001[Music] so [Music] so [Music] my so [Music] you [Music] so [Music] um [Music] do um [Music] do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] this um [Music] business and it's not to be considered as a community meeting there are two opportunities for public participation during the meeting and comments are limited to three minutes per individual the board will listen to comments but may not respond during the meeting if you wish to address the board please submit a comment card immediately roll call ashanti bland board president daryl b joyce vice president you bet we're deval board secretary amani johnson board treasurer charles michael benison board trustee james jackson executive director of community schools sitting in for dr green our superintendent and then taking notes for us this evening is miss carolyn foster who is the executive assistant to
002the superintendent and the board of education i'd also like to take the recognize the time to recognize commissioner yolanda smith charles we also have trustee minicum hoyta from oak park board of education and councilwoman karen miller thank you all for attending did i have any other elected officials in the audience that i may have missed thank you i will start with a report of the superintendent so the first item uh on the agenda's report 61-03 which is the department of treasury as the as the trustees know uh as the board knows we have been working diligently to put together a bond proposal uh that would appear on the november ballot and we've been through and this has been a pretty in-depth process of looking at the needs of the community looking at the needs of
003the district we've had panel discussions where we've invited the community the community input as well as the students and faculty and staff of the district so that we could get all voices at the table and through that process we put together an application that we then had to present to the state treasury department and we went through that process as well and i'm proud to and i'm proud to announce that we got the approval back from the department of treasury for the state of michigan that we can move forward so at this point the next action that is required is that the board call for the election so that this can be officially put on the ballot and we can begin to move forward with sharing additional information and beginning the campaign so that we
004can get community support for this bond mr jackson has asked that the board approved the capital bond campaign trustees so it has been properly moved and supported any discussion hearing none board secretary please call for the vote yes jesse hicks yes trustee johnson yes trustee joyce yes trustee benison yes trusty weirdo yes unanimous motion carry thank you and then the uh the second item under the report for the superintendent uh we're going to table due to the absence of our superintendent this evening so with that i that concludes the superintendent's report i wanted to make sure that because we're in a different space did anyone else have a comment card that they wanted to turn in i didn't give i figured that okay um mr jackson will come to the edge of the stage to
005collect those from you thank you for your patience thank you the next item of our agenda for president yes sir at one point we had discussed moving public participation up here we had discussed at one point moving public participation up in the meeting we had can we you know i have no issue with that if it is the um wish of the board that we move public participation up before our presentations um out of consideration for time support thank you if you have a common car when i call your name would you please come to the podium are there any other common cards that have not been submitted at this time would you please bring them forward do you have a timer for public legislation ron i believe you are in charge of our timer
006tonight okay thank you public participation if you wish to address the board regarding a school-related issue that has not yet been resolved by school administration please submit a common card immediately comments are limited to three minutes per individual as a matter of fairness speakers with complaints against individuals are asked not to mention any persons by name complaints concerning employees pursuant to board policy 9130 should be brought to the attention of school principals or other administrators before coming to the board of education your cooperation is appreciated andrea wright um good evening everyone good evening now do i have to give all that information too yes andrea wright 20981 harbor road southfield michigan i am a long-time parent resident of southfield and i just have a couple of questions and concerns i should say regarding the school
007the closing of the buildings that's offline with the residents hold on can i take this off oh jesus will the residents know ahead of time what's going to happen to the buildings because those are in residence that i live in of course other residents here so we'll know exactly are we going to be involved and then secondly is regarding the bun now there's i have a neighbor i'm not voting because they had a bond the last time you know a millage i ain't doing it because they i said well that's in the past but this is now and we have a board and a superintendent that is working diligently to move our district forward so i think there's false information out there and i i urge our board to really get the correct information out
008there to the districts i'm not just to the communities and just like for my subdivision we have meetings we have newsletters so that can be a part of our newsletters that can go out to the residents to let them know about the bond the information about the bond and then also again regarding the schools that are offline i would really love to know exactly who's going to be purchasing leonard that's in my district and i know the other residents as well thank you that's right um i believe that some of that will be answered in in the meeting to come so thank you for your comment shamika woodson hello everyone um i am in opposition to the bond project i do not agree with making the millage higher than it already is because we already
009have one of the highest ones in the state of michigan so i feel like time should be utilized into how do we keep homeowners from moving our kids from the district my son is a student at southfield high school right here and he spent several class periods sitting in the gym last year because teachers weren't here and they were home a lot so that makes me as a tax paying homeowner want to pull my son out of the district so i feel like raising this millage when it's already higher than all of our surrounding districts here is a bad idea and i do not support it so i want to know what are you guys going to do different with this extra money that's going to keep the enrollment from going down and maybe have
010it go back up again thank you betty robinson good evening everyone my name is betty robinson i reside at 21889 glenmora uh james you mentioned that you notified the homeowners about the meetings for the bond how did you do that because i live in a very community between bernie between um stevenson and we have a very very strong black club and we're not notified of that so how was that information inseminated can you tell me that and in the future how would you inseminate it because ex-taxpayer like the ladies said we need to be in attendance when you discuss closing all of these buildings and selling any of our properties okay i appreciate that and i have um quite a number of things here that i'd like to mention uh bring to your attention um
011last year i was at the um voting and um i had that was at bernie and i happened to walk into the building and it was super cold and i mentioned that to mr joyce because he had voted prior to me and while i was there i toured the building because all the um voting people had electric heaters to keep them warm and there was no heat in the building absolutely at all so i happened to run into the people from barton mallow who work on our buildings and they have been one of our contractors for years and the guy told me that there was no heat because they couldn't fix it because the ceiling was leaking and i said he said the ceiling's been leaking for over a year so what we're doing now
012is patchwork in the building and we can't turn the heat on because this the ceiling is leaking and until that is fixed we cannot have the heat i talked to some parents there some employees who were working at the time and they told me that kids are in some of the kids in the classroom with coach on and half the building is cold and the other half is heated after the meeting i was in the um um outside talk and i met mr hicks and i brought that to his attention and he said he was going to bring it to the board because that's a problem in the world of time to have our student sitting in the building trying to learn and there's no heat and sitting with that culture that's a huge problem
013also i was at um macarthur now i was on the board two years ago we voted and passed funds to have air conditions installed at mccarthy a year later we find out the air conditioning they purchased were not adequate enough to cool our school that's another problem somebody should have checked to make sure those air conditioners were equipped to service our students and our staff every teacher in macarthur has fans some of them multiple fans in their room just to keep the kids cool and keep them cool that's another problem we spend money buying money to make sure that our schools are adequate for and conducive for learning but there's nobody following up whether what our money spent is being done correctly why would you and i understand that they brought this to the attention
014of the board and to dr green but it's still the same way as today ms robinson yes thank you um your three minutes is up okay but uh thank you for the issues that you brought forward um i know you sat in this seat before so please feel free to email the board or the superintendent with the rest of your concern okay one thing i'd just like to find out when will our curriculum be finalized four years ago we started the curriculum and i understand it's still not finalized that's another monumental issue that needs to be addressed thank you thank you sam thomas thank you for the opportunity i'm interested in item 3b on the agenda i'm assuming that the intent is to return it to its original purpose as a school [Music] do we
015know so we haven't gotten to the presentations yet um each person on the agenda will actually come up and present so you'll find out their intention at that time we just moved public participation up for everyone to be able to ask questions before the presentation but yes sir they will be presenting all right but if that's the purpose that i want to support it it was a nuisance as it was it was falling into disrepair young folk would congregate there and have parties and our neighborhood association got complaints about it if it's going to be returned to its original purpose i can't speak for our association but i can't speak as an individual in my household it would be a good thing for it to be returned to its original purpose for someone to maintain
