasons that it makes things easier etc so we've absorbed that I believe under the new one it'll be 65 cents that's 65 cents for an electronic transaction if it's a if it's a one-time payment like if you want to log in as a guest at 65 cents but if you want to set up automatic payments for your water or even for your tax it's 50 cents per transaction and just so you know we haven't had the ability for our residents to even set up like once that tax bill let's say summer 2020 six tax bills will come out july 1st we haven't really even had a payment uh platform recurring payment yeah that allow them to make like a thousand dollars every month or every or put some on visa and put i mean this is all going to be yeah people ask for that surprisingly they come in and they say i'd like to pay my taxes every month yeah instead of all at once and i said well we can only accept it between you know july and september or between december and february but during that time you can pay it as often and you can make things you can make whatever payments and you can set it up right so now this will be integrated the other thing um you know we have a township app this will integrate with the township app so people could go into the app and say pay here they'll take them right into the bsna uh platform and um and the text to pay i'm very

  63. pay online and pay electronically for all of the reasons that it makes things easier etc so we've absorbed that I believe under the new one it'll be 65 cents that's 65 cents for an electronic transaction if it's a if it's a one-time payment like if you want to log in as a guest at 65 cents but if you want to set up automatic payments for your water or even for your tax it's 50 cents per transaction and just so you know we haven't had the ability for our residents to even set up like once that tax bill let's say summer 2020 six tax bills will come out july 1st we haven't really even had a payment uh platform recurring payment yeah that allow them to make like a thousand dollars every month or every or put some on visa and put i mean this is all going to be yeah people ask for that surprisingly they come in and they say i'd like to pay my taxes every month yeah instead of all at once and i said well we can only accept it between you know july and september or between december and february but during that time you can pay it as often and you can make things you can make whatever payments and you can set it up right so now this will be integrated the other thing um you know we have a township app this will integrate with the township app so people could go into the app and say pay here they'll take them right into the bsna uh platform and um and the text to pay i'm very excited about it basically if you put your cell phone number and your bank account or credit card information store that in there it'll send your alert you've got your water bill do you want to pay it click you know type yes pay it and it pays it it sounds awesome and deputy treasurer jeva harian thank you so much for bringing this to us i can tell you're excited about it i'm like it's like christmas morning here i mean i finally we finally got everything to where we where we wanted it and i think it makes sense and just the efficiency alone of having a payment post automatically for the team yes yes but here we'll be managing by exception now instead of having to manage every transaction and the residents are going to love it Thank you. I just want to add to a thank you very much for bringing this to us. Very past due trying to get something like this to us. I mean, the old system really was a dinosaur. There's no question about it. And the additional efficiencies and adding the efficiencies with our staff time and talk about saving money, we're gonna be saving money there and not having to waste time on the phone, on computers. So it's something that really Bloomfield Township should be, you know,

  64. say pay here they'll take them right into the bsna uh platform and um and the text to pay i'm very excited about it basically if you put your cell phone number and your bank account or credit card information store that in there it'll send your alert you've got your water bill do you want to pay it click you know type yes pay it and it pays it it sounds awesome and deputy treasurer jeva harian thank you so much for bringing this to us i can tell you're excited about it i'm like it's like christmas morning here i mean i finally we finally got everything to where we where we wanted it and i think it makes sense and just the efficiency alone of having a payment post automatically for the team yes yes but here we'll be managing by exception now instead of having to manage every transaction and the residents are going to love it Thank you. I just want to add to a thank you very much for bringing this to us. Very past due trying to get something like this to us. I mean, the old system really was a dinosaur. There's no question about it. And the additional efficiencies and adding the efficiencies with our staff time and talk about saving money, we're gonna be saving money there and not having to waste time on the phone, on computers. So it's something that really Bloomfield Township should be, you know, looking at across the spectrum because, you know, we market ourself as having exemplary services and we certainly didn't have it in the past, but we're getting it in that area. We certainly didn't have it. We're going to. Yes, I hope so. And thank you so much for bringing that to us so that we can be proud of what you have and the services that we have for our residents. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion that we approve and submit it. I do have a question. I, like everything that you've mentioned, I really don't like the opt-out policy that they have in place that's in the budget pack. I think it's too cumbersome if a resident gets frustrated. Okay. So what opt-out policy? There's an opt-out policy if someone does not want to, if they're doing automatic payments and they want to opt-out. I think it's too cumbersome for a resident. from automatic payments from the automatic yeah well i mean it'll be very easy with this the what's in the board packet for this you're talking about the addendum no the oh for receiving board packets no not for receiving board packets but for the uh we're talking about

