Sumpter Township agrees to hire Enterprise Fleet Management firm

After a lengthy presentation by Evan Crank of Enterprise Fleet Management the Sumpter Township Board of Trustees at its regular meeting of Oct. 14 voted unanimously to authorize an agreement with Enterprise for vehicle replacement and management.
Crank said most people know Enterprise for car rentals, but it also represents 72 municipalities in Michigan and 2,400 across the country for managing vehicle fleets, from acquisition to sale.
He gave an analysis of how much money he could save the township with the services. He said Enterprise would purchase the vehicles the township needs for cash and then finance the vehicles to the township. When asked about the expensive equipment that has to go on the police cars, he said that could be added into the township’s payments so it wouldn’t have to be paid all at once, the way it is now.
The board authorized township staff to initiate and finalize the agreement that can be terminated whenever the township wants to.
In other business at the one-hour-and-24-minute meeting, the board:
• Opened the meeting with an invocation from Pastor Doug Valentine of Faith Community Center of Belleville. He prayed for wisdom for all, especially the township leaders;
• Approved the supervisor’s appointment of business owner Adil Al-Maliky to the planning commission with a term to expire Nov. 14, 2027, pending a background check. He also will be given information on being a commissioner. Several members of the board said they had never met the new commissioner who wasn’t at the meeting, but Trustee Matthew Oddy said he had been at a few planning commission meetings;
• Approved a schedule for tentative budget workshop meeting dates for the 2026-27 fiscal year;
• Terminated the COVID emergency Work from Home policy;
• Approved a resolution terminating a non-union Work from Home policy;
• Removed from the agenda without explanation a proposal to provide 60-day notice to Carlisle Wortman Associates, Inc. to halt all township building department operations;
• Removed from the agenda without explanation a proposal to post for two positions: full-time building clerk and full-time building official / inspector;
• Approved Option 2 “without the wheat” as the new township logo effective immediately, pending review. Treasurer Bart Patterson said the detail of the wheat in the design would be hard to reproduce by embroidery for t-shirts and other items that would carry the new logo. Trustee Tim Rush said he would like to see the logo in color. The logo was not displayed at the meeting;
• Approved extending the employment of Wyatt Behrendt as a seasonal, part-time DPW worker effective Oct. 7, 2025 through Jan. 5, 2026 at the AFSCME rate of $23.33 per hour up to 29 hours per week;
• Approved the supervisor’s appointments of engineer John Hennesey and architect Ray Parker to serve as hearing officers for proceedings regarding unsafe or dangerous buildings per ordinance Sec. 6-203;
• Approved initiating proceedings to sell township-owned property, parcel #81-087-99-0005-002, to Stanley and Lisa Galbreth;
• Heard township manager Ken Marten report he has given the updated draft of the staff hiring policy to board members and will be bringing it for a vote at a future board meeting. Marten also said he would be at a Southeastern Michigan Council of Government meeting in Troy on Oct. 23 and will be gone for jury duty on Nov. 13; and
• Heard clerk Donald LaPorte ask everyone to say Happy Birthday to deputy clerk Herman. He said he had been to a clerk’s conference and he has lots of notes, but, first, the township doesn’t have a properly sworn-in Freedom of Information Act coordinator and Sumpter has to get one in place.