Neighborhood Planning Council 1 - Post-Franklin

POST/FRANKLIN NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING COUNCIL Doris Hale Facility 100 Green Street Thursday, June 6, 2024 @ 7:00 PM James Moreno called the meeting to order at 7:05 pm at the Doris Hale Facility. Attendance: Members Present: Mary Fields, Cindy Fritz, Andre Hoaglin-Jackson, LaMarr Mingle, James Moreno, Kjersten Sullivan, Yvonne Powell, Pat Shellenberger, Faye Washington Members Excused: Pamela Geleff, Ryan Hoaglin-Jackson City Staff/Commissioners: Sherry Sofia, Vice Mayor, Amy Rose Robinson, CCLBA, Quinton Hay, CCLBA, Rebecca Fleury, City Manager, Bill Beaty, Fire Chief, Tommy Engels, Code - City of Battle Creek, Cpl. Emily Leach, BCPD Guests and Visitors: Robert and Gail Guth, Loretta Whitt, Jim Haadsma, Maria B. Reyes, Loren Zamudio Additions or Deletions to the Agenda: None Approval of Previous Meeting Minutes: Motion to approve the May 2, 2024, minutes was made by Cindy Fritz, seconded by Andre Hoaglin-Jackson. Motion carried. Correspondence and Announcements: There are a lot of activities going on in the city, check the flyer in your water bill. There is a cereal sale during the Cereal Festival on Saturday. Kellogg and Post cereals will be available at discount prices. Proceeds will go to support the United Way. Committee and Staff Reports Police Report: Cpl. Leach reported there is nothing much new in the crime report. It is summer, so we were reminded to lock car doors and not leave anything valuable in view. Police continue to work on the homeless encampment. There was a concern raised about texting and driving. Cpl. Leach reported that officers do ticket for using a phone while driving and there is a traffic blitz coming up. There was a concern raised regarding the speed of motorcycles on Lathrop, Euclid, and E. Kingman. There was a question about the string of break-ins at marijuana shops, those have decreased dramatically. There continues to be concerns about children on minibikes. Code: Tommy Engels distributed the code compliance report and shared updates on what has been done about a variety of concerns raised at the May meeting. One property had court proceedings and needs to be cleaned by June 24. Another is waiting for a court date. Trash cans left out on Lathrop have been tagged. There is still a mattress on Highway, it is now hidden behind other garbage. Thank you to the Land Bank for the clean up of 25 Lathrop and 229 Lathrop. Mattress covers are no longer available through the city and individuals must purchase their own. Beautiful Battle Creek: No new addresses this month. Remember to keep eyes out through the summer for addresses to nominate. Commissioner Comments: Sherry Sofia, Vice Mayor shared that the city commission adopted the new city budget at their meeting last Tuesday. Reminder that the Cereal Festival is this weekend. There are a lot of summer activities coming up as well. Also a reminder that it is an election year. If you are interested in running for a city office, candidate packets are available at the City Clerk’s office. They are due back by July 23rd. Questions or concerns can be directed to the City Clerk’s office. Old Business: Calhoun County Area Land Bank: Quinton Hay reported on a meeting that took place between the Land Bank and NPC officers regarding the work plan to create a land reuse strategy for land bank owned properties in NPC 1. There will be a series of meetings held an hour before the regular NPC meeting (6pm to 7pm), starting in September. The first and second meetings will introduce the structure, land banking 101, a history of the neighborhood, and neighborhood demographics. Meeting three will outline goals, zoning, and land bank programs, as well as a matrix to help make decisions on properties. The next two meetings will review properties. The neighborhood has been roughly divided into three areas based on geographic and zoning similarities. New Business: Conversation on Fire Station 3 City Manager, Rebecca Fleury and Fire Chief, Bill Beaty joined us to continue conversation on the city’s plans to restructure fire services in the city, specifically regarding the future of Fire Station 3. City Manager Fleury reported that the city has finished the listening sessions at all the fire stations. They are in the process of accumulating the information gathered to share with the commission. We were reminded that two of the stations are over 100 years old. The city has not done a good job in the past on keeping up with maintenance, but that is in the past and we cannot undo that, we can only go forward. The proposed plan is based on the results of three studies of need and one structural study of the existing stations. The current proposal is just that, a proposal. The