  65. Bloomfield Township should be, you know, looking at across the spectrum because, you know, we market ourself as having exemplary services and we certainly didn't have it in the past, but we're getting it in that area. We certainly didn't have it. We're going to. Yes, I hope so. And thank you so much for bringing that to us so that we can be proud of what you have and the services that we have for our residents. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion that we approve and submit it. I do have a question. I, like everything that you've mentioned, I really don't like the opt-out policy that they have in place that's in the budget pack. I think it's too cumbersome if a resident gets frustrated. Okay. So what opt-out policy? There's an opt-out policy if someone does not want to, if they're doing automatic payments and they want to opt-out. I think it's too cumbersome for a resident. from automatic payments from the automatic yeah well i mean it'll be very easy with this the what's in the board packet for this you're talking about the addendum no the oh for receiving board packets no not for receiving board packets but for the uh we're talking about um we're talking about the uh not the board packets but the b bsna software yeah but just we're speaking specifically about the payment module correct so i don't know what opt-out policy you're talking about on the addendum itself mark i i took a look at their software the software providers policies so for the township if we wanted to opt out is there no for a resident that's connected to the system on a regular payment program yes i think it's too cumbersome for the residents so i like everything else that you did state um but i do think it is cumbersome in what way the amount of hoops that the residents have to go through which hoops should they eliminate um again it's a standard policy they have standard terms and conditions i don't i don't i don't see it i don't know nothing we can do about it it's just the best way it is correct there's nothing we can do about it and either you feel it's too cumbersome or you don't okay um i like everything else

  66. oh for receiving board packets no not for receiving board packets but for the uh we're talking about um we're talking about the uh not the board packets but the b bsna software yeah but just we're speaking specifically about the payment module correct so i don't know what opt-out policy you're talking about on the addendum itself mark i i took a look at their software the software providers policies so for the township if we wanted to opt out is there no for a resident that's connected to the system on a regular payment program yes i think it's too cumbersome for the residents so i like everything else that you did state um but i do think it is cumbersome in what way the amount of hoops that the residents have to go through which hoops should they eliminate um again it's a standard policy they have standard terms and conditions i don't i don't i don't see it i don't know nothing we can do about it it's just the best way it is correct there's nothing we can do about it and either you feel it's too cumbersome or you don't okay um i like everything else it I think it's it's a step in the right you take a deeper dive into what Mark referring to and we'll take a look at it okay just to make sure because if it gets too cumbersome then maybe we can get some feedback to those those might be things too that because I'm not so sure what he's reading I'll take a look at it but if it's if it's on the sound that you know we we create the we create the fields and we create the things that are required right and if there's something in there that's that's not good for the residents we've loaded and a resident struggles we can help them okay we're gonna we're gonna try I want to support I'd like to make a motion that we approve the the new payment processing as submitted support all in favor say aye aye opposed no no okay six to one thank you thank you Mary and then we'll just this is so exciting okay well let me introduce oh sorry that's how exciting it is I wasn't he wasn't gonna wait presentation look back at Township history presented by our clerk and his local

