Mayor Landry called the meeting to order at 7 P.M.

ROLL CALL: Mayor Landry, Mayor Pro Tem Gatt-absent/excused, Council Members Burke, Crawford, Margolis, Mutch, Staudt

ALSO PRESENT: Clay Pearson, City Manger

Pamela Antil, Assistant City Manager

Tom Schultz, City Attorney

James Keglovitz, Oakland County Planning Staff, said they held a Green Infrastructure celebration to celebrate the completion of the first phase, resource, gathering and mapping, of a county wide vision, which Novi participated in. He said as part of that celebration, Barb McBeth presented and did a wonderful job. He said they awarded their Green infrastructure Award, which they were referring to as the Oak Land Award. He commented that the nominee for the award had to have made outstanding contributions and demonstrated successful efforts toward the planning, promotion, design, development or support of Green Infrastructure in Oakland County. Mr. Keglovitz noted the award was created by Dave Jungler out of a piece of Ash and was meant to be passed on from year to year. He said Novi was the first to receive this award because Novi had been doing green infrastructure related activities for years; long before the green infrastructure was really coined. He said they appreciated Novi’s efforts of blending natural and built environments together and held Novi up as one of the models in Oakland County for others to follow. Mr. Keglovitz presented the award to Mayor Landry. Mayor Landry said he was proud to accept the award on behalf of the City, the Administrative staff and a lot of people who worked very hard.

Member Burke said Council had recently adopted the Military Covenant. He said he wanted to give a little background on the Military Community Covenant, which was designed to develop and foster effective State and community partnerships with the Army. Also, to improve the quality of life for soldiers and their families in both their current duty stations and as they transfer from state to state. He said Community Covenant was tailored at the local level with leaders at both local and State levels participating in the covenant signings. He noted that while the Community Covenant was an Army program, it extended to other military services recognizing that many community efforts supported all service members and families regardless of the uniform they wore. Member Burke said they passed a resolution dated October 11th and on that date he was at the Palace along with many other community and civic leaders as they all signed the Covenant, which he was presenting this evening. He said he, along with other members from Auburn Hills, Southfield, Troy, Berkley, Madison Heights, Lake Orion, Bloomfield Hills, Rochester Hills, Royal Oak as well as members from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, wanted to present the Covenant to Mayor Landry for display in City Hall. The Covenant said "We the community recognize the commitment that soldiers and their families are making everyday. The strength of soldiers comes from the strength of their families, the strength of their families is supported by the strength of the community, and the strength of the community comes from the strength of employers, educators, civic business leaders and its citizens. We, the community, are committed to building partnerships that support the strength, resilience and readiness of soldiers and their families assisting in the implementation of the Army Family Covenant." Mayor Landry thanked Member Burke for representing the City of Novi and read Council’s Military Covenant Resolution.

John Harris, 43801 Grand River, said if the City changed his address it would cause a lot of inconvenience and complications for him and he didn’t understand why it was important to change it. Mayor Landry asked if he was speaking about the first agenda item and he replied yes, changing Grand River to Old Grand River.

Alan Agee, 43831 Grand River, stated he also lived on Grand River and agreed with Mr. Harris that it would be a great inconvenience. He said he would have to change his mailing address through the bus garage for his children and he wasn’t sure why the change was being made and would like Council to vote no on this item.

Glen Johnson, 43771 Grand River, said he would like Council to vote no on the name change of Grand River.

Mike Harris, owner of Novi Feed and Supply at 43963 Grand River, was present and encouraged Council to vote no on the name change and leave the street as it had been for over 100 years. He thought one reason they wanted to change the name was so it would be easier to find or designate. If anything, they needed to allow businesses to provide adequate signage or something that would help people find the business, not change the name of the road. Mr. Harris said they already had a bridge in front of their business, couldn’t advertise by the road and didn’t need an address change. Mr. Harris said they had no problem with people finding their location and the easiest way for people to find his location would be for him to be able to advertise properly out by the road. He said he knew that was a whole other issue but if Council was doing this to help businesses along Grand River, please say no. He said having the Grand River address was a benefit and was very easy to find. Secondly, the people who live at these houses understood that the gentleman who owned them was trying to sell them. He said he had heard that the person who developed the properties by the Sunoco and Mobil gas stations were going to build that building on Flint Street and quoted him as saying "if I can’t have a Grand River address, then I’m not going to building this building because I can’t lease my property and make the kind of money I need to invest the dollars to make this property worth while." Mr. Harris said everyone would like to see the area of the old houses redeveloped. If they changed the address, it would make the person’s, who’s trying to sell that property, job more difficult. Mr. Harris asked Council to leave the addresses alone, as they didn’t need to spend a lot of money changing letterhead, business cards, advertising and all the other things that would need to be done.

Member Margolis removed Item H.

A. Approve Minutes of:

October 12, 2009 – Regular meeting

B. Approval to award a contract for design engineering services for the 2010 Major and Local Roads Capital Preventative Maintenance Program to Orchard, Hiltz & McCliment, Inc. (OHM) for a not-to-exceed design fee of $28,160.

C. Approval of final payment of $6,830 to American Sprinkler Inc. for the Twelve Mile Road Irrigation project, located in the median of Twelve Mile Road between Novi and Meadowbrook Roads; and waiver of the Maintenance and Guarantee Bond requirement for the project.

