001We're at uh right at 7 o'clock we'll stand for the pledge of allegiance and uh later after that we'll have the invocation from John. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. residents as we go through today's meeting this year. Amen. Thank you, John. Okay, I will start with attendance then. Thank you. President Moore here. Alex Kennedy here. John Pelichek here. John Hawkins here. Jennifer Swack is will be late and clerk Lorie Zelno is in attendance. Jennifer or um treasurer Judy Verse is absent. Excused. Okay. Can I have a first on the agenda is the motion to approve the minutes from uh April 14th meeting. A motion to approve the very meeting
002of the L council. I'll support. All in favor? I I all opposed hearing none. Motion carried to approval of the agenda. Can I get a a motion to approve the agenda for tonight's meeting? Like to make a motion to approve the agenda as presented. All in favor? I I opposed hearing none. Motion carried. Now, treasures report. Judy is not here. It's two pages. Is this for you or is it part of her report? That is mine actually for All right, never mind. It's one page. That's two pages. This one's on the back side. Well, one's accounts payable, one's treasures report. Yeah. Okay. Like to make a motion to approve the treasur's report as it presented. Support. Support. Can I have a roll call vote on that, please? More. Yes. Kennedy. Yes. Hawkins. Yes. Pelich. Yes.
003Okay. On to accounts payable. Like to make a motion to pay the bills in the amount of $9,884.38 for general, $4,417.38 for major, zero for local, and zero for me park recreation. Have a roll call, please. Pelichek, yes. Hawkins, yes. Kennedy, yes. Moore, yes. Only one note on that is uh in the general for the 9,084, can we get a comma instead of nine nine period? Oh. Oh, yes. Got it. Thank you. Sorry. No, it's actually important. It's important. Got that. Thank you for noticing. Okay, we'll get back in order. I throw my papers everywhere. We have a I'm going to let Lori speak to this because she's been working on this with uh Judy about the hiring of a village administrator and treasurer. Okay, terrific. Um, just since Cindy just kind of walked in
004before we went to new business, is there any public comment? Oh, I'm sorry. No, no public comment. For the accounts payable, is that supposed to be April 2025 on the agenda? It is. Okay. Thank you. The agenda maker was in a hot hurry getting out of here. Yeah. So, do you have any comments? Any public comments that you'd like to make? Nothing you want to hear. Very well then. Okay. So, none. Okay. I'm sorry. So, um, new business item one. You kind of wanted me to touch on that a little bit. The hiring of the village administrator administration and treasurer. Okay. We, um, we put an ad in the paper. We interviewed a few people. Um, we've actually gotten some really excellent um, resumes and had some really great interviews. We're going to continue the
005process of interviewing more candidates. Um, more really good resumes just keep coming in. And so, it's nice to have a pool of those. So, when Judy gets back, we'll just continue the um, interviews. Um, but just, you know, on that um, we did ask a lawyer, did I miss something? No, no, no, no. Judy wants to um kind of step down from her role and so we're looking to bring somebody on. Then I saw a clerk, too. Did it say clerk? Clerk. Why? Clerk. Oh, that's that. I think you'll get to that in a minute. So, um the um the revamping of the position um is something the lawyers are working on right now where they can roll it instead of just drawing from our local pool of Leonard residents to kind of expand the
006pool wider. We will go outside of Leonard to look for people and then change it from an elected position to an appointed position. you know, he did just caution one thing, and so I'm just going to share it with you, even though we did ask him to go ahead and and move on um creating an ordinance that will change the compensation for the treasurer and change the structure of the job. And that is he said, you know, as a note, like us guys up here that are usually doing the things that we do, um there's not a lot of compensations for doing it. we kind of do it as like a, you know, service to our community um because we're invested in this community and that, you know, his only concern was that when we
007step outside of Leonard that we may notice more attrition just because a lot of us are just committed to being here, you know. So, um I think that's why, you know, Judy and I are just trying to be really really selective about our candidate and really just kind of taking our time to to get to know them and make sure that it's a really good fit. Um, so that's really all I have to say on that. Thank you. You betcha. So, well, but we are going to have to change uh two ordinances when we do this and he's working on that and we're working at looking at we're still looking at the next meeting to do that, June's meeting. Um, I think we really can't move forward with it without the compensation ordinance, I feel
008like. So, um, yes, I think that we should do them both at the same time. Yeah. That's holding us back for when you when you talk to people, you can't tell them what you're going to pay. Correct. Correct. Because we don't have that ordinance for for that yet. Correct. So, that is a work in progress. Okay. On to number two, appointment of the clerk. So, what we haven't done and what we need to do, we appointed a clerk, but we did not reappoint her for this term, for these two years until the next election. So, we're we need to appoint her this evening to fill 25 and 26 till she can come up for election in 26. Correct. So, um, what's going to happen is if you're going to ask for a motion for, um,
