Highland Park City Council

Here’s today’s agenda:

Something to note: The In Person/Virtual Highland Park City Council workshop that was supposed to be today at 5:30 is cancelled.

www.https://www.highlandparkmi.gov/media/hxtjhbti/250616a.pdf

This meeting is called to order at 7:00pm! Let’s get to it. It feels like everyone means business today.

The City Council President suggested they add the ‘ Highland Park Summer Youth Employment Program ’ to number 7 on the agenda.
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Another councilman seems to think it’s a more convoluted matter than just adding one thing to the agenda.

The disapproving councilman cites a previous incident when two items on one resolution were completely dismissed/disregarded because of this error.
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Another member of the council says that the resolution is just approving an agreement between two parties, rather than two different items.

Nonetheless the Agenda and Minutes are approved. And with that we move to Mayor McDonald.

My audio is not the best for her, but it sounds like she’s talking about the process of Highland Park’s City Council donating to something… I’ll have to clarify this later.

She says to tell everyone that it’s the job of the homeowner to tend to grass overgrowth in areas adjacent to their property. In order to mitigate the amount of animals and rodents in residential areas the grass must be cut.
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“Take pride in your property. If you’re a renter tell your landlord.”

“We are in the best financial situation we’ve been in, in 25 years.”
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Lofty applause! Mayor McDonald reports careful spending and intentional efforts will continue to make sure Highland Park is frugal.

Now moving to citizen participation.

Wow! Nobody! Moving on to item 5 on the agenda. The Bid opening for Vehicle towing ect… a motion is put on the floor to open the bids.
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Approved.

There is a request to cancel the bid and attempt to repost it, seeing as though some minutia of the language involved was not up to par. Therefore; There’s nothing to bid on!
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Moving onto item 6.

This item has been in a few meetings, (since being received last September) and has been tweaked quite a few times by the looks of it.
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A motion on the floor to approve, and support it . One councilman is a little dissatisfied with endorsing vision zero. Asking, what is this going to cost us?

The council president says this document was created for us, by us as a comprehensive safety plan for the citizens of highland park. Basically implying that the opposing councilman did not do his assigned reading.

https://detroitgreenways.org/tag/vision-zero/

He’s speaking over people now, which is a little unprofessional but, the councilman seems very uncomfortable with the changes.
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It seems like he feels as though someone is trying to get over on the council, by not presenting the information in a workshop.

A speaker comes up to explain on behalf of the Comprehensive Safety Plan, basically saying that it hasn’t changed much since the last time it was mentioned.
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The city council president seems to be implying it’s the responsibility of the disgruntled councilman to keep track of this information-

• Rather than expecting changes to happen and be presented to him without much effort on his part.

This item is approved!

Here’s a little more context for what was just discussed, as well as cross reference the same resolution in Detroit

wwhttps://www.hourdetroit.com/development-topics/michigan-receives-grants-to-improve-road-safety/

https://detroitmi.gov/sites/detroitmi.localhost/files/2022-09/Detroit%20CSAP.pdf

Now into the discussion on item 7a, moving to amend the budget as presented by Mayor Mcdonald.
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There are some questions concerning receiving a breakdown of the budget, as well as about the 20 million $ pension fund.

A different question is posed about 6k being accepted into the city as a result of the Highland Park Youth Employment program.
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All of these questions are clarified rather quickly, but the discussion moves toward questions of the legal department exceeding their budget.

The audio is quite horrible for this woman speaking which is unfortunate, but to my best attempt:

It sounds like she’s saying the department doesn’t actually know how much money is involved with, a specific lawsuit. That the city will know more soon.

There’s a bit of passive aggression in the air I keep noticing, but the budget amendment is eventually approved.

Item 8 is moved for approval with a by the council president request that when distributing fireworks there be some sort of information on fire safety along with it.
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Answer being they put up a very large poster on how to dispose of fireworks, as well as giving out flyers with similar messaging.

It’s approved. Moving onto item 9.

They’re screen sharing a map of Highland Park on Regrid, specifically this vacant area on Beresford St.
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A small portion of land is between this individual’s two properties, a public alley still owned by the city. Complaining that they get unwanted traffic and people through that area.

Basically saying that the land would remain available to the public, but the business wants the right to close their property off further back for maintenance.
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They want to rezone the vacated portion and assign it to an appropriate zone. (The aforementioned alley is just above the W in Winona)

9a is approved, but 9b is not for some reason? 9b being the reassigning of zoning the area of land the city just vacated. The head of the council seems quite frustrated as he says ‘we just chopped off the branch we’re standing on’
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One of the council members begins humming a bit disruptively.

‘We vacated the alley and just tossed it over our shoulder’
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‘Are we twisting arms or can we just move on to the rest of the agenda.’

Paraphrasing a little squabbling happening right now.

Yeah this is a full on bickering session now, but there’s still some attempts at clarifying that the land has no zone and they just refused to assign it one.

Moving on to item 10

Approved. 11 is on the floor with some concerns for the pricing. The Council President says it’s on the last page.
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“These are inflationary costs sir:”
“Inflationary my ass.”
“This is so straightforward it’s frightening.”

That’s what I heard between the President and Khursheed Ash-Shafii, who have been going back and forth multiple times this meeting.

The item is approved. The next one is not on the agenda? Item 12, the city wants to add two new police vehicles to it’s fleet.

