Belleville reels from having no one certified to run 2020 election

UPDATE: In a brief meeting on Sept. 16, the Belleville City Council hired Vera Chapman, who now works in Birmingham, to be its city clerk / treasurer. She is expected to start work in two weeks.
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Belleville Interim City Manager Tracey Schultz Kobylarz told the city council at its Sept. 8 Zoom meeting that the city clerk resigned and she has no one certified to register voters, send out absentee ballots, or run the 2020 Presidential election.
City Clerk/Treasurer Sheri Scharf resigned as of Sept. 1, but stayed until Sept. 4 to help with the work.
Kobylarz said she had an interview with an applicant for clerk the next day, but she didn’t know if the person was certified as required.
She said the next week absentee ballots will need to be mailed out and no one here to do the work.
Kobylarz said she reached out to other clerks and spoke to council people. She said she was left with an option to partner with Van Buren Township’s clerk and deputy clerk.
This would “provide stability, security, knowledge and expertise.” She said because Clerk Leon Wright and Deputy Clerk Joanne Montgomery are needed at the township to work on the upcoming election, they could provide services to Belleville in their free time, after regular hours in VBT.
“I’m in the process of training with the Secretary of State so I can register voters,” Kobylarz said. She said 85% of the training was complete and she hopefully would be done the next day.
She said they will need to stuff envelopes. Kobylarz said usually there are 400 absentee voters in the city, but they have already received 900 applications so far.
“I need someone that can hit the floor running today,” Kobylarz said.
“The search for a full-time clerk continues, but I can’t do two jobs… I’m not that good, folks,” she said.
She said the classes only allow her to register people to vote.
“The investment is worth it,” she said. “We’re a week behind.”
Councilman Ken Voigt asked about the fee and she said it would be for three months of election services which she negotiated down to $8,000.
Councilman Voigt asked what the VBT people would do and Kobylarz said they would enter names into the Qualified Voter File, which she is not qualified to do.
During the election they need to be able to cover VBT and Belleville in the same hours. One can stay in their township and one stay in the city, she said.
Chamber of Commerce president Steve Jones asked if she reached out to the Secretary of State for help.
She said she called the state and they said they had no one to send. She called the county and they said they had no one to send and, “You’ll have to figure it out!”
Kobylarz said it took her a week to access to training. She filled out the forms on the last Saturday of August and just got approval the previous Friday and started taking classes over the weekend.
“They are basically doing data entry?” Mayor Pro Tem Jesse Marcotte asked, referring to the VBT clerks.
Kobylarz said there are certain time frames and information on how many military and how many ballots sent overseas.
“It’s data farming, not just pushing buttons,” Kobylarz said.
“I don’t understand this enough,” Marcotte said, noting the city is again trying to fix something at the last minute. He said it was an independent contractor agreement.
He said he wasn’t comfortable in making a decision at that meeting on people from another community running the election, outside of business hours, paying a fee. “I don’t understand,” he said.
Mayor Kerreen Conley asked if the attorney looked at the proposed agreement.
Kobylarz said she spoke with the Secretary of State and the Board of Elections and they said it was perfectly all right.
Mayor Conley asked what would happen to the agreement if she hired somebody tomorrow.
She said the agreement is not based on hours but is a flat fee. She said once people are registered, the city would be able to print labels and stuff envelopes and get the mail out.
“What help would the administration have other than handing over 900 requests?” she asked.
Kobylarz said there may be only 900 votes, but every thing every clerk does is exactly the same. Numbers don’t save time, they’re just smaller numbers.
Councilman Tom Fielder asked if after the interview the next day could the person take over? He said they might not be able to hire this person. “Do we wait and see?” he asked. “Would VBT have a one-day grace period?”
Kobylarz said she wasn’t adverse to waiting a few days and take their comments into account.
“I can do more homework for you … As long as you’re open to a special meeting,” she said.
Councilmembers all agreed to take no action and be open to a special meeting, if necessary.
The council also discussed the water bills that have been causing such a furor with residents.
Nathaniel Oregon brought up the subject, noting water bills went from two months to three months, but the actual dates on the bills were for two months. Water bills were $600 to $700. He asked if this had to do with the water main breaks?
He suggested it would be good to have more notification of what this is all about, maybe putting it on the city web site.
Mayor Conley told Kobylarz that she was one of the residents with a $700 water bill and she doesn’t know why it is so high.
Kobylarz said as part of COVID, they went from monthly billing to bi-monthly billing to reduce face-to-face contact at city hall.
When they went to monthly, there was a glitch and didn’t bill solid waste. The first bi-monthly bill for water included three months’ worth of refuse cost.
“Now it’s working the way it’s supposed to,” Kobylarz said.
“People wonder what’s going on?” Oregon said.