016it bring it up to code or improve it and in that respect improve the property values for our community so in that respect if that's the purpose then i speak in support thank you a minute from highland monaco thank you my name is manafort i live at dartmouth and oak park thank you for giving me an opportunity to address the board um and as you mentioned i am i just celebrated 13 years on the oak park school board back when i started mr jackson and ms robinson were colleagues on the school board here in southfield dr greene was a principal in oak park so a lot has changed in those years but i'm not here in my capacity as a school board member but i am here as a friendly neighbor for a very similar
017purpose to the reason that i am on the school board and um i get that question very often why why do i why am i so passionate about my work on the school board i've also had the opportunity in the last couple of years to be one of the founding chairmen of the diversity equity and inclusion committee and oakland county school boards association and all of that is really driven by um a quote that's always really inspired me from malcolm x which says that when i is replaced with we even illness becomes wellness i think that in our work in our community work as community advocates we always do better when we can work together and engage all aspects of the community and realize that when every part of the community is growing every other
018part of the community benefits and when we start to take parochial perspectives when we when we take perspectives about that look very narrowly at what's good for me and we're competing with our neighbors that hurts the community and it hurts us in turn and so i'm excited to see the bond passing for tonight to go on the ballot and to see that opportunity to really grow southfield schools as a neighboring school district i think that's good for all of us when southfield has that opportunity to to modernize its facilities and at the same time when i see some of these presentations that are on the property presentations that are on the agenda tonight i think that's also critical when we can see that there are properties that are being when we can find those symbiotic
019relationships so areas where we can work where school boards can work together with community organizations to create opportunities to grow the community that benefits not only those individual community elements but it benefits the entire the entire community and the school district as well and so i want to thank you again for the opportunity to to speak and i look forward to hearing more about what some of these presentations are in the plans for southfield schools thank you janae anderson my name is janae you can move it my name is janae anderson and i have an incoming kindergartner and an income and first grader to the south of public schools this year so i'm new to the whole southfield atmosphere but i actually live right on the bus line for leonard school and so i got
020the information regarding the meeting tonight because my students my children have been enrolled in southpaw public schools but i've gotten nothing from the community that this meeting was happening tonight to make a determination on the building that's literally right up the street my kids ride their bikes literally and turn around and come back and so my question is how do you advertise or how do you put it out there to the community my second question is in terms of the participation the comments we haven't seen the presentations and maybe those presentations will yield comments after the presentation will there be a way for us if we have questions to get those questions answered because the presenters we won't have public comment again my third question is are these per the property presentation purchasers who are
021presenting tonight is that closed what if there are other people that are interested in those properties do they have a way or do they have someone to contact regarding their interest in the property and does the community have a say in what happens to the property that literally sits in the middle of our block thank you if the board go ahead trustee hicks president um with the board's consensus if we could have another public participation after the presentations are offered so that if there are additional questions or comments the community will have an opportunity the voice i have no problem with that so normally we would not respond to public participation and as a courtesy to the presenters who had a lot of times i will not belabor this too much but three things that
022i would like to say the people that are presenting this evening have presented multiple and asked multiple times about our vacant properties so they've inquired and emailed and called some of our buildings have been offline since 2011. um so this has been an ongoing thing we as a board have had conversations to say i think it's only fair that the public be present to see what these community members who are interested in our offline properties will do with the property that being said anyone interested in purchasing our property can contact jwe it's it's never been a secret uh the people who are sitting here right now have just reached out um we've actually had multiple people reach out and so because they had reached out previously we gave them this opportunity and asked that they
023bring a presentation that they give their intent for the building along with some other specifics so anyone who is interested in our offline properties can go through the office of the superintendent james jackson is our director of community engagement and all of those contact numbers and emails are located on our website furthermore the office of the superintendent also conducted focus groups where they contacted members of the staff the community elected officials mr jackson can probably speak to this a little bit more students yes we had a focus group that was full of the students um and so some people participated um and some people did not it was really based upon i'm just logging on to the zoom meeting and participating in that event we aren't done having this conversation if that is fair for
024me to say i'm speaking on behalf of the board it's not a closed-ended conversation regarding our offline buildings i think that i speak for everyone up here we are very passionate about what happens to the buildings in this community and what it means for the students and the families and the taxpayers in this community so i don't want anyone to think that this is a closed door once you see these presentations that means that the people that you saw are the only ones who have the option to purchase a property or vacant land with that being said trustee hicks through the chair um there were a couple of comments that were lifted and to board president's point we're not going to go and have that discussion now but we will respond to each uh comment
025that was uh lifted but just for communication there are many of the items that were lifted that are in flight as far as being repaired various buildings the community will be involved in the process to remediate the buildings as a former student in this auditorium it looks unfortunately quite the same as it did when i was a student over 30 years ago and that's a problem we have many of our buildings that require substantial improvement our kids deserve it now one of the things that we want to be able to do is to communicate recent villages the sinking fund and other things how that money's been allocated and we want to put that information on our website so that you can be better informed on how monies are being allocated how monies what the costs
026are to do a variety of repair one of the things that we want to make sure is that our kids are safe warm and dry we don't want it to be cold when it's supposed to be warm and vice versa and right now that's a challenge in some of these buildings that were built in the 50s and 60s we cross our fingers every year when it gets cold when a bowl that a boiler doesn't go out which brings building down to his knees so we want to start being proactive and right sides to district for the number of students that we have within the district to make sure that they have the tools they need to be successful and what that requires it requires additional funds monies that are allocated now take care of paying
027for teachers lice gas heat water books when you start talking about more monies have been reduced from a state and federal level to our buildings so what we're asking is for support to give the buildings that our students deserve and need to further their education going forward so again comments lifted will be responded to and we want to walk with you and not on side or behind and we ask that you be patient with us as we give you information for you to make the determinations and decisions you need to support your individual households and our community i just want to bring a point of clarity we could not give you the information regarding the bond until the board actually approved it tonight so that's partially why it did not become a campaign until treasury
028sent us back the yes and until the board approved it about 10 minutes ago so there's a lot of information to come i don't know if most of you know but three five of us sitting on this stage matriculated through southfield public schools so the heat the air the windows i've experienced them at shane o's thompson and southfield lathrop so are my children and my son graduated from southward public schools in 19 and my daughter is here now so hopefully that expresses to you that this is definitely personal to all of us there is a lot of information to come i do apologize on behalf of dr green she had an emergency otherwise she would be here but we are working on a presentation for the community as well as flyers that will give you
029talking points major points that describe the difference between a millage a sinking fund and a bond because there is a difference between the three it will also spell out what this looks like in dollars and cents and it will give you a timeline for what we want to do so i hope that some of that information that we all just brought you eases your mind a little bit about the communication piece that goes along with this there's just a cadence that has to happen in order for us to provide full communication with that being said if no other trustees have anything we will call our first presenter to this to the podium um karen o'tore torah and um this is for brace letterly mr goldberg good evening president bland marshall goldberg on behalf of karen
030latorre vice president joyce trustees and thank you for the opportunity to present here this evening and thank you mr jackson for all your assistance education knowledge transfers the cornerstone of advancement more so the keystone of community as i was given to understand from the beginning by then president hicks we are not here to discuss real estate order to discuss profit we're here to come together this evening to further education and community we've been talking for a while we've been together for a while as our community was building literally in 1957 my grandfather was building the yeshiva and i just came across the deed recently it's on lincoln road it's another yeshiva in town so from my heart i'm so appreciative for taking upon yourself to shepherd our community's most vital organ education thank you i'm