  67. it I think it's it's a step in the right you take a deeper dive into what Mark referring to and we'll take a look at it okay just to make sure because if it gets too cumbersome then maybe we can get some feedback to those those might be things too that because I'm not so sure what he's reading I'll take a look at it but if it's if it's on the sound that you know we we create the we create the fields and we create the things that are required right and if there's something in there that's that's not good for the residents we've loaded and a resident struggles we can help them okay we're gonna we're gonna try I want to support I'd like to make a motion that we approve the the new payment processing as submitted support all in favor say aye aye opposed no no okay six to one thank you thank you Mary and then we'll just this is so exciting okay well let me introduce oh sorry that's how exciting it is I wasn't he wasn't gonna wait presentation look back at Township history presented by our clerk and his local historian Martin Brooke as you probably all know while we've talked about it before next year 2027 is the 200th anniversary of Bloomfield Township it was a keeper of record I always look back at different things that were happening in the past of significance in this month 87 years ago something important happened with regard however to the 20th anniversary I want to also highlight that Treasurer Shostak is going to be chairing a commission to help organize the recognition of that of that event and meant more to come on that later so in late 1920s you may know that the village of Birmingham was part of Bloomfield Township at that time they built a village hall which is was also Township Hall so Township offices were in the village offices that are in the city of Birmingham they're now the city offices we can all see them there but they were at one time both the town the village office and the township office in the mid-30s Birmingham became

  68. presentation look back at Township history presented by our clerk and his local historian Martin Brooke as you probably all know while we've talked about it before next year 2027 is the 200th anniversary of Bloomfield Township it was a keeper of record I always look back at different things that were happening in the past of significance in this month 87 years ago something important happened with regard however to the 20th anniversary I want to also highlight that Treasurer Shostak is going to be chairing a commission to help organize the recognition of that of that event and meant more to come on that later so in late 1920s you may know that the village of Birmingham was part of Bloomfield Township at that time they built a village hall which is was also Township Hall so Township offices were in the village offices that are in the city of Birmingham they're now the city offices we can all see them there but they were at one time both the town the village office and the township office in the mid-30s Birmingham became a city and separated from Bloomfield Township and that's when the list a period of time started when Bloomfield Township had to find a new home and there was some transition to or a transition to different spots over a period of time but in 1938 the township decided that it would build a new town hall and they took that idea to the voters on August 18th 1938 and the Voters approved a new township hall to be built right here on land that was gifted by Colonel Edwin S. George, Sidney D. Walden, and Dr. W. Merrill. And that is the land that we're sitting on right now today. And part of the building. Getting to that. Isn't that interesting? It is interesting, isn't it? So on September 8, 1938, the townships sought a Public Works Act funding, and the PWA offered to pay 45% of the cost on the condition of townships. It began work as soon as possible, no longer than eight weeks from the date of the offer, which was made in early September. And that they finished the work on this new town hall within four months of commencement of the project. That's pretty quick. Yeah, right?

  69. the village office and the township office in the mid-30s Birmingham became a city and separated from Bloomfield Township and that's when the list a period of time started when Bloomfield Township had to find a new home and there was some transition to or a transition to different spots over a period of time but in 1938 the township decided that it would build a new town hall and they took that idea to the voters on August 18th 1938 and the Voters approved a new township hall to be built right here on land that was gifted by Colonel Edwin S. George, Sidney D. Walden, and Dr. W. Merrill. And that is the land that we're sitting on right now today. And part of the building. Getting to that. Isn't that interesting? It is interesting, isn't it? So on September 8, 1938, the townships sought a Public Works Act funding, and the PWA offered to pay 45% of the cost on the condition of townships. It began work as soon as possible, no longer than eight weeks from the date of the offer, which was made in early September. And that they finished the work on this new town hall within four months of commencement of the project. That's pretty quick. Yeah, right? Four months. So on the next slide there, let's see. Yeah, so February 16, 1939, this township hall opened where we're sitting here today. And that is when the township took possession of it. The total cost was $23,000. $10,000 of it was from the Public Works Act grant. Main offices were on the first floor. And the road level, as you can see, the building is still at sort of a split level. The road level held a garage and a fire hall. Garage had space for the apparatus of the fire department, cars, and road equipment, and other places. There was an auditorium that was 23 feet by 35 feet and had a... There was significantly higher... We can see that there were... б ... a room for 100 people. There was an apartment near the upper part of the building and Fireman Philo Nye and his family lived there. On the next page you can see the rendering from the blueprints which are in my office of the east elevation of the building which faced telegraph. So that's essentially the front door of Township Hall that faced telegraph. And the next slide you can see the elevation of the north side which faced from the original blueprints which

