The meeting was called to order at 8:20 P.M.

ROLL CALL: Mayor McLallen, Mayor Pro Tem Crawford, Council Members Cassis, Clark, Mitzel, Mutch, Schmid

ALSO PRESENT: Marty Fluherty of Tollgate Farms, City Manager Edward Kriewall, Community Development & Planning Director Jim Wahl

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

Councilman Mitzel indicated Council has adopted half of the Rules and we have done about a quarter of it.

Ms. Marty Fluherty of Tollgate Farms explained the goals listed indicate just the order they ended up being. She said Goal #1 was the first goal that Council worked on and spent the most time talking about at the last session at Tollgate and what she did was to take the objectives they had identified and put under them, the what, who, how and when. She said if you are going to implement these objectives, you have to have the what, who is going to do it, how it is going to happen, and by when.

Ms. Fluherty said Council has a healthy start on Objective 1 and on Objective 2, they only barely got started on some of these as to filling in the who, how and when. She said Objective 3 and 4 are pretty much the same.

Ms. Fluherty explained after she did this in this format, she decided it was not too easy a format to work on so she did it differently. She said the objectives under the goals are in the order of how many votes they got and the ones with the highest votes are on top. She said there is one goal per page on the worksheets. She said she didn’t write in the number of votes that each of these received because for her, it was not relevant, but they may be for Council, so if they want to transcribe those, they could do that.

Ms. Fluherty indicated it was up to Council what they do with these and the reason there are all the blank spaces is because Council hasn’t filled them in. She said Council had discussed some of the things very briefly at the last session, but there was really no what, who, when or what process for the rest of these and Council needs to tell her what they want to do tonight as to filling some more of these in and whether they want to discuss the individual goals and try to put them in some priority.

Mayor McLallen said many Council Members have a concern about how do they move from all of this and it seems to be down to six primary areas, but then when they get into sub areas, it starts filtering out. She said they need to prioritize what the Big Picture is and what is realistically to be accomplished. She said her perception of what these goals should be is where are they going to put their resources and direct their Administrative energies for, for that time period.

Councilman Mitzel suggested that they focus tonight on the ones that have four or more Council people supporting because generally those would be a consensus of Council that they should work on. He felt that would help them to focus their resources. He said it was good they establish their goals and objectives, but they need to make sure because their time frame is ticking away and they can’t do anything until they have the tools to work with. He felt they should concentrate that night on the ones that Ms. Fluherty pointed out, Goals, 2, 4 and 6.

Councilman Mitzel said they had already gone through the process that Ms. Fluherty is suggesting on Goal #1, but it has done them no good because they haven’t had the information come back and to have the tools to do anything with it. He would say instead of trying to set, who, what, when and where for every single thing on the tables that Ms. Fluherty just passed out, that they focus on the ones that they had more of a consensus on.

Ms. Fluherty said one of the things that they can do with these is in regard to the difference in the time frame. She said some of these may take five years to accomplish. However, there are steps they can place in a 22 month time frame.

Ms. Fluherty felt they have to fill out the rest of this and they don’t have to have the whole thing solved forever or five years or ten years. She said they have to keep in mind the time frame of 22 months and what in this category can they actually accomplish in 22 months. She said those are the kinds of things they can use to fill in the rest of these blanks.

Ms. Fluherty said Councilman Mitzel is making the suggestion that instead of trying to do all of them, to get a start on the ones that have the most votes.

Councilman Crawford felt that was the best way to go and there is no sense focusing on one that only two people want, so he concurred with Councilman Mitzel. He said he also asked where the tabulation was for Goal #3.

Ms. Fluherty said they didn’t vote on any because there were only two objectives. Councilman Crawford said that could very well be something that four or five of them might want and it is not in this and for Goal #1, the first two had a consensus and for Goal #4, the first two had a consensus, and Goal #5 had no consensus, and Goal #6, only the first one had a consensus. He didn’t know how they would do Goal #2 and Goal #3.

Ms. Fluherty said there are two ways and one way is to say that all seven of us plus staff, are going to sit here and work on the top priorities, the ones that Councilman Crawford and Mitzel just highlighted. If there are some things that members of Council want to take on, two or three of them can sit down together and fill in the blanks and then at another meeting, bring in a plan for the rest to look at. Therefore they get their Council Members involved in things that they individually care the most about.