009to have to just to I'm going to ask for a motion to appoint Lori Zelnak as our clerk for the next two years until election come through. That would be in fall of 26, right? Okay. Alex, you want to start? I'd like to make a motion to appoint Laurel as clerk for the remainder of 2025 into 2026. We support. I have a roll call, please. Just one moment here. Okay. Kennedy, yes. Huggin, yes. Moore, yes. Pelich, yes. Yes. Most definitely. You're stuck. All right, that's done on. Now, what we have next is in your packet is a bu a village investment policy. Uh, this came up this past week where Judy would would like to change to allow her to invest our money in short-term CDs right now as as because that's the only way
010you can make any money that you have money in the bank on. It's a safe way. We don't lose any capital. The capital's never put at risk. The only thing you might lose is if you had to pull it out for something. there's always a little penalty to pay. So, as opposed to sitting there getting 01 tenth of a percent, you know, 10 cents on a dollar, you get four, four and a half% on short-term CDs. Now, some of them are still going for five, but I don't know how long that's going to last because it's all based on what happens with the economy and in uh inflation and things. So, that's what this is about. This is what gives her the ability to take some of her money that's just sitting there and invested
011in short-term CDs. Four month, seven month is is what they're offering, most banks are offering right now. Will the request to make [Music] the investment come before the board or is that only going to be at the discretion of the responsible party? So would it come down and say I'd like to take X amount of money from this budget item to invest or would they just do that single sourced? I don't think they can. It's my understanding that she'll just do it, but she has to stay within the MCL code 64.9 stating that, you know, we can't invest more than a certain amount because we have to have a certain amount of money like as a buffer, you know, for things like that. But, you know, I think like across the board she isn't looking
012at any other they're pretty regulated like which banks pretty much you can even use, which banks you can't use. It's all pretty structured. So, I think that she probably will just make a decision um who's offering the best one, but right now they're all about the same. I think, you know, for short term, but I think that we're giving her the latitude to make that investment. Okay. Got it. She has V village council approved institutions Oxford Bank, Huntington Bank, Genesis Credit Union, JP Morgan B, Chase Banks, Oakland County Local Government Investment Pool. All financial institutions must be FDIC and NCIU insured. We're going to approve this tonight or or not. Okay. Sounds good to me. Any more questions? Like to make a motion to proceed forward with the investment policy for the village of Leonard
013as presented. Have a roll call on this, please. Second. Hawkins, yes. Pelich, yes. Kennedy, yes. Moore, yes. Okay. Number four, interlocal agreement with OCTV. I have the agreement. You have the agreement in your packet. Um I I think there's a change to on page two, section D, right? Am I right? Correct. That is the only change in this from what we've had. Yes. Okay. Section D. Any member municipality which retains or withholds egg fees for a period of 6 months or longer shall agree to suspend membership municipality representative particip participation on the OACCCC board until PEG fees resume. That is the only change from what we've already been doing. That change was made based on the recommendation of Oh, okay. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to approve the inter local agreement with
014OCTV as presented. I have a roll call of this, please. Moore. Yes. Hawkins. Yes. Pelich. Yes. Kennedy. Yes. Okay. So, on to old business. Number one, Road Grader. Road Grader is in the same situation it was last month and the month before. I don't now that uh Phil's on rehab with his back. Phil Jr., Fairfield Senior took a a bad fall up there and I guess he's out of action. So, they're they're under the gun up there. So, I did uh Craig Aerson is downgrading today. So, but we're not going to we're not going to oil because we got rain tonight. So, he's going to just we'll see what happens with this. But at least at least all the potholes and everything will be graded over and filled for the road. So, we'll have the
015roads in pretty He's done. No, he's not done. No, I I just talked to him. That's why I'm late to the meeting. Oh, that's where you were. It's got our road. It was getting bad. So, and one thing about the road graater, if if and when we do get this road grader, we don't groom our shoulders of our roads, and I've been out after it's raining or a good storm or I'm looking at our roads. All the issues we have in a lot of our areas of our roads are where water can't get off the road. that water sits on the road and with with our sand and with our gravel, our praavevel and stuff, everything get mixed. It gets a slurry of stuff that's just just like like being in a sandstorm, it's just
016going to it just grates that all people don't think about friction between your tires and the road. But there's a lot and that's exactly where if we can get some of this water off the roads, I think our roads will hold up a little bit better. So, okay, on to the next one. 4285 Forest Street update. Lori and I did spend some time with the lawyer out here today. I take my glasses off and I can't read it. So, but so based on this procedural history, the legal recommen recommends to mitigate I should have wrote this my way. I can't speak the way you do. Mitigate any threat. We shall start the process over using new our new contact contact. So what h what's okay? Now that I got that out of the way, what