031also thrilled that the current prospect to thrust our district in new heights in the coming years so let's begin i print it out on the right side of the folder the presentation this is what a rendering of what the building would look like after if we were to implement our landscape and before the band in order to help out with the band vote the plan use is to strengthen community complimentary to the southwest public school repurpose the former brace letter lee elementary as a non-profit postgraduate community yeshiva religious jewish school of higher learning the curriculum is the gamut of jewish judaic law and ethics including modern application yeshiva will enhance our community trans ethics integrity and respect that students morph into responsible adults the clientele would comprise of young men 19 years old and up
032we would strengthen property value we are a solid tax base for over half a century we would provide enough lift curb appeal and maintenance to upgrade surrounding neighborhood we would re-customize and revamp the building since it was built in 1959 62 years ago one section at a time beginning the middle of next year we would relieve the district on the continuous excessive cost of upkeep and maintenance of systems that have reached the end of their functional life this is the cost of implementation in addition to the purchase of the building which things we have discussed prior to bring the building up to beginning working order what we would do for the building to make it look like that rendering and finally the fine there's a financing slide which and i look forward to empowering our
033community in unison it's my fervent prayer that each and every member of the board together with dr green have the health fortitude and energy to usher in the next era to uplift our community and children thank you mary would you please address the appraisal slide and it's printed out in the left side of the folder this is a picture of the rendering good evening members of the board thank you for having me my name is mary kuhart um i represent mr goldberg here in this hopefully successful win-win transaction that we can have and what i wanted to address is the value of the building we were uh provided with an appraisal that was get that was give uh that was performed uh back in 2021 which is last year in april and uh i'm not
034here to challenge the the appraisal i'm actually here to kind of support it and show what um uh how i guess it can be different more more or less um the the appraisal gave us five separate buildings that were sold within the last couple of years um and what they were doing is uh comparing uh the our subject property to these buildings okay um what they took into consideration at the time was the average the price per square foot for those buildings but what was not done and actually the appraisal supports what i'm saying is they did not consider so many other factors i'm going to mention just a couple one of them the condition of the buildings the second one the intent of use of the building what is going to be done uh
035if you guys can refer to the appraisal i don't have the the powerpoint for it but we have the slides here um i wanted to go through the buildings that were that were compared and you know gave us the the value um first of all there's one that was uh the former macomb christian school which is now center line preparatory academy a charter school basically this was a turnkey school it was sold for 1.8 million basically it was sold in february of 2020 and it was on upper in operation by august they started taking registration from from students so and they did their own remodeling and you know i guess modernization but it does not compare to our subject property so i believe this was not a good comparison um the second one that they
036gave us was um it was actually in detroit it was the former detroit academy of arts so this building was sold for 2.4 million dollars however what what was not mentioned is that building actually was a historical building that's number one it was completely renovated with new systems um like um new mechanicals uh the h the hvac electrical plumbing systems and uh and the the other thing that was very important in this case when it was sold the intent was an as an investment property for condominium condominium units which in that area is actually selling for over like a hundred thousand per one unit and up to like 300 on the upper 300 000 for like a three bedroom unit so this one is also is not a fair comparison to our subject property and
037uh since also you know all the renovation was has already been done to it um the other one also was the former international school and it currently is called hoda school and that was also a turnkey property because in 2003 that school was completely renovated also so whoever bought that property at the time literally just started operation right away as a school so the intent was a school and it was turnkey immediately again it was not um a good comparison for our property um there are others but uh this is what i you know that what i for the sake of time i don't want to uh i understand that time is important here but the the whole idea is this building like to me um i got involved with mr goldberg and i saw
038their vision for the community and it started becoming to me not just a financial thing i actually have true belief that it's going to be something wonderful to the community the way they're going to improve the the building and raise the probably keep the residents there without feeling that they are being gypped or feeling that their community is is going to pieces so that's my uh thank you um so one thing that we did not share with our community is that the presentations are seven minutes long leaving an eight-minute time period for the board to ask questions or provide comments and again we did state that we will open public participation back up to the community after all presentations have been completed at this time i would like to say thank you for your presentation
039if you would stay at the podium trustees any comments or questions hearing none i would like to say that we did have the opportunity today to walk all the buildings um that are offline so we were able to see exactly what you were able to see we really appreciate you taking the time out for this i do have um one question yes because of the intent for the property is very specific to the jewish community i would like to know how it would afford the rest of the community in the brace area any type of amenity i do understand that there is a separate schooling that the jewish community has but in this instance is there anything that would be offered to the residents of that area i would let mr goldberg answer that question
040sure we had spoken with mr jackson and we suggested that we create a playground for the neighborhood a nice playground that could be used by everybody repeat that if anyone did not hear the response was that a playground would be available to the community that they would build thank you very much trustees anything else thank you trustee word of all does have one question and thank you um in light of board president's question um can you explain if there will be any benefits that would even be offered to southern public schools through any of your programs well the the mere fact that we've been here for so long and we're part we live here together for so long and uh we strengthen the housing market and bring in tax revenue and create a vibrant dynamic
041community similar to what menachem said before for malcolm x i think it just will as we doubt as the district gets downsized and lurches to the new century with new technology it will just be become a vibrant place the fact that currently parents are spending a lot of money for middle-income families to send their children out of state it will be bringing a lot of dollars back to the community may i ask yeah just may i answer this also uh the way we also see it the way it would the way it would benefit the uh the community or the school district is cut is actually but by the funds that would come in that would would also help upgrade or fix any issues with the other schools that are the students in right now
042and i also saw that you were looking to begin in mid-2023 do you have an idea of the duration of construction and also how would construction impact that intersection at nine mile in evergreen um considering that brace is located at a very major intersection have you considered that yeah so the type of construction we're talking about we really want to use the current structure we're not talking about major construction we're talking about remodeling initially we'll start off with a section it's a big building we only need a portion initially and then as time evolves lapses will go on to the next other sections thank you so much our next presenter is yeshiva torah okay before you begin did you have an electronic version of your presentation for the community um i did not see one
043in in the email but do you have one i do not have one with you okay no i don't believe it okay please proceed uh good evening to the members of the board thank you for inviting us to present our offer and intent for the district property of interest in this case the former fred d leonard elementary school in southfield my name is arya gibber i am a parent of three students and two alumni at ishiba and also serve as its voluntary board president in my spare time i own and operate an independent local pharmacy located as well in southfield i know our time is limited and i want to be mindful of that so allow me to jump right into our presentation is a private religious school located on a property at 12 mile
044and losser road in southfield the school was founded close to four decades ago and currently has an enrollment of over 500 students many of whom live in southfield our student body comes from families in the area that are seeking a private religious school education and an environment that caters to their unique needs and considerations the school's enrollment has increased steadily throughout the years including annually by approximately five percent over the last decade has built a well-earned reputation for excellence and has become an integral part of its community of course success brings challenges of its own uh the single greatest challenge facing our school at this time is a lack of adequate physical space the shortage of space has begun to impact the school's ability to fully serve the needs of its students and as our
045population continues to grow requires additional space for parallel classrooms larger shared spaces and common areas our staff continues to grow requiring additional space for educational and administrative functions as well most significant is the need for additional space to accommodate our extended school services programs these include extensive resource offerings for an ever growing number of children one-on-one mentoring of struggling students robust accommodations and programming for students with special needs and differing abilities and in addition to these in-house departments yeshiva tour regularly welcomes and hosts specialists from the southfield school system who assist our students and faculty in areas including but not limited to speech therapy physical therapy occupational therapy hearing consultations and psychological evaluations the need for physical space to accommodate these services and many more has for us become critical this brings us to the
046former fred d leonard elementary school located at 20900 independence drive as you likely know the leonard building once housed a thriving school today it unfortunately lies dormant and empty based on anecdotal reports from concerned citizens and law enforcement the large vacant building has become a magnet for vandalism and other criminal activity and has emerged as a blight for the community and a liability for the city of southfield and its school board so if you're following along you probably see where this is going hopefully toward a win-win for yeshiva's darker torah and the city of southfield shivazar tour would like to acquire the property at 20900 independence drive and construct a new state-of-the-art school building a building that will be a credit to the city of southfield and our community and a building that will allow