Ms. Fluherty said Council would have options besides just what they do that night and the danger that she is aware is what do they do when she is gone and all they have is paper. She asked are they going to discipline themselves enough to pull this out periodically and see where they are and see what their plans look like and how they are progressing, because if they don’t, she could guarantee a lot of this will get lost.

Ms. Fluherty asked did they want to do what Councilman Mitzel and Councilman Crawford have suggested and Councilman Mitzel said he didn’t think they could get through all of what he has suggested that night, but they could start the ones that had the most, such as the Rules, which were unanimous and start with the highest one and work their way down and then maybe take what they did to finish off the others that they felt strongly about and make it Plan 3 and 4 and take it to Council at a future date.

Councilwoman Mutch said if they do it that way, then as we have the opportunity to look at the rest of this, in some cases, they will know that certain things are already happening and they would be able to say fill in some of the blanks. She felt at least by the time they get done, they will know which of these as of today, they are in accord with.

Councilman Mitzel said point two is the procedure for Appointments to Boards and Commissions and at one point, he had brought forward a proposed procedure last year and that had failed 3-3. He felt the easiest thing to do is to take that as a guideline to work with and bring it back and it would boil down to the whole Council meets and discusses it all or one of us brings something forward where we set up a small working group.

Councilman Schmid asked what is "add formalized Consultant procedures and Councilman Mitzel said that was the directive they gave last November to formalize the Consultant Retainers and the Consultant Review. He said Procedures for Appointments to Boards and Commissions was where they have talked about having only a certain number of interview sessions a year and in May everything that is coming up the next few months would be interviewed for and they say the applications are due on this date and appointments will be on this date.

Councilman Schmid said it was a dead issue and he asked what was wrong with what they have done for the last 15 years or so, and he felt it has worked well and Councilman Mitzel did not think it had.

Councilwoman Mutch asked if they could have whatever the Council voted on when it was voted on 3-3 and review it and if it was Councilman Mitzel’s initiative, have their input to Councilman Mitzel and then he would know whether he would have support if he brings that up in a Council meeting.

Councilman Crawford said he was not in favor of it at the time for a few minor reasons, but he did think it was a place to start and he felt it should be given to everyone.

Councilman Crawford said it would be helpful if they were given what Councilman Mitzel gave them and then the discussion of the meeting. Councilman Mitzel thought it had been a meeting in June.

Mayor McLallen asked how long do you want to work with this and Councilman Mitzel asked do you want the feedback and a general discussion at a Council meeting or meet individually. Mayor McLallen said Councilwoman Mutch wants him to decide if there were enough votes to change the previous vote or to modify it. Councilman Crawford suggested giving it to Councilman Mitzel and having him modify it and bring it back.

Councilman Mitzel asked to have it back by May 1st.

Ms. Fluherty indicated Councilman Mitzel and Ms. Bartholomew will find the original document and the discussion and send it out to everyone and the feedback will go back to Councilman Mitzel by May 1st and he will read through it and reorganize it and present something new.

Councilman Mitzel said if he found no one had any interest, it would be a dead issue and if he found that there was interest but there were certain concerns, he could take into consideration those concerns and modify and then if there was a consensus it would be placed on the Agenda, possibly the second meeting in May.

Councilman Schmid said for the first half they need a Rules Policy, but he didn’t think he was necessarily saying he wanted to see the procedure changed.

Ms. Fluherty said the point is some Council Members are interested in it and they want to do something about it, and it may be that when they all see what this might look like, they might decide to have it on the Agenda and decide to deal with it.

Councilman Mitzel said what he would do was if there is no interest he could just put it on the Agenda as Communications and report back to Council saying there is really no interest, or if there is interest, he could put it on as a discussion or action item.

Councilman Mitzel said the third one was Council Rules, Policies, Fees, and Procedures and they handled that the first time with a special meeting and spent 3-4 hours and got half way through and he thought that the intent was they would have another similar meeting to go through the rest of it, but they adopted the changes that were discussed in December and then kept the second half of it, but they are so bogged down with meetings, he didn’t know when that would happen.