017happened is they've got what they call a new receiver. Somebody that that takes in all the calls and everything for this for all the legal issues that come before them goes to this this person. That's a new person. I don't have that name yet, nor do I have the phone number and address, but all that will be supplies be before we will have to vote on this. We're actually going to just do a review because there's new people involved in this building now is is we're giving them the option to go through the system again. But it doesn't if we do it this way, according to John, we don't seem to waste any more time at this. So, previously when I talked to him, he says, "Looks like it's going to go out to next
018spring." And now he's come back today and said, "If we do this, we'll be able to keep on the same schedule. We'll have this house done by the end of the year off our chest so we can move on." I got a question here. Yeah. What What is the the goal with tearing it down? What is the goal? What's the goal? Well, it's a dangerous derelic building. What? It's already been through court, Dave. It's a dangerous derelict building. It It can't be rehabed. It can't be. It's got to be taken down. What is it? What? Can't be rehab. It's shot. I told you not to talk. Okay. Hey, I'm going to talk, Dave. It's been inspected by qualif. It's been accepted by the court. The the demolition decree is already in. We're in the second
019stage of doing it now. Finishing it. The the house is not going to sell. I realize the I still don't see the the house is on an auction. The house is on an auction site. It's got a $60,000 reserve. They're up at 42. That's where it's sitting. It's not going any further. So, no. The people we were dealing with, even our lawyer said he didn't even know they existed half the time because he couldn't deal with them. Now, we're dealing with somebody new that's involved with this. They they've fired their old legal services. They've got new legals and we've now got to deal with the new legal services. Call the original test of that septic that he didn't even the inspector. So So Dave, you would need to be put on the agenda to make
020a presentation. Presenting anything. Okay, we'll take a look at it. Okay, thank you. All right, I'll look at it. Was that septic tested or wasn't that good? There's a builder there's a building inspection report if you would like to make a foyer request to the village. I have that. All we There was a pipe coming out of the house into a pile of soil. That's all he said. Correct. That's not good enough. No. You know, it it's really not um the building is basically already been determined. Oh, you can buy it. Sure. It's it's up for if if somebody bought this, it would resolve a lot of issues for us that we wouldn't have to do. Point of order. Call the question. That building structurally very sound. I've been in it. I've been around it.
021I know what I'm talking about. Dave, we're not saying you don't know what you're talking about. So picture of that. I I have a picture. That roof is as level as it could possibly be. Couldn't be any more level. The floors are good. One goes down, but that's because that's what they did in 19 Are we talking about No. 4285. Yes. No. We're not all the cosmetic stuff like plumbing and heating and all that. That stuff's just nothing. Put them on the agenda next month. When you rehab something, just get rid of all that. Start over with the structure. And the structure is sound. It's not sound. It has been stated. We can't keep going back and forth over an inspection report saying it's not sound and been accepted by the courts and you saying
022that it is sound. It's not sound. It's been determined. It's been deemed not unsound. I don't want to lose another historic house in this town. It's fixable. Somebody will fix this. It's not presenting this. this we this has gone on a long time Dave to get to this point where we're at. I I don't see us going backwards now for the agenda point at hand. What is the motion required to proceed with what we need to do? There is no motion. It's just strictly informationational. We This isformational, but it's coming. We're going to have to vote on it. We're going to have to redo what we did. Perfect. Soon as soon as we get through the legals. I just wanted to make sure if there was something we could close out to move forward. We
023can then we are we're moving forward to the Leonard drain which which I was promised an email on the situation. It's still in the hands of the consultants are still arguing over historic depths and what to do and I was promised an email by today and I didn't get it. So it's sorry guys. So hi. What do you gain by what will you gain by tearing it down? Move down. Hey Dave, I'm on Leonard D. I got I got more issues. You're not up here. Mr. Wrath. Hey, Mr. Wrath. Please. What? Please. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, Dave. So, I don't have uh so DPW update. There was going to be one on there. There was going to be two on there. I took them off because we're still working on them. But the other one
024is is what I might do is we've done the uh we have the tool for striping like the parking spots and the handicap stuff and and that section of road we repaved. I'm not going to hire a guy with his machine to come in here and restripe that. It's going to cost us too much money. Our DPW should be able to handle that. It's only 120 ft. So time available for doing that. I've asked them I've asked one of our DVW guys about it. and he said he would do it, but but I haven't had a chance to speak with Don lately. So, once I talk to Don, uh yeah, we'll have to approve some money for that because I apparently the paint it's a spray paint kind of thing. It's a lot more expensive
