Council gives Faull $5,000 raise, permanent title

Belleville police chief Kris Faull, who also has been serving as interim public safety director since November of 2024, was elevated to permanent public safety director with a $5,000 increase in salary applied retroactively.
At the Jan. 20 regular meeting of the Belleville City Council, mayor Ken Voigt said Faull has done a phenomenol job in the interim role and deserves to be put in it permanently.
Faull was paid an extra $3,000 in salary for the interim role and it was suggested that she get her raise retroactively for the 14 months she served as interim director.
Mayor Voigt explained that would mean $2,000 more than the $3,000 she was paid extra for that interim time,
The council voted unanimously to the mayor’s proposal for the change in title and the raise.
In other business, the council:
• Voted unanimously to approve a one year extension of the fire department’s union contract with a 5% increase in pay and the addition of two holidays, Juneteenth and Martin Luther King Day. The contract had expired Dec. 31;
• Held the second half of the public hearing on the City Parks and Recreation Plan, which lasted two minutes and had no public speaking, and then approved the plan. The approved plan needs to be sent to the state by Feb. 2 for the city to be eligible for state park grants. The first part of the public hearing was held at the last city meeting and then the rest of the hearing was scheduled for Jan. 20, all in an effort to comply with proper state timing of publication for its meeting announcement;
• Approved an expenditure of $12,269.35 for the low bid of Kerry Brothers Downriver to repair the city’s leaf vacuum by installing a whole new diesel engine. The bid from Hudson’s was $15,808.37, which involved taking the engine apart;
• Approved the mayor removing from the agenda without comment Tax Incentives for City Economic Development, for the second meeting in a row;
• Approved the mayor’s board and commission appointments: Planning commission, Gerald Keeder III and Alvis Brigis, with terms to expire Dec. 31, 2028; Parks and Recreation, Sydney Moorthy, Jason Mida, Quentin Gerwolls, expires Dec. 31, 2029; Construction Board of Appeals, John Hennessey, Mark Davenport, William Osier, and Andrew Lenaghan, expire Dec. 31, 2027; Downtown Development Authority, Sabrina Richardson-Williams and Chris Donley, expire Dec. 31, 2029; Board of Review, Hannah Rodriguez and Judy Jordan, expire Dec. 31, 2028;
• Approved naming Nathaniel Johnson, the city’s director of the Department of Public Works, as street administrator in all transactions with the state Department of Transportation;
• Heard DPW director Johnson give credit to DPW employee Nate Fogel, who was present, for all the hard work he does. Johnson said he lost another crew member last Sunday at the water main break and he wanted to honor Fogel for his work. Fogel said later that the reason he is still working at the DPW is because of the leadership of Johnson;
• Approved accounts payable of $1,592,314.11, which includes $500,451.67 to Davenport Construction for 330 Charles project construction;
• Heard councilman Priest ask about the dead tree on North Liberty, which is still in place. Public safety director Faull said the property owner has been ticketed;
• Heard interim city manager Jones thank the DPW director for going down in the basement to fix the boiler after it went down twice that day. “We might only have one more council meeting here,” said mayor Voigt. “And I’ll be here to push the plunger”; and
• Heard the mayor say he really appreciates the 90-day stint by DPW worker Rick who gives the city some breathing room to find new workers. He said he appreciates the DPW now fixing water mains instead of contracting that out. He thanked councilwoman Kissel for the hundreds of hours of work in organizing the move to the new city hall. He noted that he joined Van Buren Township supervisor Kevin McNamara and Romulus mayor Robert McCraight in a roundtable discussion about hazardous waste landfills and their effect on the community.