Councilman Mitzel said it was all in one package but only the first half had been revised. Councilman Crawford asked if they didn’t adopt the rest of it and Councilman Mitzel said they adopted the old version of the second half, and in December they only got half way through and they asked Ms. Bartholomew to bring the changes that they had a consensus on and get those adopted so at least they would have something adopted, but they never went any further than the Cable TV Policy.

Councilwoman Mutch asked if this was the Rules Committee and Councilman Mitzel said the Rules Committee already has reported back and it was up to Council to reach a consensus on the recommendations and that is what they had done on December 9th.

Ms. Fluherty said there was a need to do the second half and work on revisions and she asked how do they want to do that.

Councilman Mitzel said the first half they did with a Committee Meeting of the Whole on Saturday morning.

Councilwoman Mutch asked if he would expect there to be extensive changes from previous changes or did he think this part has just begun and will be straight-forward.

Councilman Mitzel said in previous discussions there had been a general consensus, but they have new members and it has been so long since they have discussed it. He felt it would be similar to what they did on that Saturday morning.

Councilman Crawford said he was a member of that Committee, but he can’t remember which document they are basing their discussion on and is it the old policy or the policy that the committee recommended. Councilman Mitzel said that Saturday morning, they used the current adopted rules side by side with the Committee’s recommendations and saw what the Committee recommended and saw what they already had. Councilman Crawford thought that was a good way to do it.

Ms. Fluherty said they are saying they want to re-constitute that same group to finish the process and Councilman Crawford said all of us and Councilman Mitzel said when is the big question.

Councilwoman Mutch asked if it was possible to have a copy of both and to individually review it and submit something and Councilman Mitzel said she was recommending the process they used with the Rules Committee originally and the Rules Committee had originally reported June, 1994 when they asked for input from the individual members and they met and they revised it and reported back in late 1994.

Councilwoman Mutch said we can either have a Committee of the Whole Meeting where we get input from everyone in the verbal way at the meeting or you can get copies of this and provide the opportunity to provide input and then collate it so if there are certain areas they get a lot of comment or discussion in a shorter meeting and we can focus on those things and if it did go back to the Rules Committee, maybe that is where it would go, and they can say we had discussion on that.

Mayor McLallen said she would like to move this forward to review and the responsibility would be on all seven of them and then get them back in a ten day time frame to one member. As Councilwoman Mutch pointed out, certain areas everyone may agree on and certain areas some may not, but for those areas that are coming at them with red flags, if it is a big deal then obviously they are going to have to have a big meeting and after everyone rereads these documents and they are happy, they might find that they are talking about changing only two columns and they don’t need to have another meeting.

Councilman Schmid felt he did much better in a meeting to get it over with and get it done.

Councilman Clark said he agreed with Councilman Schmid’s comment because they can sit at home and read something and make certain comments on it, but without having the presence of everyone else at the same time they are reviewing the document, how they perceive it might change if they have the input from other members of Council.

Councilman Clark said he was not in favor of any more meetings than they have to have, but he felt they may be better off having one more meeting in the future and sitting down and taking the second half of that document and dealing with it. At the same time, they have everyone there and everyone has the benefit of everyone else’s insight, and they can sort all that out and boil it down to what is really relevant and what has to be changed, and then get the second half of the document back and deal with that and then they will have a completed document.

Councilman Crawford said they had many recommendations but as a committee they never got through the whole document because they ran into scheduling problems, so he concurred with Councilman Schmid and Clark that since they really don’t have a full committee recommendation of the last half, it is based on what Councilman Mitzel said a while ago, and they had two documents they can compare, but he didn’t see that it was necessary to do it individually or as a subcommittee. He felt if they can sit down on a Saturday morning, they could get through a lot without too much philosophical difference as far as committee assignments, etc.

Councilman Schmid recommended this be put off until at least June.

Mayor McLallen said send it to a committee of the w hole, and the when is in June or July, and the process would be a Saturday morning session.

Mr. Kriewall also suggested a Thursday evening and it was stated it would be a Committee of the Whole meeting.

It was stated the comments are to be in before May 1st and Councilman Mitzel will report to the Council on May 13th.

Goal #4, Objective #1: Establish in conjunction with Administration, a right of way maintenance program for public right of ways.

Councilwoman Cassis said under Goal #5 the following is listed, "Expand the City Council involvement in the Novi 20/20 process." To her that would be more appropriately under the Long Range Planning and she would request that they put it as #5.