047us to provide each individual child with the outstanding well-rounded education that has become our trademark now how do we propose getting from here to there so by this point in time it has been determined by industry experts that the leonard school building must be torn down as such we value the property as if it were vacant land before subtracting the cost of the necessary teardown so let's look at each of those figures which you should have in the handouts and how we arrived at them working with the highly regarded friedman real estate team we identified the sales of nineteen comparable properties and arrived at an average sale price of sixty two thousand two hundred and forty three dollars and forty one cents per acre we then applied that average to our proposal approximately 10 acres
048at the 62 243 dollars and 41 cents per acre minus the cost of demolition we then received an on-site cost analysis for the tear down from the reputable blue star demolition company as well as for the removal of asbestos from the premises using the assessment of those costs received from the school board we arrived at a total demolition cost of four hundred and ten thousand three hundred and forty dollars um this number would then be subtracted from the acreage price in determining a final sale number there are notes on all of these figures included in your handouts is well positioned financially at this time for an investment of this nature as is highlighted in materials furnished by chase bank and included in our proposal we believe we can act quickly and decisively in executing a
049purchase of the property overseeing the necessary demolition and moving quickly toward construction of a beautiful new educational facility while we have not as yet developed specific design plans for the proposed new building we are confident in the ability of our team to work with local and national architecture firms and educational consultants to build a campus that will be a credit to both the school and the neighborhood i began by saying i realize our time is short and then proceeded to carry on without stopping until now so take everything i say with a grain of salt but on behalf of the executive board of yeshiva zarchetora it's 500 plus eager students and their hopeful families allow me to again state that the purchase of this property by our school looks like that most elusive of deals
050a win-win for both parties issues will be able to continue to build on four decades of excellence in building a bright future one child at a time and a modern new facility will enhance the safety of the neighborhood eliminate a site that has been deemed by the lawyers among us as an attractive nuisance according crime drugs and decay raise property values in the area and contribute toward bringing new families to the city of south field which means young families shopping locally utilizing local tradespeople and putting monies into the local economy uh we'll be glad to take any questions you may have regarding our proposal and by we i mostly mean [Music] mr thomas august of the law firm jack yeargold who is far more educated and intelligent than i am thank you so much for
051your time and attention look forward to working together toward the betterment of our southfield community and its children thank you very much trustees are there any comments or questions trustee johnson you mentioned that some of your students live in southfield i'm curious if you know how many or what the ratio is that is a an excellent question that i should have thought of i could definitely get you that information it's a substantial portion of the student population i'm afraid to throw a number out there but it's it's a it's a robust number thank you rusty word of all as it was asked by a previous presenter leonard is in the center of a neighborhood and it's very vital it's important to our community that they're kept in the loop of everything that is going on
052so acoustics might be a little bad for me you may have mentioned how this is going to support the community and the people that live in the community so in terms of benefit to the community the nature of our community is such that the school becomes sort of a centerpiece of a local community families tend to want to live close to the school that their kids are going to we would anticipate and we've seen that with other school buildings in the community that it would become a magnet for local families or for families looking to move to the area they'd want to be close to the school they want to be close to the activities and events that are hosted there so i would anticipate first of all there would be an economic benefit to
053the surrounding neighborhoods just from the influx of families to the area and in addition you know i i think we're talking about significant um addition by subtraction they're just removing the the situation that currently prevails on that site which again um it seems to have become unfortunately um a kind of a magnet for vandalism crime and so the the opportunity to get that out of the neighborhood i think would be to their benefit as well so leonard is located in the heart of beacon square and it's on it faces winchester and it also has almost the egress type like path right into another side and i can't remember if that's paul revere independence constitution one of those that kind of dumps out onto losser we know that losser is busy because stevenson exists on lasser
054southville christian is on the corner then you have mcintyre right there at evergreen when you talk about raising a building that's a lot of in and out right right in the heart of a community that already gets stifled with traffic especially during the school year so i have a couple of questions have you considered how you're going to communicate with the community as well as the district with your construction plans about the traffic and the influx and we know that when you raise a building there's a lot of dirt there's a lot of hauling and based on the timing and considering that we have a winner that sometimes lasts for six months i could see this causing a lot of traffic so i guess my question to you is do you have a plan for
055communicating to that beacon square community how this is going to work how they'll be impacted are you working are you going to work with the city to kind of create some diverted ways to go in and out i'm just wondering how far have you thought about planning this and then the communication with the school district about our bus routes as well so those are things that i would hope you will consider i don't expect you to have an answer for me now but it is an expectation of mine that you will communicate that to the community that you are looking to increase the aesthetic safety and value of well i just like to say that until you added that you don't expect an answer right now you really had me nervous but the truth is
056that we have thought of all of these items although i cannot tell you we've come to conclusive arrangements for all of them but we do have a track record of many years at our current location of excellent relationships with the southfield school district the city government local planning and government officials so i'm fairly confident that we will continue to factor all that in as far as traffic i mean once you know once the school is up and running we're comforted somewhat by knowing that there was a school operating out of that same location so we would definitely look to learn how they you know use traffic patterns and turn them drop off and dismissal et cetera during the construction um and the hallways and etc definitely something you know i'm i have a nine to
057five job so i don't get to see everything that goes on i did see papers with arrows and buildings and so i i'm sure it is under discussion and certainly appreciate the reminder to make sure it stays front and center question would be if um it was accepted what would your timeline be what what does that look like in terms of the demolition the demolition the demolition we would again we have a pretty sure the letter of intent that would submit oh excuse me the the letter of intent that was submitted uh envisions a pretty rapid uh timeline from signing to closing and then we would um certainly at the upset be looking to proceed with the demolition right away and removal of materials uh we would of course you know need to engage architects
058civil engineers landscape architects all that sort of thing but this the shiva is wants to proceed with this uh obviously as soon as as soon as they can to get it up and running this is not a a land banking type of a thing this is looking to bring a new building on online into operations as soon as possible um but i would imagine the demolition would be would begin as soon as possible after closing once permits have been obtained insurance put in place um especially certain permits for disposing of environmentally sensitive materials and in a lawful and responsible manner but that would begin as soon as soon as practically possible thank you and to clarify my the redundant nature of my ass just because they did not have a presentation to see i wanted
059to make sure the community was clear about what that looks like for them so that is why i asked that question again but i did see it in your letter of intent so thank you very much trustees any other questions or comments hearing none thank you thank you so much for your time yes yehuda good evening uh carolyn did my email come through and do you have their presentation no do we have an electronic copy i know we were missing i think about three or four that did not send it in um that's actually good um i will take that and ryan i'll forward it to you or you want me to send it to ms foster what works best he's going to forward his presentation do you want me to give it you want
060me to forward it to you okay sure you can forward it to me or miss foster either want to work we apologize for the delay this should take us a couple of minutes and just so um to be clear this is a for a parcel of land it is not for a specific building i just wanted to clarify that before we got started oh you're presenting for both okay got it ron has the presentation and he is pulling it up now great thank you so much no it's not is it because of the lighting back here do we need to dim that again i can see it okay there it is okay perfect okay good evening everybody my name is robbie shraggy myers i serve as the executive director of the yeshiva beth yehuda where
061we issue a day school with locations both in oak park and in salfield we service over 1300 children from those two locations and we're split approximately 70 plus percent in south field and the rest from oak park we've had a very long wonderful relationship with southland public schools as many of you know and we're very grateful and thankful to our partners both on the school board the city board jackson and superintendent greene as well as chief baron chief menifee captain medici and all those from who serve on behalf of the city itself and we're really tremendously grateful wonderful relationship we are in a very unique position as a school based in south field we purchased approximately 10 years ago the shanel's building if i could have the next slide the shandles building which is on