Ash-Shafii asks how many cars highland park has bought for the police this year, the response is five.
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The oldest vehicle in the fleet is 2008. When asked how many vehicles the police department has are old, it’s clarified that the transportation vehicles are old- but the police vehicles aren’t

At about 45k per car, a councilwoman asks why these funds aren’t given elsewhere. The response being that the department can’t respond to calls with cars that break down.
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When asked that the majority of the vehicles are less than five years old- and what the lifespan of a police car is-

The man in question responds that he honestly can’t answer the question, because it’s based on usage.

Ash-Shafi kind of blows up at the representative of the department, saying that he’s trying to be nice but he really doesn’t like the police department anyway.

Item 12 is approved, and the department is given permission to make the purchase.

Citizen participation begins, opening up with a woman tenant who has been attempting to purchase a parking lot next to her residence after being told she could not buy it due to maintenance. She then maintained it for five years in compliance.
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Her neighbors were able to purchase it immediately.

Next commenter talks about a trash dumping problem near where he lives. He’s asking if the city can help him remove multiple piles of trash.

Robert Douglas Jr is our next commenter, asking about the land discussed under item 8. Saying that he heard nothing about the price of that land, and that it appears as though they’re selling it to that business.

“I don’t know what’s going on here, but the citizens are not being treated fairly.”

He then spoke about the Council President’s pain in losing his daughter, saying that ‘hurt people, hurt people.’ And that he’s condescending, patronizing, and disrespectful -…
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His time runs out and he is removed from the podium quite quickly.

Another resident comes up to complain about the pain that this alley is causing the community. Asking why businesses deserve protection but citizens do not.
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She claims a man roundly goes into the alley, stole everything in their house and her husband attempted a citizen arrest to no avail.

Her husband then comes up to speak about the same incident. He also says that he was denied permission to close that alley as well, and that he’s been living with the stress of people trying to rob his home.
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He wants permission to fence off the alley and be safe at home with his grandkids.

The council President walks out of the meeting.

He returns! Just in time for the next commenter to run out of time. She’s asking the council to be mindful of efforts to make Highland park more green with 10 solar powered street lights.

Another resident, the neighbors of the woman who was denied access to that parking lot- claims that her family worked their butts off to secure rights to that lot. And did so without harassment and through the proper channels.

A disabled commenter talks about the fear that open alley gives her when she tries to get into her vehicle. That she’s seen all sorts of violence take place in it.

The next commenter mentions a problem he has with the police department, saying that a disgruntled employee stole from him, and vandalized his property- and the police said they were going to pick him up but never did.
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Even the chief of police, after receiving video camera footage, did nothing.

The council president says they listened, but it’s not actually their responsibility to handle the majority of these problems.

The next commenter is a Pastor, reminiscing his youth in Highland park. Then speaking on the disorder in today’s meeting, he says-
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“I’m tired of hearing the bickering. I mean it from my heart.”

The council president asks the Pastor the accept and respect the time limit he has been given. More bickering would ensue, and the president raises his voice into the mic- telling an officer to “SIT HIM DOWN.”
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Until eventually telling him to get escorted out of the meeting

This next commenter is actually a resident that’s pro-lot, saying that certain people in the area like using it and that it makes no sense for it to be closed.

Another man says he used to have high hopes for the accomplishment of this new city council- but that he continues to watch his hopes be squandered.

Now moving to online commenter- Mayor McDonald! Who is speaking as the Mayor during this public comment, pointing out that a document was passed out to the council with a personal phone number on it.
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Which is absolutely unacceptable. Private information should be redacted.

Public comment is now closed.

“I despise the police. I loathe the police. May they burn in hell in this life and the next.”
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A direct quote from Ash-Shafii, who then goes on to say that his hatred for the police will not inhibit them from protecting the people. That he can detach from his feelings and get his job done.

Very very strong words. It’s a bit of a back and forth but he basically tells the police department representative to focus on the goal of tending to HP. The survival of the city is what matters. ‘Hate me, but love the city.’

Councilwoman Kallela Martin says she agrees that it’s disrespectful to knock down so many houses to build a useless building.

The next councilwoman says she needs the citizens need to show up on a lot of other areas. Show up to the zoning board meetings, the police department meetings- she just wants the emphasize that the city council can only help so much.

July 1st at 5:30 she’s holding a listening session/discussion with any available residents at a small business- Cakes and Shakes. Ending her comment with the same advice- go to the other meetings!

The next Councilwoman makes a motion to make their meeting packets available to the public, except for closed session.

The council president poses a question that- WHO is going to share this information. It sounds like he doesn’t want to take on more personal responsibility. Ash-Shafii suggests it goes on the website.

Councilman Ash-Shafii then suggests that he’ll do it himself if he has access to the system to accommodate to the lack of resources the Highland Park City Council is facing.

The motion goes through.

The council president then says that the people in this room are ‘riding him like a bus’ , that he is working quite hard to administer this meeting- doing things he shouldn’t be responsible for and going the extra mile.
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Suggesting that lots of these complaints at him are conveniently tied to-

An alleged cohort trying to take his place.

“I hope you sleep good tonight. Hope you sleep real good tonight, I do. Cuz you gon’ be on my mind, FOREVER.”

This meeting was adjourned at 9:38pm!

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