Mayor McLallen asked for someone to explain what the intent of that one is and Councilman Schmid said we do a lot of work with businesses and assuring that they have checked the bonds, landscaping and so on. He indicated this City has a terrible record on right-of-ways and properties and maintaining them. He felt they should be mowed nicely and should be lawns and not weeds and so this is to beautify the City right-of-ways and City properties.

Councilman Mitzel said he would advocate that it be a comprehensive City property maintenance program because quite honestly they have a lot of property all through town and there is encroachment and there is no signage that says this is public parkland, that this is private property. He said there are large vacant areas of City land that needs to be mowed and there are also the right-of-ways. He didn’t know if there was a consensus of Council that this should be a comprehensive City property maintenance program.

Mr. Kriewall said he didn’t know of any problems and would like some examples.

Councilman Schmid said he was speaking of right-of-ways that are mowed twice a year and last year Twelve Mile was very bad the way it was maintained. He was also talking about Twelve Mile, Eleven Mile, Ten Mile and Nine Mile right-of-ways and then public land that they own that they don’t mow very well.

Councilman Mitzel said his examples would be encroachment into Rotary Park by the residents that live in Chase Farms and Riverbridge that use the parkland for their own playground equipment and such, and he would also say the sidewalk and bikepath maintenance along the main roads which are in the right-of-ways and that would also be public land maintenance.

Councilman Mitzel said it took a couple of months to get a list of just the City-owned properties and he had no idea if they have been inspected on a routine basis or been taken care of. He said they didn’t have a system in place to do that and they have property all over the City.

Councilman Mitzel felt at least on a certain regular basis each property should be checked to see if there are any problems with it or encroachment or other issues.

Councilwoman Mutch asked if it was something they could assign to someone, and Mr. Kriewall said he felt when setting goals, it is very important to identify the problems and have a consensus discussion on what the problem is because when he looks at this, they were establishing all sorts of goals and for a lot of it, the answers are already available to Council or to him and it doesn’t make any sense to pursue it. He felt they need to spend more time talking about the particular problem because that is when they move to correcting the problem.

Mayor McLallen said the problem is they do not have a long-term management plan for City owned property and just in the last year, they have received the inventory of what was owned and when they read through that inventory, certain assemblages are very clear, such as there are right-of-ways period, and if a mowing schedule needs to be established for those, that is an equipment and personnel question that will be answered in the Budget. She said then you have to develop a policy as to what to do with the public lands. She said some parcels such as fire station sites and some exterior parcels on the lake, may no longer fit the need and do we have a plan to divest of any of these properties and use the money in another way.

Mayor McLallen felt the first step is to identify what they have and the second step is what are they going to do with it now that they have it, and third step would be if they are going to do something with it, what resources are needed. She felt that was an administrative task.

Mr. Kriewall said Administration can deal with it.

Councilwoman Mutch is hoping as they go through this, if there is no overwhelming or a majority move to do something, they should move on to the next issue.

Councilman Mitzel said the what on this would be to develop comprehensive public land management program for public lands. Ms. Fluherty asked how did he want that to happen and he replied Administration would develop the plan and the Council would have to adopt it.

Councilman Schmid said he would like things cleaned up this summer when people are looking at it. Ms. Fluherty said they could ask Administration to come back with a phased recommendation. Mr. Kriewall said the initial concern is the immediate goal and they should deal with that first and then develop a plan over a period of time.

Mr. Kriewall suggested a plan for mowing by June 1st and then the total plan by September 30th.

Ms. Fluherty asked about under Long Range Planning, "Establish a plan for the preservation of Novi’s historic resources." Councilwoman Mutch said this was something that should be coming to Council sometime soon and there would be some guidelines offered and if we provide a date by which we are going to do this, it will happen.

Ms. Fluherty asked who would be doing it and Councilwoman Mutch said the Historic District Study Committee will be having a three-part recommendation and a public hearing to establish a plan. Ms. Fluherty asked when did she want to have this group make a presentation and Councilwoman Mutch answered she would find out officially where that Committee is at and bring it back.

Ms. Fluherty referred back to Goal #2, #1, the Comprehensive Transportation Plan, Development of a Comprehensive Plan. Councilman Mitzel understood that was in last year’s Budget and being developed right now by the Department of Public Services and will be put it in one of the Road Budgets.