062lincoln and 10 and a half mile and that building has served us really well we purchased it from the city of southfield i have them perfect thanks here we go perfect so this is on 10 and a half in greenfield and this is a building that we purchased from the city of southfield public schools uh years ago and so we're in this unique position where we're a smaller school obviously than southfield public schools but we're growing we need more space and our children from south field are in a position where they need to upgrade their buildings they need to invest in the kids today and so as unique neighbors in a position where we need to expand we've approached our supporters and our donors and we said hey we have these two issues right our
063partners the children of the city of south field they're sending their kids to southwest public schools our parents who send their kids to beth yuda are very very aware of everything that's going on in our southfield public schools they're paying the taxes they're paying the millage they're paying the bond potentially they're very aware of the dollars and very passionate that we need to live in a community with excellent schooling it's good for everybody rising ties raise all ships we need to have good education for every child and it's something that the jewish community in general but obviously we are extremely passionate about is excellent education for every child as such we have these two questions how do we improve our southfield public schools and give our kids what they need and how do we provide
064for additional space for the children going to the jewish day school and so we would like to propose the following here you have um shanel's elementary school next to thompson which is currently being used and so we'd like to propose instead of looking at the buildings that are offline and saying okay these are run down the roof was leaking it's time to offload these properties let's look at a property that has value thompson is a valuable property we as neighbors are in a unique position to make an offer and say hey we need property to expand for our children and so after speaking to the city assessor and looking at comps and figuring let's say three dollars a square foot for development it seems that an offer for thompson element international academy would be appropriate
065at 2.7 million dollars minus the cost that a developer would have to face for the demolition of the actual building but we don't want to be a developer we're a school and so our goal here is to say we're in a position to offer uniquely right now at this critical junction five million dollars for the purchase of this property and solve two problems at the same time we'll find the room for expansion for the children of and we'll find the money to upgrade the properties that we own in the city of southfield public school system right now and that investment will allow us to upgrade our current facilities for our children both properties we'll have the room we need we'll have the upgrades we need and so that's the proposal that we're bringing to this
066board is the purchase of this property for that price separately we've submitted a separate loi where we said okay there is an additional room to expand behind the shandles building as you see on the screen here that little green triangle the bottom that's my street that's where i live and so i'm in a unique place to see all the traffic and everything that's going on i think there's approximately 400 children currently at thompson i know if that's a number that you have handy but the question is can we take those children and use the money that we're either using to purchase the whole property or this piece of land and upgrade the facilities that they're in and if you look at the map of southfield public schools in general the void the place where we
067need to have more schools is more southerly to the south and so these three circles represent the three areas that we're discussing there's thompson morris adler and the salford education center and the question is do we take this money and upgrade those facilities for the salvia public school children and take advantage of this unique conflation of events and so i thank you all for your time for having me here today those are the proposals that we bring in front of you either way i want to thank you for your dedication on behalf of children we feel that all children are the responsibility of all adults and every child's education is important to all of us so thank you so much for your time i'll take questions thank you so much for your presentation um it's
068important that i state as youth stated thompson has children in it those children are bus we use that school i'm a former student of thompson and that building is not for sale at this time as we stated before with that being said trustees do you have any questions or comments i only have one and it is regarding the space behind shanos um that we spoke about could we just in the front lights for a second go ahead sorry currently i believe our falcons practice in this field yes the southfield falcons i'm correct you are speaking about building an addition in that space is that correct how would that how would that look can you help me so i don't have a plan for exactly how a building would fit what part of it we developed
069where parking could be where fields would be etc so that's open for discussion if there is room for this uh for expansion in the city of southfield there is a field in front of thompson which i think has some drainage issues that we could address but that could be developed we play soccer there they play soccer there etc it can be developed more as a football field if the falcons is the one conversation where they going to play let's talk about it and figure out how to make it work but the offer for this piece of property which you have in front of you in the loi is also a significant offer thank you for president i just want to have a clarification for myself sure i know that thompson is online but are we
070at some point going to assess all offers submitted before making a final determination we we would have to i would ask that the board would consider our proposal that we provided treasury we had to outline specific closings which mean that specific schools will have to merge into other schools so as we assess what is provided to us we have to be cognizant that we still have to make some modifications to what we already have and so that is why i made the statement about thompson in this current juncture i think as we continue to have more conversations it could possibly change at this moment it's not on the table thank you thanks for clarifying yes i have any questions about this proposal further questions about this one i don't have any more okay thank you
071so much for your time next up is robertson holmes i this is a proposal for land this land does not have any occupied or offline buildings on it just for clarification good evening good evening thank you darian newbecker on behalf of robertson brothers homes 6905 telegraph road bloomfield hills michigan 48301 i've actually got a paper presentation do you mind if i hand it out so i'll try to keep this brief i know i've got seven or eight minutes i'd like to give you a chance to ask questions and i um if you don't mind may have a question or two of my on my own just in general give you a little bit of background of who we are as an organization uh robertson holmes is a 75 year old private developer we're on our
072third generation of ownership we only build and develop in southeast michigan we tend to focus in on infill developments we've recently completed a number of school purchases and redevelopments which you'll see in the package speak up just a little or adjust the mic you're tall so it just you know background and robertson 75 year third generation private home builder we tend to specialize in infill developments we've recently purchased seven or eight school communities uh successfully redeveloped them um they're in your package and we'll get to it in a second uh in terms of just a summary the project itself the the land that we're proposing to purchase is 48 acres located between 10 and 11 mile east side of inkster existing zoning is re residential the proposal we have is for 171 detached single level
073range condominiums again these would be condominiums so the landscaping would be maintained by a homeowners association single level units the the target for this product is a active adult wants to move out of a multi-story home get away from stairs you know move into a place where the outside landscaping is maintained if they want a vacation if they want a winter away the association maintaining the landscaping allows them the freedom to do so you see a significant amount of demand and active adult for this type of product and frankly um we're not building enough of it in this region in terms of you know we talked a little bit about the vision 171 unit detached condominium residential development we would propose to develop under either a cluster or a plant unit development option with the
074through the city of saltfields or zoning ordinances as we said a homeowners association will be created to to control and maintain the open space areas you know our intent would be the price season the 300 000 range to do so with with construction costs today and lumber today we're going to be we will be pursuing a brownfield or a transformational tiff uh something that we would pursue with southfield and likely the state you know robertson has a long history of working with local communities on brownfields so it's not something that's unfamiliar to us as a process and as we talked about the target customer would be to take southfield residents that want to move out of the multi multi-multi-level living move into single level living and they don't have an option right now to move
075into new single level ranches i mean there are plenty of existing ranches but the time it takes to modify a kitchen or to redo bathrooms today not you know irregardless of the cost just trying to get a contractor on on site in your house and get something done timely is very challenging so there's a tremendous amount of demand for this type of product here we just have a conceptual layout this is obviously um if there's a meeting of the minds and we move forward this could obviously change as we move through the approval process but this is something that is buildable we feel would meet a a need for the south field community this these are some examples of the product that we'd be proposing again it's single level living it's two bedroom with a
076den two-car garage it's a it's it's enough space it's not it's not obviously overly spacious but it allows somebody to to lock load and lead in the wintertime or on vacations and simplify their lifestyle the next slide was the offer um i don't know if that was intentionally excluded but uh okay it was thank you i'm happy to talk about it if you want but so anyways i just want to open it up for questions i have a couple of my own i'm sorry i'm jim clark president robertson brothers company it's been our experience that if you build ranch homes you free up as darien said colonials which are backfilled with students who come into the public school system so we have eight eight different projects we've done and they've many times been ranch style
