Belleville City Council gives nod to police wage hike, accepts FD grant

At its 35-minute regular meeting on Aug. 7, a bare quorum of the Belleville City Council gave a nod to a pay increase to lure new experienced police officers and gratefully welcomed a $18,500 grant from the Belleville Rotary Club for the fire department.
Mayor Kerreen Conley and Councilman Tom Fielder were absent and excused, so the meeting was before a council of three: Mayor Pro Tem Ken Voigt and Council Members Kelly Bates and Jeremiah Beebe.
Acting Police Chief Kris Faull presented a proposal for lateral pay for new hires in order to encourage candidates to apply for positions in Belleville and get higher pay for their years of experience than the probationary pay offered.
She said the department has been advertising for an officer for several months and there was only one applicant and that one didn’t have a good work record.
Chief Faull said Van Buren, Sumpter, and Huron townships all offer lateral pay to encourage officers to apply and, “We have to start lateral pay.” She said she contacted the townships and they said it was an agreement between the townships and the unions.
She said she talked to the local union and it agrees this is a good idea.
“We’re hoping we can get people to put in applications,” Faull said, adding even those with just three or four years of experience know how things operate.
Mayor Pro-Tem Voigt, a retired police officer, said he was in favor of the proposal and directed Faull to run it by the city’s labor attorney to get it in the proper wording.
The council unanimously approved a motion to accept the proposal in concept, with the labor attorney putting it into the proper shape. Councilman Beebe asked that it also be run by the budget consultant.
Voigt said if an experienced officer leaves and is replaced by a new experienced officer with lateral pay it would be a wash to the budget.
Faull’s letter of understanding presented to the council for consideration said new hires with 12-24 months of police experience at another department would start at the two-year rate of $26.07 an hour. Those with 36 months or more would start at the 48-month rate of pay of $30.14. She said after eight years they become corporals and get a bump in pay.
Faull said they were still down one officer and in late May officer Bart Devos would be retiring after 10 years here, so they would be two down.
Rotary Club grant
In other discussion, the fire department told the council of its $18,500 grant from the Belleville Rotary Club’s Cozadd Foundation.
Deputy Chief Chris Zweng said Lt. Richard Landskroener and Fire Fighter Garrett Kissel together worked on a grant application which would improve the quality of dispatch for their runs.
Zweng said when the FCC changed its procedures their communications became poor. He said a lot of departments use the 800 megahertz system and pagers aren’t cheap.
Belleville Fire Department currently is dispatched by Van Buren Township and VBT Fire Chief Dave McInally said if Belleville changed its system then VBT would have to, too, said Fire Chief Brian Loranger.
He said Sumpter Township has this system now. He said although the units to carry are larger than what they have now, transmission is clear and can be heard much farther.
The grant covers 20 pagers and some of the money it takes for putting up the department’s own channel. VBT would dispatch the Belleville department out on its own channel and then it would go on the regular channel, said Lt. Landskroener.
“It’s a good step for our fire department,” Kissell said.
Councilwoman Bates said the council will put together a resolution to thank the Rotary Club for the grant.
In other business at the Aug. 7 meeting, the council:
• Reviewed the reports Chief Faull had produced at the request of the council: a 5-Year Snapshot of the Crime Statistics and the July 2023 Crime Statistics. She said over the last five years COVID brought crime stats dramatically down but there should be close to 5,000 by the end of this year. The law changed on arrestable offenses, she said, so while there were 413 arrests in 2018, year to date 2023 they are down to 35. The year-to-date calls for service are 2,205 in 2023 up from 1,977 in 2022 and 1,872 in 2021. Voigt said the figures show the police department is doing a good job;
• Approved accounts payable in the amount of $164,027.80 and the following departmental purchases in excess of $500: to B&R Janitorial, $675.06 for DDA maintenance cleaning supplies; to Blue Ribbon, $9,629 for pouring road back from water main break; to Hennessey Engineers, $4,769 for road engineering; to Huron River Watershed Council, $937.50 for membership dues; to Metro Environmental Service, $1,966.25 for sewer backup by 385 E. Huron River Dr.; to Printing Systems Inc., $704.63 for AV ballot return envelopes for election with state permit for paid postage, and $782.63 for AV ballot outer envelopes for elections; and to Puro Clean, $2,854.20 for remediation of basement backup of city sewer;
• Heard Acting City Manager Jones report on taking the summer youth workers to the Detroit Wayne Integrative Health Network meeting at RenCen on Aug. 3. He described the program, classes, and motivational speaker. The group pays for the summer workers and seven out of the ten were able to go, he said. The youth workers program runs through September;
• Heard Bates announce a 3-7 p.m. meeting on Aug. 15 at Belleville High School to discuss the self-driving lane on I-94 that is being installed from Belleville Road to Rawsonville Road. Zweng said it was from Haggerty Road and it’s a pilot program for self-driving vehicles. It will be in the right-hand lane and have a wireless charger; and
• Heard Zweng say that he lives near the mobile home park on Lohr Road and it was a rough weekend. He thanked the Belleville police department for going out so quickly to help Van Buren Township police with the shootings. He said all the surrounding departments helped out.