Mr. Wahl explained they had several plans, and they had a Thoroughfare Plan and that was adopted in 1993 and a Ten Year Transportation Improvements Plan completed six months ago and that was designed to identify improvements perceived for a ten-year time frame and they received that this Fall. He said from that, came Road Bond Three which was intended to be the next step in the City’s Improvement Program, so all the documents are already there. He said what they are doing now is proceeding to the next update of all those documents to fit the puzzle and that wouldn’t take place for another several years. He added there was also a Sidewalk and Safety Path Plan.

Councilman Mitzel said it sounds like plans have been developed and now it is up to them to find a way to implement them, which falls back to Goal #1 which was how to prioritize all of the needs because roads are listed as part of that goal all along with safety paths.

Councilman Mitzel would suggest to address this goal as part of Goal #1.

Mayor McLallen felt before they have a Budget before them, they will have a report from every single committee, so the issue for the Council is that the community has identified these needs and the Administration is going to tell Council what resources they have. Mr. Kriewall indicated everyone is aware there are no resources.

Councilman Mitzel suggested telling Council the money currently invested for certain projects that were ongoing, etc., so they could take a look at everything and start seeing the Big Picture. Mayor McLallen suggested putting each one of those on a sheet with dollar signs attached such as a status report.

Councilman Schmid asked for the Ice Arena or Pool, what kind of millage are they talking about and what would be the impact and Mr. Kriewall indicated they he would provide that information.

Mr. Wahl commented they did the road planning and did the improvements plan and a proposal was done for another road bond package. His recollection was that in 1990 they had a Citizens Committee that came together and reviewed the proposal and endorsed it and copies were given to Council. He wasn’t sure what the process was, but it went forward and was successful. He asked are they going to have another Citizens Committee look at the road bond package and will that be part of the planning process.

Councilman Mitzel thought the Citizens Committee would support the bond issue and he thought it had been a Technical Committee that championed that and Mr. Wahl asked if they would follow that same process and Councilman Mitzel said it would be up to the citizens.

Mayor McLallen said at this point, the wants have been identified and Administration can give the Council back-up for half-monies, projected monies, and money sources and then the Council will have to decide which ones and in what time frame that Council can fund. She felt they needed some dollar figures and then need to reach a decision.

Ms. Fluherty said when looking at Goal #1, they are talking about comparative lists of all the wish lists of Novi for infrastructure and special facilities. She said they need to have the information as far as what is on Objective One and what is on Objective Three, and what are the current revenue sources for these programs. She said they need as much information as possible when they look at the competing interests for those dollars.

Councilman Crawford said he didn’t understand how Goal #2, Objective One got them over to Goal #1. Ms. Fluherty said they just jumped to it. She said as Mr. Wahl has stated, now that they have the transportation plans, how would they be implemented.

Ms. Fluherty said the first to happen with Goal #1 is gathering all of the information and deciding on where their priorities are for funding, and then they can begin to deal with the implementation plan for roads and transportation and everything else.

Councilman Mitzel said under the Implementation Plan for roads and non-motorized roads, he believed that would be addressed by the Capital Improvements Plan, which was a six-year plan and the roads are included in that. He said the process would be the CIP and then Planning Commission and then Council. He said the when would be the CIP is supposed to pass on to the Council on April 10th and the Planning Commission should act this month and then on to City Council in a month.

Ms. Fluherty asked who would like to track that item to make sure those things do happen and Mr. Wahl indicated he would.

GOAL #1, OBJECTIVE #3

Councilman Mitzel said Goal #1 would be information on the Budget process next month and Mr. Kriewall said he would get that for him in two weeks. Councilman Mitzel also stated they had made some charts on projects for DPS and Parks & Recreation for their last goal session and he felt that would be a good framework to start working from, and they could look at it and see the timing and then the costs.

Ms. Fluherty asked if they wanted to add these items to the chart and Councilman Mitzel said that was what he was suggesting and to at least have more of a projects status report for the ones currently in process and a timing chart where they are, compared to where they are going and how much money spent compared to how much was approved for.

Councilman Mitzel said Goal #3 deals with the projects not yet approved. He felt it all should be packaged in the most logical manner and include the projects approved too. It was stated to have this by April 15th.