077condominiums which did lead to additional students in those school divisions in those school districts so it sounds counterintuitive if i build a ranch i'll get more students it's not been our experience i trustees any questions i have a couple so i saw um i saw some of the other communities that you had listed what is the median price range of the homes the 171 homes that you're looking to build on that site i mean we would if you had asked me that question a year and a half ago i was i would have said mid to high twos uh you know i think you know we would have to be in the low threes but i think we would be out the door low to mid threes which um it's certainly um you'd love it
078to be less um but i think that's you know today if you were wanting to go on to buy a new detached house today i mean you're you're looking high threes low fours almost anywhere you go for sure so i saw two bedrooms um so that's a family size of maybe one kid right um is there an opportunity because our the family size in south field is normally larger than one child so if we're looking at how this would help our community especially our families i think this is great for our senior community i really do especially for those who don't want to move into assisted living but for those who are matriculating k-12 how does this help them especially when most are buying starter homes and would like to expand and we want to
079keep them no great question what we presented was a concept plan so it's obviously can be uh shaped um and we could have it's large you have a large enough site which allows us some flexibility where we could change an area to maybe single family versus the entire project being ranches in fact it'd probably be desirable so you have multiple target markets that you're trying to attract i mean the ranch house itself if that was a desired product and they had a need for additional bedrooms we do offer basement and finished basement options we do have a plan that allows you to go upstairs and pick up two bedrooms you know so it's a quasi ranch with a couple bedrooms upstairs for the children and then as jim mentioned and shame on me for failing
080to mention um you know we will free up house you know there there are a significant amount of your households i suspect that have empty bedrooms with active adult residents that are waiting for a product like this and so if they're able to move in now you've freed up a starter home with bedrooms for somebody to move into the community or to expand within the community you know and obviously would have school-aged children so trustees any other comments questions can i ask a question of course inappropriate just curious on the process um you know we're we're obviously interested and we just wanted to know if there's a formal process in place when we'd hear back at this point the way that the way the property distribution or property disposition would happen is that once the
081presentations are have been made uh the board will then you know meet to sort of you know review and kind of deliberate on the offers that have been presented uh at that point they will give direction to the superintendent uh to uh to move forward to uh negotiate renegotiate whatever uh the pleasure of the board is and then come back with something that the board can then make a final vote and approval on perfect one other thing i failed to mention we also included financials in our package just to demonstrate i think we have the capability financially and experience wise to pull this off if there's interest you'd see the packet that you provided i think that moving forward two things we're going to have to open public participation and listen to what the community
082wants and what they their asks are because that's important we work for them i think secondly we would have to sit down with our team and have a larger conversation once that happens someone from the office of superintendent would reach out to each person that provided a presentation not to mention what i stated earlier it's not just closed off to the people who presented today so we would have to pay attention to some other things as well but they would definitely be in contact with you i would i would say within the next 30 days within the next 30 days okay we appreciate your time and opportunity to present tonight no thank you very much last but not least we have um fadia group and their presentation is also for leonard school good evening to
083the board good evening my name is dennis mitchell i am with vodia group our for-profit developer arm i've also brought our non-profit partner new hope and as we move through the presentation i'll talk more about why our group has come together to assess the lenard property so just a little bit about our team i have more than 20 years experience in the commercial construction industry i've built projects as small as 1 million dollars as large as a billion across the country really looking forward to bringing some supplier diversity expertise to this site to engage our minority and women-owned business community as well as workforce development experience so i've created a workforce development program that has employed hundreds of women and minorities ages 18 to 24 throughout southeast michigan and lastly i'm a fellow of the
084webill program which is a organization led by sunir senere is a community development financial institution and they would be the financial arm to actually fund this deal hi good evening my name is dana christian and i'm with new hope the non-profit partner on this project um one of the reasons that that i wanted to join this joint venture with fodia is to be sure that as a resident of of of southfield i live here my children actually went to leonard which is which i'm glad to see where i'm looking to do something with it but make sure that we bring some housing to the area of leonard and and we do that through a community engagement process that allows the community to have input in what is actually built on that site so we bring
085that experience as well as down payment assistance and other affordable housing development resources to to this venture and as i mentioned sunira would be the funding partner i'm in year two of this program and it's focused on supporting black women that are looking to enter the development field i'll talk more about senior now scenario has been around for many many years they've had more than four billion dollars in investments nationally and their local detroit office was stood up to do just what i described support black development throughout southeast michigan they have provided a letter of intent to fund this deal and work on the project overall they have in-house resources that span from acquisition to new market tax credits as well as assisting with the development process overall so this is again year two and
086i've learned a lot over the last two years and now it's time to activate a real project i chose the city of southfield primarily because i work in the city of south field and i have family to have roots that are ingrained in the city of southfield and i believe that it would be a clear opportunity given that i've done some work with the southfield public schools previously otherwise the short reason of the y is i was initially looking for housing in south field and was being priced out of the market so i thought about serving people that we're in that middle range of housing stock knowing that we have a shortage of housing stock across the state there's something that's needed here and we want to make sure that we provide access to working
087families that are looking to grow and they're being priced out in the suburbs all three of our partners are aligned in this vision and we know that we can build some housing a smaller development than the last presentation on this site but something that will be very much so engaged with drawing in younger people into the city of southfield but also providing that support to the senior community that currently exists the plan would be to demolish the existing school i've actually engaged a minority contractor that focuses on demolition to give some early estimates we want to make sure that we're maximizing the green space that's involved and creating that workforce development piece again that would engage southfield school students so those that are in 11th and 12th grade to engage they're looking to enter the
088skilled trades that's a specialty of mine so i want to make sure that that's a part of this process as well as again the minority well known business community so we want to make sure that we're creating the housing stock in the form of detached condos as well as triplexes and duplexes and leveraging the service is a new hope to include vouchers up to fifteen thousand dollars to give access to those working families this is just a quick summary of what workforce housing is and again just to reinform that you have people that want to move into this community that don't have the access right now because we're being priced out so we want to make sure that we're creating realistic housing and i'm not saying that we want to have affordable housing when you
089think of low income i'm saying middle class and hard working families that are looking to grow within this community this is a 10 acre site situated in a strong neighborhood i'm very familiar with this neighborhood and would love to engage with the community to get their stakeholder engagement and ideas on what could support outside of the housing on this property so we would want to create a housing stock that has a mixture of ranch-style condos duplexes as we have here so two bedrooms i heard the question around the expansion and how that could work we also have a second potential design and again this will be a fluid process so we will work with the board to really understand in the community to get their input on what they want to see on this site
090but we do have two different housing options that would be available so you have families that want to move into the community as well as the families that in the senior community that currently lives here but they're looking to downsize as well so we want to create a multi-generational approach that really encompasses all of the community residents and again just recirculating that workforce housing piece so southfield has a lot of resources and some of the largest employers are actually situated here in this area and you have a large workforce again that can't afford to live here as they would like to live and grow their families and why businesses are here you have some of the top fortune 500 companies because of the location so we want to make sure that we provide those workers
091of those companies access to affordable housing here's just some of the nearby community benefits with the parks in the schools southfield public schools it's a strong school district in my opinion and i believe that families that are looking to move outside of the city of detroit choose south field as a primary source so that they can still have access to the suburbs but still be close enough to the city this is just a quick summary of the purchase proposal i mentioned i do have construction experience and a strong team of resources so we would look to do a full analysis of the site as we're walking through that process with the board and get a full due diligence in place and we will immediately provide a loi upon notice of acceptance i am also a