025than a roller. They do have rollers for that and stuff you can use, but so that's coming. So, on to the president's report. I I have not received anything on an FOIA report. So, and the CBD G CDBG report. I do have something on that. Our clerk's going to talk to that. Okay. Easy for me to say maybe. I don't know. So, okay. Um I talked to um the the new person who's in charge of block grant and um I apparently um kind of signed a commitment that we would make sure that we work with black grant for like the next three years. And for that reason we do need to do um the black grant application which I'm going to do with them tomorrow. Um, and this will be money that is technically done
026in 2025, processed in 26, and we usually see the check by 2027 is is how it works. So, our next meeting, we will have a hearing to discuss what to put that in. And so just um I know we've had so many conversations about it and because we don't really have the DPW to work on the sidewalks and remove architectural barriers. You know, it'd be my contention so we only have two places we can put that money that we put it towards any homeowners that could possibly use help to get repairs on their home and then it just go to minor home repair. So, um, you know, that'll be conversation for you guys to have at our next meeting. We'll just have a real quick hearing on it. Um, unless you guys feel otherwise, there's
027just not a lot of ways we can use the money. So, and that's the original. That's the intended purpose, right? That is the intended purpose. And then some of the older funds, like they said, those need to go away because they're is messing up their metric. So, this new influx of money that will come in in 2027 will help offset them wanting to kind of wipe the books of that older 2019 money that's on there that really needs to go um because it's just it's been a problem for them and they need, you know, they've got compliance and they have metrics they have to work in. So, um that's what we've decided to do. So, um that'll be our next meeting. Okay. That's really what we're down to with those, right? Helping people out with
028their homes and stuff that can't do it or That's right. So, what they want us to do is either one or two expenditures. We have $7,000 a year that we have that we can help out a needy resident who income qualifies um with some minor home repairs. And that can be like it can't disturb paint for example because of lead paint loss and things like that. The little things that we can do is maybe help with a furnace, maybe help with some gutters, maybe help with a um removing a tree from their front yard that they couldn't afford to have taken down, something like that. Um so those are the things that we're just going to concentrate on doing. And they have to be done in one or two swoops to use the money. And
029if we takes more than two swoops, they're just going to pull the rest of the funding. But I I think with as expensive as things are nowadays, I don't think that's going to be a problem. So yeah, if if I get online, can I find out the qualifications? Absolutely. Oakland oak.gov. If you go to oakland county.gov and type in community development block grant, it gives you the breakdown for how many members of the household and what the income is to qualify. Yeah. Do you put that on the website because there's a lot of I don't know if they qualify, but I've seen some homes that could use it. Right. I think, you know, just I think it's really for us to just kind of get word out to people, you know, and it's a first
030come, first served if people, you know, um, you know, need we want to help people in need. So, um, I do have flyers right outside of the office door, stacks of them. You know, I probably put some at the post office, maybe. Yeah, I think I could do that. Maybe post it. Yeah. And do that. our on our page or a link. We could add a link. I'm thinking the post office is where we need to be with those. I think that's going to be the most helpful. It's a good idea. Okay. Okay. Number three, ordinance enforcement. I have nothing on ordinance enforcement that I know of right now this evening. So, summer festival committee, I did not meet with them, so I have no idea where they're at right now. So, I have nothing.
031Looking for volunteers. Look. Yeah. Other Yeah. Looking for volunt Looking for volunteers for the future, too. Lots of them. If we're going to keep the summer festival moving, I have anything on the cable commission. Do you have anything on the last month, but we'll have one this month right here? Yes. Okay. Decorating Committee, then that's a no. North Oakland Transportation Authority. I'm going to the meeting tomorrow. Sorry, it's it's behind us whenever we come to this meeting. I'm always a month behind it. Um, planning commission cancel the planning committee or the planning commission meeting for May. for May. All in favor? I I Okay. All oppose? None. Motion carried. Polyan Trail Management Council. That was a that was a good I enjoyed that meeting because they were talking about putting some uh plaques out, history
032plaques of people in the community along the trail. Ways Yeah. You know, we've had some important people out. one for Brace Beamer out in Oxford. And actually, there's another one uh for a Civil War soldier that came out and moved out to Oxford and did well out here after the Civil War. So, they're going to put up a memorial plaque for him, too, along there. And we're replacing some signs and there's some paving coming up. It hasn't started yet. It's going to be about 3 weeks they're going to be paving on the on the portion of that uh I think on the west side of town where it gets real swampy, I guess, over there. Do you talk to her a lot? I keep forgetting to get a hold of them. Well, I quite often.
