City Council OKs Monday car shows to resume

After a long discussion during Monday’s regular meeting of the Belleville City Council, the council voted unanimously to approve weekly car shows on Main Street which would be closed to traffic from Third to Fifth streets.
The summer car show could resume next Monday.
Since the Bayou Grill, which started the Cruisin’ the Bayou car show, announced it would not be holding them this year and would close the restaurant on Mondays, car lovers have been looking for ways to keep the show going.
At Monday’s meeting there were two proposals on the agenda, Item A which was to close High Street and have the car show there and Item B to continue to hold the shows on a closed Main Street.
High Street was proposed by David Nucullaj of Johnny’s Grill and James Frazier of Great Lakes Towing. They proposed closing High Street between Main and Church streets from 5 to 9 p.m. on Mondays through August.
Frazier, a Belleville Police Reserve Officer, said Reserve Officers would patrol the event and assist with traffic control. The two sets of restrooms at Johnny’s and those at Horizon Park would be available for the public, since no public restrooms on Main would be available with the Bayou closed.
Frazier said the bank has given them permission to use its parking lot for the cars, as long as the ATM was kept open until 6:10 p.m. and Grace Baptist Church said cars could be parked in their lot.
He said with the library construction, High Street was logistically a better place to close off. He said it would be called Cruisin’ Belleville.
Frazier said he measured High Street and there would be enough room for the more than 200 cars expected.
Bayou owner Brian Copsey supported the High Street location.
Jeff Vernon, chairman of the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission, said if High Street is closed people wouldn’t have access to the park or to launch their kayaks or go fishing.
“I opened this and it’s my baby,” Copsey said of the car shows. “Johnny’s is the place to go.”
Fire Chief Brian Loranger wrote a memo with his concerns that fire trucks would be unable to get to the backs of the buildings on High in case of a fire if High Street was closed. He referred to Johnny’s and the Masonic Temple. He said they wouldn’t be able to move parked cars fast enough for him to get close enough to save the buildings.
The second proposal was by Jennifer Winter of Egan’s Pub to keep the car show the same way it has been in the past on Main. She said the club that originally helped with the show, until the last two years, will be helping again. She said she has lots of help because she needs to be working inside the restaurant. Winter said porta potties could be used if necessary.
She said a private club took it out of town two years ago and she thinks it should be kept in the city.
“My phone has rung off the hook all day,” Winter said of support for her efforts to keep the car show running.
“I have concerns about Main Street because of the construction,” said Police Chief Hal Berriman. He said if there’s a few days of rain and the construction gets behind the cement mixers would have to get to the Fourth Street construction.
Councilman Tom Fielder said he was there when the library and museum people talked to O’Neal Construction and they said they won’t schedule work for Friday of Strawberry Festival. The construction team has been given a document of downtown events and they won’t schedule work when events are scheduled. He said they promised to end construction for the lakeside concerts on Thursdays in the summer.
“It’s a great theory, but I know what it’s like from when I was in Detroit,” Chief Berriman said. “If they’re backed up and hauling cement they can’t lose their loads … My basic concern was Main Street … I was thinking of the construction.” He conceded they can make it work with either decision.
Later Councilman Fielder said he didn’t know why they would have to accommodate someone who was told Main Street would be closed.
Fielder said he was a skeptic at first when Copsey brought the car show idea to the council, “But I have to congratulate you on a successful project.”
“Out of respect for your library, I stepped out of it so the library could go forward,” Copsey said. “That library is more important than a car show this summer.
“What’s more important to you, a library or a car show? Do we want to play that game? It ran fine. I made it so good, you won’t let it go,” he said.
He said for the first four years a car club ran the show and for the last two years it was the Reserve Officers.
“Johnny’s Grill has been here longer than I have and they deserve your support,” Copsey said.
After more discussion, the council envisioned a joint plan between the two proposals and Winter, Nucullaj, and Frazier agreed to cooperate and plan car shows that are best for the city.
Winter was put in charge and the three will bring their cooperative plan back to City Manager Diana Kollmeyer for approval. The car shows could resume as early as next Monday.
Nucullaj said they thought because of the beautiful view of the lake and the bathrooms available at Johnny’s that High Street was a good idea.
“But, whatever you decide is best for our town,” he said. “Again, it is OUR town. Tell them we don’t get along? Don’t come?”
“It has been a great event and it will be successful in the future,” said Mayor Kerreen Conley, who noted she is a mother of two sons who love cars and she brings them to the car show regularly.
Winter said the same people who helped the first four years will be putting on the show. After those supporting the car show proposals left the city council meeting, Sharon Pokerwinski said her husband’s car club parks the cars.
In other business at Monday’s two-hour-15-minute meeting, the council:
• Held a public hearing on the new $2,092,567.75 budget and then approved it as presented. Mike Renaud, who retired after working with corporate budgets at Ford, criticized the council for not including Doane’s Landing seawall repair in the figures because they know it is coming. Mayor Conley said the cost figures are yet to be finalized and it is coming out of the fund balance. They can amend the budget later, she said. To balance the budget, $5,703.76 had to be taken from the fund balance, which is now $1,230,273.77;
• Approved accounts payable of $1,325,917.62;
• Discussed the levy of a public safety assessment which can be done with a council vote after a public hearing. Brian, a representative of Plante Moran, said this is the second year the council is dipping into the fund balance and when that it done two years in a row it gets to be a trend. “You don’t have an expense problem. You have a revenue problem,” he said. The public safety assessment wouldn’t get captured by the Downtown Development Authority. The council is considering the assessment for the December tax rolls;
• Heard Renaud say that Belleville will be like Van Buren Township which raised its public safety millage and the people expected better public safety, but other money was transferred out of the public safety budget into the general fund. “It’s a shell game,” said Fire Chief Loranger. “It’s a shell game,” Renaud agreed. Mayor Conley replied, “I don’t think of it that way”; and
• Heard Building Official Rick Rutherford give an update on the Doane’s Landing seawall repair. He said the contractor and the city engineer are coordinating and he is talking to them in regard to warrantees, as requested by the council. The council also wants a firm figure for the work so the city attorney can draw up a contract. “We’re working on the details that were left out of the original bid,” Rutherford said. Kollmeyer said they don’t see any of the work commencing until late July and it will take two months to complete.