OBJECTIVE #2 - GOAL #1

"To have the City Council review the information and set priorities that reflect the needs of the community as a whole." Ms. Fluherty said Task #1 is to develop criteria in determining those priorities. She asked do they want to have anyone talk about what criteria they might want to use in order to decide which of these they could do first or which are most important, because once they look at the financial resources, she has a strong feeling they were going to have to set priorities.

Mayor McLallen asked what is the service that has 100% access by way of our citizens. In her opinion roads and public safety are the two functions government must provide for everyone.

Ms. Fluherty said let’s not set the criteria that night, but do they all agree that someone needs to look at what criteria they were going to use. Councilman Mitzel said they would all have to determine what criteria is important to them and Mr. Kriewall said after the first two, it gets tough to prioritize and it depends on where they want the votes.

Councilman Mitzel felt it may depend after they receive the information on April 15th and that may prioritize itself in a certain way and it may rule out things not realistic.

Ms. Fluherty noted one comment made several times at their first meeting was looking at all of these as competition and what is going to sway them and is it going to be the people that are best organized or something else that is going to make the determination. She said they may want to think about criteria that is important to them as a City Council.

Mr. Wahl said when looking at Master Plan techniques, they reviewed a variety of approaches, some of which were written and then also phone surveys and we compiled that information and provided it to the Planning Commission this past year as part of how they are going to do the Futuring process for the next Master Plan Program.

Mr. Wahl indicated since that time, they have been looking at it informally as a more generalized visioning process that Farmington Hills used and others. He didn’t know if this fits into the scheme, but they have some concrete proposals to bring forward during the Budget process to utilize that technique as a long range community development planning tool.

Councilwoman Mutch said there are specific things they can do by way of surveys, and it is a safe way to do it. She felt if they are taking a poll of what people want, then people expect they will abide by the results of the poll. She said they also have to look at what is important to Council and the City.

Mr. Wahl clarified that he didn’t think there was any kind of recommendation as to what kind of surveys to do or not to do. He said secondly, this is beyond really what can be handled at this meeting, except to say in talking to Farmington Hills and their City Manager, they got glowing reports in terms of how it is effectuating hands-on citizen involvement in the community beyond angry people showing up at a meeting periodically. He said it created a group of involved people.

Mr. Wahl said they were really excited about it but he didn’t know what the time frame would be, but for some of those goals, they may not see them in the first rendition or they may be four or six months from now. He felt this kind of process can go a long way toward identifying what things the community can succeed with.

Councilwoman Mutch said under Goal #5 , #3, "Expand the City Council involvement in the Novi 20/20 process," which Councilwoman Cassis said should be moved to Goal #4, #3, she felt that was exactly what they were talking about and if that is the case, and if they were going to involve City Council in a process, why don’t they leave it where it is at and then as a Council they would hear more about it.

Ms. Fluherty asked if she wanted to combine the concept of the Futuring/Visioning Process, with the 20/20 Process and Councilwoman Mutch said for her as a Council person, that tells her something is already happening out there that as a Council, they were not involved in and their role should be expanded. She felt they should say what it is, where it is at, who is going to tell us more about it and when.

Mr. Kriewall said that would be during the Budget process by the Planning Department and it would be a proposal that Council would consider in other words, there would be some funding involved for a facillator and other ancillary costs and before they can implement this program or consider implementing it, he felt it would be a Budget consideration.

Councilman Schmid said the key to Futuring is who they put on the Committee, and if they put on people from the Chamber of Commerce, they would have one Future and if they put on people from West Novi, they would have another Future. Ms. Fluherty said that is the process that is used and various communities have successfully done them in a variety of ways. Councilman Schmid said he read the report and the report cost $100,000 and he didn’t think it did any good.

Councilman Schmid said a year later, they had a project that they put in, and had the whole citizens up in arms and it was a PUD.

Councilman Mitzel said determining the criteria in selecting priorities for all these for Goal #1, he believed that the Mayor had stated at their last meeting that they would be bringing this back for some sort of discussion within 60 days at the City council, so he would think the process would be through the Budget process. He said they were looking at this information they had gathered on April 15th and will discuss what they want to do with the proposals that are presented to them late May or June.