033Yeah. Okay. Down the trail there's two. One almost to Bordon. It's getting big. A big hole. Somebody's going to get hurt or trip it. The horse is going to end up breaking a leg if it goes in there. And then there's another one closer to here by the bridge. They actually put rocks in it, but I'll be able to email on those locations, too. I know. And I forget. They they were pretty good about It's down by the the bridge. It's down by the bridge over here by by the parking lot down there by Boardman. Yeah. And the bridge that the little stream goes under. I don't know whose property was that was right there past a little bit. What' you say? Yes. I I'll I'll make sure I talk to her about it. If
034we don't, you know, we might just go up there and handle it. So maybe Yeah. I don't know what they do because the one's getting pretty big and you look down, you don't even see it. But I don't think our front loader will tear up the trail pavement. So we should be able to go down there. G Road. Is it still paved? You got to Is it still paved at Gers Road topped or are we back on on Oh, you're on dirt when you hit You're on dirt. Okay. All right. We have enough material to handle that, I'm sure. Okay. Um, so the village park I did sign the the agreements to get moving on the on the finish the the purchase of the property and get the legal uh new legal uh you know
035what I'm talking about. Anyway, so that's moving forward. until we get that done. You won't there is uh next Saturday the 17th, right? Saturday. You should see something. That's that's a uh park cleanup day in case nobody's uh read the thing on the board. May May 17th. May 17th. It's a June 15th, I think, for if it's rain out or something. I They were uh the park committee was going to go out there and do a walk around and see if we can actually get in there and do work because it's underwater most of it. It's pretty bad. I took a walk over there. She uh few days ago it was not good. Well, I guess if that changes not this would have been like Tuesday last week I took a walk. I didn't I
036didn't see feathers. I know. So what's happened to them? Oh two ducks. Oh I don't Maybe she's ne Well, she hasn't been up to eat in two three weeks. So the other one does come up to eat. So I don't know. So, while we're at the village park, this is going to be an offshoot from that, but we're going to need a lot of back fill in there in that area to put that apron in to that parking lot and put that sidewalk in. And I'm getting offers from all kinds of people to want put filter out here. So, remember we talked I had one building, this last flash flood storm we had go through here, one building was getting water in the house. So that's a first and and yeah, but we have a
037lot lot of we have a lot of of property now levels now that are lower than the road level and and and it can't and some of these property levels are underwater because it can't get to the catch basins. They're lower than the catch basin. So you I thought about we talked about that one property on the division 14. Yeah, west. That was one of the places that was underwater on Facebook and my son brought it down and I'm not on Facebook. He said, "Dad, look, it's going right in our house." I said, "Oh jeez, you know, so I might want to talk to him if I can get him some free fill. It might have a few pieces of cement in or something." That's a distinctive design. Yes, it's just behind it. They've never
038complained about it's got to be the torrential rain. Well, that was pretty bad. Yeah, it's been bad. And it's coming again. No, I don't. So, you can put the word out. I mean, if we can get some free fill out here, help people out if they're underwater somewhere and they want to relieve themselves from some water. We can that work for CBD. I mean, we're really like I mean, even really even to cut a tree, I kind of have to go through like historical commission. Well, because we can't disturb craft because now there's a whole lot of things between um tribes and historical that we So, no dirt. So, just stay above ground with gutters pretty much like simple simple simple. Yeah. Not even French strings. No, not even French strings. No, that would be
039nice. That that covers the part. Uh if if it changes, if I I'll I'll give uh Doug or or Linda a call and see if they still feel good about this May 17th date for the park cleanup. If they change their mind, I'll let you guys know. You're going to be there. I'm going to be where? At the park 17th. Yeah. Make sure. Yeah. Okay. Make sure with my John Deere rake. That's fine. Just you know where our property starts. I don't want to buy the horse. I don't think we can get back there. I think it's underwater, isn't it? You're going to get money because I walked that way. You're going to say, I think I think they invention working up in the flower beds up front and stuff because we could get to
040that. That's what she mentioned. Yeah. So, we've already covered community development block grant, right? So, on the back side, correspondence number one. You can see it's blank. So, I'm a big blank tonight. So, That's it guys. Let's adjourn this meeting at 7:37. Thank you. Wait, wait. Who made the motion? I'll make a motion. I'll second it. No.