092licensed commercial real estate broker i have 10 years experience in that so i would be more than willing to be as open and transparent in this process alongside my partner's new hope and senior any questions thank you trustees any questions or comments trustee johnson what's the range in costs for your units yeah 275 000 to 300 000 we would look to put 30 to 40 units on that site which would create about a 10 10 and a half million dollar development trustee whatever you mentioned building a multi-generational community with this type of development and i believe that southfield always needs stand-alone homes and or site condos for new families coming in but it is imperative that any development that goes into the community that has been there for some time and are embedding themselves in
093that community make sure that they have a pulse on the current community so i say all that to say how will this benefit those that are in the current homes in the area so i have a background in community engagement and i know the importance of engaging residents voices when you're building developments so making sure that there are at least two community outreach events that happen i was asked to partner with the school district to host those events to get that input show the the design as it trans transgresses through the process to show and get that feedback i don't see this being a quick process where we get the land and we just go that's not what i specialize in i specialize in getting the voices of those that are around my father is
094disabled and he lives in the city of southfield in an assisted living complex so i'm well aware of the senior committee community that that's here and the voices that need to be heard so i would be more than open to going through that full stakeholder engagement process with the community i also want to add one of the strengths of having a community-based organization with 30 years experience working in communities and developing in communities is being able to bring the community together around the project plan and so we use the charrette process where our architects come in and take a look at what's here and start meeting with the residents step by step and saying let's look at this let's think about this concept what don't you like how was the traffic here my children went
095to leonard i remember trying to get through traffic in that community prior to the the roundabout so we go through that process before we finalize any plans one not just to come up with a product that will sell but something that the community can buy in and something that they can say hey we want to make sure that this isn't going to impact us negatively and let's hear what those items are so that we can start to address them early on before we get into construction can i add one more thing most critical piece around this will be the safety and the traffic management is something that i'm well aware of because that is a quiet stable community so we will work with our contractor to ensure that we have traffic patterns and a clear
096plan that is regularly communicated to the surrounding neighborhood and make sure that there is full access if there are any questions or any disturbances that occur during the construction process trustees any other questions or comments you actually stole all of my questions and comments this time so fadia group thank you very much thank you and we will be in touch before we move forward in our program i will be remiss not to acknowledge the mayor of lather village kelly garrett is in attendance thank you for attending mayor garrett we appreciate you moving forward if you do have a comment for the second public participation would you please grab a comment card in order to um kind of move us along as we go toward the next public participation once you fill that common card out
097someone will grab it from you moving on to action items consent agenda approval of minutes uh minutes for december 14 2021 january 18 2022 february 8 2022 may 11 june 28 truth and taxation and our special board meeting on june 28th so moved it's been properly moved and supported trustees any comments or concerns again i would like to thank our admin team ms paulette gardner and ms foster also our expert proofreader at large trustee charles hicks for keeping us keeping our noses clean on this one um this was definitely a large feat for us to catch up on all of these so thank you again to all of you for the team effort to get this done with these minutes i believe that board books should be completely up to date so for any community
098members who have reached out to us and asked us about minutes they are all available on the website trustees any questions concerns any discussion hearing none board secretary please call for the vote trustee hicks yes trustee johnson yes trustee joyce yes trustee benison yes trustee bland yes myself yes unanimous motion carry information items and for anyone in the audience who was looking for a public participation card our wonderful executive administrator miss paulette gardner does have them and she is collecting them thank you ms gardner i appreciate you anyone who did not receive one or would like to fill one out thank you information items report 6101 and report 6102 are both technology purchases one is safety and security and one is for laptops mr jackson are you touching on those technology purchases 6101 and 61.02
099we will um do you think we will table these considering dr green was not able to be here trustees are you okay with that well yes oh sure do they're not actionable well they're not actionable but due to uh supply chain do we have any impacts related to the technological purchases for startup school yep i'm with you if you would like to um make a motion i do believe we've spoken about i know we've spoken about the safety and security multiple times the laptops i think it was just more of an update about how many and the complete cost trustees if you are in favor we can make it actionable i move that report 6101 and 6102 opened and approved support it's been properly moved and supported any other discussion yeah vice president so so
100with the chromebooks there's 350 here what are we averaging per year in chromebooks because we we do we do pass out chromebooks every school year am i correct we do i don't know who you would like to be i think part of the issue is that we've been passing them out but there's also some that are are in need of repair replacement uh gotten damaged because some of the younger students don't care for them as some of the older students may so it's it's more of a retiring some of the older units and replacing some of the broken units yeah because i just think it's important that community is aware of the fact that we uh we are distributing chromebooks to our students you know there's some districts to them but we're we're a district
101that does uh uh pass out and provide chromebooks to our students so i just wanted to know that any other discussion hearing none war secretary please call for the vote trustee venison yes trustee joyce yes trustee johnson yes trustee bland yes rusty hicks yes myself yes unanimous thank you report 6104 sea tentative agreement i know that with this information item it was brought to my attention that they are prepared to ratify um i believe that we wanted to give dr green the approval to move forward with the tentative agreement she is not present so i do understand if anyone needs more clarity or wanted more information regarding the ta if we want to keep this as an information item that is understood i would like to hear from the rest of the board regarding this
102trustee hicks board president i think we should proceed with making the national report it's important to have the teachers come back and start the beginning of the school year with the contract in place thank you so i applaud the uh all those involved and coming to this point so i just think that we should carry the ball and move it forward thank you for that um this just for clarity um the sca has reached a tentative agreement we would like to go ahead and get this ratified before the first day of school seeing as though our next meeting kind of would hinder that process our superintendent has asked that we bring it to the table and make it actionable so with that being said i move that we open and approve report 6104 sca tentative
103agreement support it's been properly moved and supported any more discussion hearing none board secretary please call for the vote trustee bland yes trustee hicks yes josie johnson yes trustee joyce yes trustee benison yes myself yes unanimous motion carry public participation if you wish to address the board regarding the school-related issue that has not yet been resolved by school administration please submit a common card immediately comments are limited to three minutes per individual as a matter of fairness speakers with complaints against individuals are asked not to mention any persons by name complaints concerning employees pursuant to board policy 9130 should be brought to the attention of school principals or other administrators before coming to the board of education your cooperation is appreciated i just want to state that i know some of the presenters have left
104i have gone through some of the comment cards and some people have direct questions for those who have presented please allow us to take your information down for those of you who did provide an email address for those of you who didn't i would ask that you would and then we will be able to forward your questions to those who have presented today zachary anderson good afternoon everyone good afternoon i just wanted to comment on the two proposals related to leonard school i'd live on independence drive the school is at the very end of the block that i live on i do object to the way the first group presented the school as a nuisance and the crime that goes on they had no data that they presented us to us today to support that
105my experience is that the community is safe as far as their promise that rebuilding the school will stop vandalism or criminal activity they haven't told us how they would do that any building whether it's new or old could be vandalized they've put forth no concrete plan as to how they would secure the property to keep it safe from vandalism to keep it safe from criminal activity as far as what they're giving the community i did not hear any tangible benefits except for the fact that they only concretely offered use of the playground and there's a playground at 12 and losser which i've taken my kids to on many occasions they say it will bring more people into the neighborhood but there's no concrete proof for that they haven't there aren't a lot of houses for
106sale in the subdivision currently there's no proof to say when houses will open up so more people can move in so we really don't know if and when people will actually be able to move into the community just because a new school is built there in regards to the second proposal for the school i am happy that the i hope i say their name right the fedora group acknowledge that the community is safe 30 to 40 homes in that area seems a little tight in my opinion i'm not an architect but it seems like they'd be really cramped in there and that it would increase the traffic flow as currently there's only two ways in and out of the school with that i yield my time back to the board thank you thank you mr