E. Approval of final payment to Rauhorn Electric, Inc., for the Ella Mae Power Park Softball Complex, Police Station and Civic Center Parking Lot Lighting Project in the amount of $22,015.93

F. Acceptance of Taft Knolls Phase I streets　and adoption of Act 51 New Street Resolution accepting　Jacob Drive and Danyas as public, adding 1,165 linear feet or 0.22 miles of roadway to the City's street system.

G. Approval of a Storm Drainage Facility Maintenance Easement Agreement from Taft Knolls Condominium Association, Inc. for Taft Knolls Condominium located east of Taft Road and south of 11 Mile Road in Section 22.

I. Approval of a resolution of support for the City of Wixom's MDOT Transportation Enhancement Air-Line Trail Grant Application.

J. Approval of Claims and Accounts – Warrant No. 805

Mr. Pearson said this was very positive and it was just before the renewals for 2010. He said the City had a long standing business registration requirement to provide a data base for staff and primarily Fire to do some pre-planning with their inspections. He asked staff to look at the different data bases to see if there was a way to streamline, harmonize and make them work closer together. He said staff came back and suggested totally getting rid of the Business Registration program, as they thought they could get the same information by other mechanisms and remove the need for the businesses to go through an annual inspection. He said they thought the information wasn’t very good, it was a pain for the businesses and the City Clerks office that handled the registrations each year. He said it could be done by other means. Mr. Pearson said it was intertwined with several different ordinances and they would have to do some tweaking with the woodlands and wetlands ordinances. If in favor of this, it would remove the Business Registration requirement in 2010 going forward.

Member Staudt thanked the Administration for an excellent idea to get rid of a basically useless fee that didn’t generate much revenue, had a lot of administration and the timing was excellent. He said they didn’t need to put additional burdens on businesses right now for a purpose that was largely undefined.

Member Crawford stated she attended the SEMCOG meeting last week in Clinton Township. The biggest item on the agenda for adoption was the Direction 2035, which was a regional transportation plan for southeast Michigan. It was a long range transportation plan with the goal to improve the regions overall transportation and consisted of projects for the next 26 years. She noted an interesting part of this was a separate resolution that was passed by the Executive Committee that proposed a light rail on Woodward Avenue from Detroit CBD to Eight Mile, commuter rail from Ann Arbor to Detroit and Howell and simultaneously the next corridors for higher level transit treatment would be Gratiot Avenue from Woodward Avenue to M-59, M-59 from Telegraph to Gratiot and Woodward Avenue from Eight Mile to M-59. She thought an interesting portion of the meeting was a collection of data that took place in the meeting and municipalities were asked if they had a rainy day fund, and what percentage of their budget was. Member Crawford said many delegates didn’t know if they had a rainy day fund, and of those that did know the lowest percentage announced was 11% to the highest of 20%. She said the information would be available soon on SEMCOG’s web site under General Assembly Regional Update.

Member Margolis said according to the motion sheet Council had there were no comments received prior to this meeting by Administration about the name change. She said since they had received comments and concerns about this tonight, and for everyone’s clarity, the reason this was brought forward was a public safety issue. She said if Police or Fire were called to the area there might be some confusion, as to what address they meant. Mr. Pearson agreed and said it was just a part of their review. He said they had to think about a lot of different staff going out at different times of day and in different kinds of weather. He commented it was suggested, out of Public Safety, as a way to make that even better. He said it wasn’t real pressing and if Council wanted to postpone, they wouldn’t have a problem with that.

Member Mutch stated all those who stated they were opposed were east of the railroad tracks and there was no response from people west of the tracks. He thought there might be two different issues. He noted in a memo to Council, it was noted that the concern that was raised was with the street west of the railroad tracks and that there were multiple names associated with that street, depending on which City map they were looking at. Member Mutch said it didn’t seem to be an issue with the properties east of the railroad tracks. Also, if looking at the two roads, one was west of the railroad tracks and was really a separate street and Novi Feed and the homes east of the railroad tracks was really just a service drive and was no different than any other service drive along Grand River. Member Mutch asked the Administration, when looking at this, to consider it might be appropriate for the street to the west to have the name change. However, based on the nature of the property and that they really do front almost onto Grand River, leaving the eastern side alone might be a way of meeting the needs of these residents and business owners while addressing the segment west of the railroad tracks.

Mayor Landry commented that the information Council received was that letters were sent to property owners and no one commented, complained or objected. Mayor Landry said Council would appreciate and encourage them to e-mail the City Clerk restating their opinions, which would be passed on to the correct individuals.

Linda Krieger, 44920 Byrne, said she had heard that there was an issue about the Fire Department’s Station 3 and she wasn’t sure what was going to happen with it. She said because she had been in Novi for so long she couldn’t think of Station 3 not being there, so she read through the minutes and found that on June 15th Tom Wieczorek of ICMA Consulting did a project for the City regarding Police and Fire. Ms. Krieger asked that they remember due process; consider all sides and information as the information that the consultant put for just 2008 encompassed 30 years. She asked that Council listen to the firefighters because they had their best interests at heart.

There being no further business to come before Council, the meeting was adjourned at 7:25 P.M.

_______________________________ _______________________________
David Landry, Mayor                                    Maryanne Cornelius, City Clerk

_______________________________ Date approved: November 9, 2009

Transcribed by Charlene McLean