next step is for all of the information gathered in the listening sessions to go before the city commission in a workshop, which has not yet been scheduled. It is the commission who will in the end make the final decision on what the plan will be. The city’s role is to educate and inform the commission, they make the fiunal decision. The estimated cost of the current proposal is $20-25 million, which will be covered through a bond. Local architecture firm Driven By Design created the designs. To be a modern fire station, all stations need improvements. It was also stressed that just because the proposal recommends going from 6 stations to 5, does not mean we are lessening the number of active firefighters. Staff numbers will remain the same, they will just be distributed differently. Station 3 is small and landlocked, there is no room for expansion in its current location. The conversation on these changes started first with the firefighters, as it had during the 2015 study. In 2015, the firefighters were more concerned about apparatus than they were with stations. Apparatus is improving, though there is more work to be done. There has also been a shift in the type of calls. 70% of all calls now are medical rather than fire. There are ongoing conversations with LifeCare, the city’s vendor to handle EMT services, to see how that can be improved. What will happen to Station 3 if the fire station closes? The commission is adamant that the building won’t be demolished or abandoned. They will work with the neighborhood to find the next life for the station, it is a historic building. History of the fire stations, all of them were gifted to/inherited by the city, none of them are exactly in the right location. One study recommended closing all six stations and opening four new ones in entirely new locations, this would be cost prohibitive. The NPC noted that our major concern is not that Fire Station 3 stay in its exact location, but that there be a station on this side of the railroad tracks. Could the city consider a new station on the MDOT owned land on Main and the Business Loop? This would keep a station on the south side of the tracks, reducing the concern of help being cut off by a train. The Fire Chief shared that the work started with the fire department creating a list of 14-16 different proposals. Some included 4 stations, some included 5, but none included all 6, because all the reports recommended the closure of Station 3. NPC’s proposal of a station on Main will be taken to the commission in workshop. There was a reminder that the process will take years, and the last thing to happen would be the closing of Station 3. A lot of changes to funding possibilities could happen between now and then. For example, the city has put in a request to the state for funding for fire station improvements. Neighbors raised concerns about the response time. Trains block off this neighborhood, and no matter what technology the fire department uses, navigating around trains takes precious time in an emergency when people’s lives are at stake. Roughly 70% of all fire calls are medical. Neighbors shared that basic services like fire and police are more important than economic development projects like the $5 million included in the bond proposal for HVAC for the Kellogg Arena. There was a concern about what happened with the 2015 recommendations. How can we know that the 2024 recommendations will be followed up on? There is need for an overall strategic plan, when will such a plan be available? It has been a full year since the 2022-23 study was completed and it called for a strategic plan to be developed, Chief Beaty nor City Manager had a timeline they could provide. Follow up question was asked regarding the individual annual station costs, information was to have been provided prior to the NPC meeting tonight. City Manager and Fire Chief to look into getting this information to NPC Chair. One concern with the plan for a new Station 3 is the amount the finance department says the city can bond for is $20-25 million. A new station costs roughly $9-12 million, so that would be half the bond amount. It was noted that if NPC’s counter proposal was adopted, it would generate cost savings as Station 1 and 3 would be consolidated and this would help generate additional funds for construction project. Member Comments: We are on break for the summer. On August 8th at 6pm there will be a potluck instead of a meeting. Trinity Lutheran Church is once again giving away Freeze Pops on Tuesday from 2-4pm. Anyone is invited to come by for a freeze pop. Adjournment: Meeting adjourned at 8:33 pm Next Scheduled Meeting: Thursday, September 5, 2024, at 7 pm, Doris Hale Facility. Respectfully submitted, Kjersten Sullivan