  70. Four months. So on the next slide there, let's see. Yeah, so February 16, 1939, this township hall opened where we're sitting here today. And that is when the township took possession of it. The total cost was $23,000. $10,000 of it was from the Public Works Act grant. Main offices were on the first floor. And the road level, as you can see, the building is still at sort of a split level. The road level held a garage and a fire hall. Garage had space for the apparatus of the fire department, cars, and road equipment, and other places. There was an auditorium that was 23 feet by 35 feet and had a... There was significantly higher... We can see that there were... б ... a room for 100 people. There was an apartment near the upper part of the building and Fireman Philo Nye and his family lived there. On the next page you can see the rendering from the blueprints which are in my office of the east elevation of the building which faced telegraph. So that's essentially the front door of Township Hall that faced telegraph. And the next slide you can see the elevation of the north side which faced from the original blueprints which I took just this afternoon on my camera facing Exeter which is now where the official entrance of the building is facing Exeter. And the last slide is a picture taken this afternoon. If you look closely enough you can see the original Township Hall in the center of this complex called Township Hall. The smokestack and the weather vane in the building itself. So this building was originally erected and opened 87 years ago this month and became the house of Township Hall and stayed that way for those 88 years. Since its original opening there has been two additions to Township Hall and the last addition I believe was over 50 years ago in the early 1970s. And so if you look around here in the building some people visit it you can see a lot of many interior walls that are brick and look like they were exterior walls they were in fact exterior walls and this facility is constrained significantly by the the original construction and that's that's

  71. you can see the elevation of the north side which faced from the original blueprints which I took just this afternoon on my camera facing Exeter which is now where the official entrance of the building is facing Exeter. And the last slide is a picture taken this afternoon. If you look closely enough you can see the original Township Hall in the center of this complex called Township Hall. The smokestack and the weather vane in the building itself. So this building was originally erected and opened 87 years ago this month and became the house of Township Hall and stayed that way for those 88 years. Since its original opening there has been two additions to Township Hall and the last addition I believe was over 50 years ago in the early 1970s. And so if you look around here in the building some people visit it you can see a lot of many interior walls that are brick and look like they were exterior walls they were in fact exterior walls and this facility is constrained significantly by the the original construction and that's that's the sort of history going back importantly to this this month 87 years ago we open Township Hall and moved in here and we continue to use the space as it was originally designed one of the most interesting parts Chris already highlighted was the idea that the Public Works Act funding during the depression required that the construction be completed in that short very short time frame it was so from September they adopted in September and mid-February they opened up that's fascinating thank you Martin thank you professor okay so let's go back to item eight a mark that had to do with your proof payroll vouchers for February yes okay I might I do understand the township has a different policy I don't think it's best practice regarding how we look at cash when cash is going out and I will continue to vote no one pay you

  72. is constrained significantly by the the original construction and that's that's the sort of history going back importantly to this this month 87 years ago we open Township Hall and moved in here and we continue to use the space as it was originally designed one of the most interesting parts Chris already highlighted was the idea that the Public Works Act funding during the depression required that the construction be completed in that short very short time frame it was so from September they adopted in September and mid-February they opened up that's fascinating thank you Martin thank you professor okay so let's go back to item eight a mark that had to do with your proof payroll vouchers for February yes okay I might I do understand the township has a different policy I don't think it's best practice regarding how we look at cash when cash is going out and I will continue to vote no one pay you All vouchers. Okay. So we'll have a motion to approve either. I will make a motion to approve payroll and vouchers. Support. Support. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Nay. Six to one. And then I just want to note before we adjourn that our planning board chairman and road advisory chairman has been sitting with us, Jeff Sauls. Jeff, thank you for joining us tonight. And on that, we'll ask for adjournment. Support. All in favor say aye. Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.