City Council ‘waiting for the dust to settle’ after city manager loss

On Monday, July 7, after hearing public comment and one other announcement, the Belleville City Council went into 40 minutes of closed-door session to discuss a written legal opinion regarding long-term contracts. Present were an attorney, the DPW director, and the public safety director.
Before the mayor asked everyone to leave the meeting room, the council heard comments from the owner of a store on Main Street who has the parking spaces in front of her store blocked by trucks whose drivers belong to the business next door. She says she’s been asking the city for help with this for six months and won’t give up.
The council also heard a resident of North Liberty Street say she is disappointed their road will not be done this year, but the sidewalk is all broken up and can that be repaired? She learned flags and sidewalk disarray was part of a DTE project to move gas meters inside. She asked for a speed bump on Liberty to slow down traffic and mayor Voigt said they could look into that as part of next year’s work.
A third speaker asked about crazy water bills. She said she is a shop owner and also a Realtor and her client sold her city property and moved out of state. Her client was told not to pay the water bill and she didn’t and the Realtor was worried about escrow problems.
Mayor Voigt said the city wants to work with everyone on the water bill problems and he said the same thing happened to him with the billing.
When asked about when a new city manager will be on board, mayor Voigt said, “We’re waiting for the dust to settle … We’re not in a hurry … We want to take a logical approach.”
Assistant city manager Steve Jones is handling the manager position now.
Public Safety Director Kris Faull said MCOLES (Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards) did an on-site evaluation of the police department a week earlier and the department passed “with flying colors. We did very well.”
Then everyone was asked to leave the room and all but three people who were in the audience went home. Then Fire Chief 2 Chris Zweng joined those waiting for the council to continue the meeting. The public had to sit on the stairway for 40 minutes, since no chairs were in the hallway. Chief Zweng sat on the floor.
When the door to the council meeting room was reopened, the council took no action except to vote to go back into public session.
In other business at the one-hour-11-minute meeting, the council:
• Was introduced to two college interns — Antonio Harrison of Grand Valley State University and Eamon Conner of Eastern Michigan University — who are working at city hall in administrative duties;
• Heard councilwoman Julie Kissel say that the consent agenda was not working the way the previous city manager thought it would and maybe Jones would like to make changes. She also asked for budget reports every month;
• Heard the mayor report the pickleball court is up in Village Park and has yet to have the sign put up with rules on it;
• Heard mayor pro-tem Kelly Bates ask if the orange thing on the ground at Victory Park could be removed now that the new restroom was finished. Jones said that was part of the EV charging station that was coming;
• Voted unanimously to pay up to $6,200 to Giffels Webster to put together an updated Recreation Plan so the city would be eligible for grants. Mayor Voigt said the city missed out on a recreation grant this year because they weren’t eligible because of the old plan;
• Heard Jones report that the new clock for the Fourth Street Square has been delivered and is at the DPW yard until it is installed on July 16. He also said they are working to get all the water bills reassessed and corrected. He noted that there have been a lot of tax bill questions and citizens were expecting a larger over-all decrease in their summer taxes;
• Heard Kissel say there has been a busy two weeks and she thanked everyone who put their heads down and pitched in to help. The mayor thanked Kissel for working to solve the problems that have arisen; and
• Approved accounts payable, including a $4,500 payment to Davenport Brothers for cleaning up the city property next to the DPW yard where all the trash containers had been lined up, along with other trash. Kissel said she found that this bill was 35 days old and so she called Davenport to check on it.