Councilman Mitzel said he felt that would be a process that they would have information that they would discuss at that meeting and the when would be late May or early June.

Mayor McLallen was concerned looking at this goal, and they need to develop a plan to deal with these and she didn’t feel they were getting any closer that the plan. She felt the bottom line of the plan is an understanding of the finances which are going to happen in the Budget process. She felt in that process, they are going to have to make decisions as to which of these are going to come into the funding cycle for 96-97 and some of them may be addressed there.

Mayor McLallen felt they have to at this point give direction to Administration so that when they get into the dollars, they would be able to go to the next level because it is how much cash they have to spend that is going to do this. She said in that discussion, some of the other members are saying what are the priorities of this council and they unfortunately at this Budget session, do not have the luxury of going out in the next 30 days and tapping the citizens, much as they would like to. She said they don’t have a funding mechanism in place and that needs to be addressed.

Mayor McLallen asked is the priority to get through this Budget session in the most efficient way so that these decisions one year from now, will either be on or off the track and will be half-way built or will be history. She asked if they were in agreement that is where they are going.

Ms. Fluherty said when they have that discussion, they were going to have to keep it in mind that they are in a bind because they have to now make their Budget decisions without the benefit of more information that they could have from these futuring things or any other sources. She said but they should keep in mind that the decisions they make in this Budget cycle do not have to deep six those things that don’t make it in this Budget cycle.

Mayor McLallen agreed and that is why she felt the cycle will force us into the triage and perhaps see the ones that are getting a consensus and focus our energies on giving them more light in the next cycle.

Ms. Fluherty asked how are they going to make those triage decisions and are they going to wait until they were in the middle of the Budget and people were sitting in the Audience lobbying for their Budget item.

Mr. Kriewall felt they were at key points with most of these projects in terms of committee completion and they already have their financial direction. He said the road map is there and he could put it into a document for them, but all he was saying was the map is already created and they know pretty much where everything needs to go and it is probably to a vote because there isn’t any money. He said they wrapped up the Budget at 7:30 that night and he can tell them there are really no discretionary funds available.

Ms. Fluherty said the task may be that they have to look at alternative funding or tell their committees to do that.

Councilwoman Mutch said taking the pool as an example, if they as a Council say they want this to happen and sense there was community support for it, they would take a look of a way to make it happen.

Mr. Kriewall felt they could vote on them all and as a practical matter Council has to determine which are the higher priorities and have the prime picking order with the elections coming up, but beyond that, they were going to have to vote on just about everything.

Councilwoman Mutch said but they decide what is important to them. Let’s say a pool and let’s just say a pool is important and they say here are the alternatives to making this happen but they don’t have the money here and is it important enough to them that there be a pool in this community that they are willing to encourage private sector development of the pool to serve this community or is it more important to them to have a municipal pool.

Councilman Schmid said Police and Fire is going to come back for three mills at least, maybe more, and they wouldn’t get it, but that would be what they are asking the citizens to vote for. He said the lake property, the pool, the roads, are going to be another mill.

GOAL #2, OBJECTIVE 2

"Develop Ordinances for dealing with vacant property. Prevent eye sores, consider future needs when analyzing." Before starting this item, Ms. Fluherty stated those are all the zoning and ordinances and what are they going to do with their Zoning Board and Planning Commission and they had talked about involving them somehow in the discussions and did they want to do anything about that or with this list or deal with those themselves.

It was stated the Jobs Commission would like to bring some information forward on opportunities in Michigan and they were given copies of some of their new zoning to see if it is going to meet the community’s goals of quality development and what is actually out there, so it was a starting point.

Ms. Fluherty said so there would be a meeting of the Jobs Commission and who else and Mayor McLallen replied the Planning Commission and the City Council and the Economic Development Committee. Councilman Schmid asked who is the Jobs Commission and she replied the Governor’s Office and they have basically taken over the EDC fund. She said it would be sometime in May.

Ms. Fluherty said then Goal #3 should be revisited after that meeting and she asked who would make sure that happens and Councilman Mitzel said he was going to suggest any of the ones that didn’t have the support or whoever felt strongly about them. He felt they could further develop them and communicate with the rest of them the ideas and there may be a consensus that they should look at it. He said Council as a whole, should spend a lot of time on them at this point.