“A number of residents are upset and they should be,” Marcotte said. He said the city switched to a monthly bill to avoid financial problems and then switched to bimonthly. He suggested using the newspaper of record to make sure people understand.
“It wasn’t handled well,” Marcotte said. “We should write an apology and send it to our paper of record.” He said with the water bill changing month to month, it should be explained ahead of time.
“We have the ability to put notes on our water bills,” said Councilwoman Kelly Bates.
Marcotte said the water bill said June 11 to Aug. 10 and at the bottom said three months.
“My wife got the bill and she had to call city hall to find out what it was all about and I’m on the city council,” Voigt said. “I apologize.”
Oregon said people are calling in to city hall and not being able to get an answer.
Marcotte said people called and got no answer. Paid their taxes days or weeks ago and have no receipt. They were told to pay cash and drop it in a box, which is risky, he said.
“Maybe it’s time to revisit that,” Marcotte said.
Voigt said he read Rick Dawson’s letter in the Independent and he agrees. Dawson couldn’t come in to get a dog license.
Mike Kole said they could print the website address on a card and tell people to go there for an explanation.
Councilwoman Bates said there is an outrageous fee to pay online. The company the city is using is not the right one, she said.
“We paid $20 last time to pay the $600-$700 bill,” Voigt said.
Kole said at the Chamber of Commerce they pay $30 a month for water and to pay $20 on top of that would be ridiculous.
He said the chamber pays 2% for its online payments, about $10 a month, and the customer pays nothing.
“That’s easily correctible,” he said of the online payment charge.
“It discourages people from paying online,” Voigt said.
Mayor Conley asked Kobylarz for a report back on that.
Councilman Fielder defended Kobylarz, saying the administration was going without any direction. He said the council can learn from things and change things but shouldn’t say we didn’t do the right thing.
Mayor Conley said this is directly related to COVID with people working from home and some furloughed. They had people coming in fewer times.
“Every day is a new day,” Mayor Conley said. “Some things we did well and some things, if we are here in the future … we wouldn’t do again.”
In other business at the Sept. 8 meeting, the council:
• Approved the VFW 4434/PLAV 167 Veterans’ Day ceremony at the Veterans’ Memorial at 11 a.m., Nov. 11;
• Approved the 7th Day Adventist Church’s Tent Revival (no flaps on tent) in Victory Park from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 9 and 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 10. Social distancing; 100-150 expected;
• Approved the Chamber of Commerce’s Winterfest, Dec. 3-6 in a tent on Fourth Street Square, plus parade, and possibly fireworks. Two options were presented which will be defined closer to the event, including casino tent, food trucks, street dining, and pop-up shops. Participants and guests expected, 1,000-2,000;
• Approved paying not to exceed $4,200 to TNT Tree Service to remove the trees on the city-owned lot next to the DPW yard, along with the community Christmas tree in Doane’s Landing at the bridge;
• Approved accounts payable of $160,599.11 and the following purchases over $500: to ElectionSource $845.50 for on-site tabulator testing for Aug. 4 election; to Dundee Twp. Fire Department, $809 for 10% grant match for thermal imaging camera for fire department; and to Fortified Plumbing, $650 to replace broken toilet at city hall;
• Heard Fire Chief Brian Loranger report there is a leaky roof at the fire hall and a door that needs fixing and DPW Chief Rick Rutherford said he definitely could get quotes for repair. Also, Chief Loranger said fire fighters had to trim the trees at the fire hall and there are a bunch of branches down. Rutherford said he would try to get one of his guys to pick them up;
• Heard Rutherford report that in order to deliver the highest quality water to the community, he sent out sample bottles and he needs people to get them back to him. There is a requirement of 20 bottles and he sent out 25 and got only 16 returned. “It is of utmost importance we get those back,” he said, adding he will send out another 10;
• Heard Mayor Conley say during the Zoom meeting she reached out to the city’s DTE representative and found DTE is working to roll out a power reliability plan in Belleville and a representative will come to a city meeting in a few weeks to report;
• Heard Rutherford report that at the last water main break on Huron River Drive they were able to add an additional valve so the city can isolate problems and quickly repair. He plans to present a plan to upgrade valves for next year’s budget. He said there are problems with spiked pressures and a lot of underlying issues. He said they need a longterm capital improvement plan;
• Heard Bates suggest re-examing the ordinance against commercial vehicles on Liberty Street due to the construction. Rutherford said the city is better served by bringing those vehicles in by Liberty to keep from clogging up Main Street. Bates suggested blocking off the signs limiting commercial vehicles since this is temporary and Rutherford agreed;
• Agreed Rutherford should go out for bids as soon as possible to get the concrete restoration done at Doane’s Landing as well as 110’ of retaining wall since the grant on the project expires soon; and
• Heard Steve Jones report high school football is back on, with the first home game in two weeks. He said they are working on a plan for live streaming. There will be no band.