Mr. Wahl said given that he heard about this some weeks ago, as well as other issues that have been identified, they have been working on this quite a bit for the last three months and they have a number of proposals that will come forward.

Ms. Fluherty said Mr. Wahl and Mayor McLallen will take the lead on making sure that Goal #3 doesn’t get lost somewhere and would the parts of Goal #2 also fall in that same realm then and Mr. Wahl felt Goals 3, 4 and 5, but he hasn’t spent a lot of time with #2.

Ms. Fluherty asked if they wanted to spend the last few minutes on Goal #2 and what did they want to do. Councilman Mitzel suggested that there are four people on Council that felt this should be dealt with and the proper place to deal with it is in the Ordinance Review Committee and have them study the possibilities so they should send it to the Ordinance Review Committee and have them report back. He felt this was involved so probably sometime in the Fall.

Councilman Mitzel said there has been some discussion at the Ordinance Review Committee about mowing large vacant parcels and he felt the general consensus at that point was they really can’t require people to mow vacant fields and there is also some talk about possibly looking at a certain amount of footage of the road. He said there are some people complaining about allergies.

Ms. Fluherty indicated it would be referred to the Ordinance Review Committee and they would be asked to report back by September, 1996.

Ms. Fluherty asked if there is anyone who wants to take a lead on #3 under Goal #4, "Enhance the Grand River Road area between Meadowbrook and Novi Roads with a consistent theme."

Mr. Kriewall felt the Grand River Corridor Study will deal with that and it was discussed further and then Mayor McLallen requested to have a status report of the process.

Goal #4, Item #4, was discussed briefly and it was stated it would be tracked by Councilwoman Cassis and Mr. Kriewall. Mr. Kriewall said they also need to get a status report regarding expanding/relocating the Post Office. It was stated Mr. Kriewall and Mr. Wahl would track that item and have a status report within 30 days.

Goal #5, #1, "Establish a Cultural Committee for cultivation and refinement of intellectual and artistic elements in the City of Novi." This item was discussed and Ms. Fluherty asked when did they want to hear about this and it was stated June 15th. She then asked about #2, "Develop and implement a Policy on Youth, their needs and opportunities. Special emphasis on 12-16 year olds." The Mayor discussed that briefly.

Ms. Fluherty asked about Goal #6, #2, "Implement the Team Novi Spirit. Continue working with the positive attitude exemplified the last two months." It was stated Mr. Kriewall would do the first part and the Council would do the second part.

Ms. Fluherty said #3, "Review the Administrative Organization." Councilman Mitzel said he had already asked for information and he would follow that.

The Mayor thought that Item #4, "Computerize Council communications. Improve all systems of communication" was in progress. Mr. Kriewall said they would discuss this item during the Budget process.

Councilman Mitzel then had some additional comments and he was wondering if Mrs. Bartholomew would give them a regular update of this document made up in the Monthly Report and they could all see the status and who was supposed to do things and what things are upcoming.

Ms. Fluherty said she would give Mrs. Bartholomew a clean copy of this to be used. She said she would take the notes from that night such as she needs and fill in the blanks and get that to Mrs. Bartholomew and then she can compare her notes and hopefully get this all out to them before the middle of April.

Ms. Fluherty then indicated she had some other things to discuss and one was to let them know about a program called Entreprennial Government Workshop, which is a series of nine sessions that are going on at the Tollgate Conference Room. She indicated each session is $66.00 and it is designed for governmental entities that want to make changes happen in their communities. It is a good workshop session. They will be held on a Tuesday once a month at about 10:00 or 11:00 and over by 5:00.

Ms. Fluherty said she also gave a brochure to Mr. Kriewall on Sustainable Communities Conference that will take place in Lincoln Nebraska and there are a lot of things such as Policy Implications of Strategic Planning for Economic Development, the use of private and public partnerships to fund downtown improvements, streetscape, projects, and multi-jurisdictional consolidations, etc.

Ms. Fluherty said she would be working with them on their fiscal impact analysis since she is part of that whole program that is going on in the whole state.

ADJOURNMENT

There being no further business before the City council, the meeting was adjourned at 10:10 PM.

Mayor Tonni Bartholomew, City Clerk

Date approved: August 26, 1996

Transcribed by Sharon Hendrian