107anderson janae anderson so first i want to thank you for um opening another public comment after the presenters um i realized that you didn't have to do it but you did so i say thank you for that um but my question or my statement really goes to just the makeup of the community of beacon square of mount vernon because there are really three subdivisions in that area and leonard sits in the middle and my statement goes just as this none of the buildings and none of the community of those three subdivisions exclude anybody it's open there's still a playscape on leonard my children go up there and play sometimes they ride their bikes up there they learned how to ride without training wheels in that area with my husband and i what i heard from
108the first three developers excludes it excludes the community because the community it's not a singular community it is made up of various people various backgrounds various religions and i think that we have to be careful when we allow so much exclusion to come into what is right now very diverse and very open because when you begin to exclude people then they leave if you want to keep your residence you have to maintain a platform where all are welcome and so i just would encourage us to keep our search open i'm not saying say no but i'm saying that the name of the game is to keep people and that's what we want to do then we i would just encourage us to keep our keep our search open i think the first group said you're
109going to offer a playground we got a lot of playgrounds we do and and the action isn't bad but what are you giving us because that's a community center for males will other males be able to go in and get job help will they be able to go in and get resume preparation will they be able to go in and get the resources to help them matriculate into adulthood we need to consider all that because if we have to send our personal and now to speak for me if i have to send my son somewhere else when there's a resource right up the street because he doesn't practice that religion then you've just excluded him and you've asked me as a resident to sign off on it thank you miss anderson [Music] thank you um
110so after listening to and seeing some of the presentations i i was reflecting i mentioned before some of the changes that i've seen in my years on the school board in oak park one of the things that has also changed a lot is is the southfield school district had a student count when i when i got on the board that i think is about three times what it was what it is today and at the same time we've seen that i believe issue of ethic has seen about has about doubled their numbers dr tora also has some significant growth what mr goldberg is proposing is really bringing an entirely new community and what's important about that is these are not students that are coming out of the southfield public schools count our community is made
111up of many different communities with many different needs and for people who are who are orthodox religious education is critical is central to um and religious education is critical and central to our to our life and that's why families young families um have been flocking into this community paying the high tax burden that exists in southfield in south field and and other communities while also paying for their children's community education because it's important to contribute not only to their own education and their own children's needs but also to make sure that there are strong public schools in the neighborhood and so understanding that as our community grows together that that that's where the growth has occurred in this in this city over the last 10 years and allowing that to continue nurturing that is something
112that benefits the entire community not only in terms of property values and making southfield a welcoming place and making southfield a place that's known southfield is known for its diversity we want to continue to support that and to grow that and understanding our differences and celebrating our differences is critical to that effort and so as the board considers the different proposals and looks at the relative benefits for the district for the community i want to encourage you to think about it in that larger global context think about the diversity of south field how do we continue to support our communities together um oak park southfield bloomfield hills troy the orthodox jewish community the the christian community the non-religious community so that we can all work together to grow together thank you ready robinson hi my
113question is will you be inviting these presenters back for questions from the community because i know they all left but i had several questions i would like to direct to them personally that you may not be able to answer so are you going to invite them back before you make a final decision okay thank you secondly i don't know how true it is but have you had any discussion on closing srap i'm going to love several emails phone calls regarding srex closure and unless if you haven't discussed it i'd just like you to think about the importance of that school what those teachers and staff do for our children keep in mind that has blocked scheduling which some kids need for grade recovery my son attended at school and as a result of his teaching
114and learning from esrac doing block scheduling he received not one degree but two degrees so not that he was a slow learner but he was just not um focusing on his work and um sending him the easter egg was beneficial to him because they brought him up to the level where he could be accepted to a university so think about before you close in that school the benefits it has to those children that need great recovery and i also understand that you thought about putting them into software a and t in the back of the building and i also understand the back of the building has leaked as well and some of those kids have not been um tested so you don't know where they are on the spectrum for they should be still at
115uh at srac or a tnt so that needs to be done before those children are allowed to to um enroll in september so keep that in mind and i hope you do not decide to close it because then you'll have another empty building that you're going to try to sell and that's wreck is located in a very um area a high high traffic area on evergreen and we don't need that eyesore there and that's a beautiful school uh secondly um [Music] busty center i understand that um the office of head start has visited busey this um this week to discuss keeping our school open we're in may lose our contract but you need to know that board members should attend those meetings mr joyce and i were the only two board members who attended the
116meetings and you have to that's one of the criteria of um the office of head start board members must attend the meetings and james i'm sure when you remember dr rodnick robinson was very very adamant about us attending those busy meetings but now that's not being done board members don't attend so you need to do that because we are fiduciary the board members right there your fiduciary dr green is she's a superintendent she oversees the entire district but you offer district buses reports to the board first then to dr green so we don't want to lose that program because it's very vital to our students i have a granddaughter now that's going to be eligible to attend that school and i want to make sure it's still open and i want to make sure that
117it's ran properly right now it is not and that's all i have thank you thank you shamika woodson thank you currently my position is still the same i don't understand why can you speak up for me sorry i said currently my position is the same as it was before i don't understand why what the school district is already getting in the millage and the sale from the schools won't be enough i don't see why the millage has to be increased and the fidea group they want to bring 75 to 300 000 homes into southfield for people who are being priced out well i saved for several years before i purchased my home and what i thought i was going to be paying property taxes and the check i'll be writing next month completely different so
118people also need to understand what this millage is also going to do to property taxes and what we're already paying substantially high property taxes so i just want to know i want to answer as to why what you're already getting and the sale of the properties is not enough why the millage needs to be and i would like to see numbers from that as well thank you i addressed this a little earlier to state that we do have a full presentation that is forthcoming this is strictly to approve the campaign before it was a proposal it is now a formal campaign because treasury has approved it so you will get those numbers and this is not to just address one public participation comment but for the community as a whole that is forthcoming but that
119was the cadence of the bond we did have a millage previously this is not a millage this is a bond proposal they are very different and we will also specify in detail the difference between a sinking fund a millage and a capital bond campaign at a later date also i think it was asked if the presenters would be able to come back that is part of our plan to allow our community to ask questions regarding the full gamut of this andrea wright trustee hicks while mrs wright is coming to the podium i'm not sure if we had it in our plan to have a town hall to allow community to have an opportunity to review the ques information then we can have a dialogue if there's a lift additional question um we have actually we
120have multiple town halls there will be a town hall for the community there will be a town hall for the staff and there will be a town hall for the students those are the people that are impacted the students have had a very large town hall before this even got started to ask them what they wanted the staff was briefed and surveyed but there will be a much more robust conversation with them and then the community also we have talked about looking at homeowners associations things like the optimist club the rotary club even our small businesses in the community who have communities um who have owners that live in south field so the plan is much larger this is just the kickoff um so hopefully everyone that is here right now can communicate that because
121we will have information going out to our assisted living our senior community to multiple meetings our dems clubs we actually have a very robust list of people that we will be getting contacted with not just via social media email and websites but also print so hopefully that answers some of those questions um for the community and and this is definitely not the last time that we'll have this this type of forum good evening once again i'm andrea wright this is my other half artist ray and i just want to um piggyback on everything i concur with my residents from beacon square it was definitely on point my only concern is i would rather have single family homes instead of condos and duplexes i would rather see that because the traffic is already heavy in that
122area so you guys are doing a wonderful job i i'm glad to come back and speak to the people that presented their proposal as well and also too we do have a lot of playgrounds so that would definitely will not be a benefit for us mentorship tutoring things like that that would benefit our children that would be something other than a playground in my husband i'd like to say hello to the board i am a member of the uh beacon square association i'm on the board and what the gentleman said we don't need no condos we don't need no 41. what we need is three and four bedroom homes in that area and that's all i have thank you deborah brundich hello i'm here because i also heard that um srex was going to close
123and um i'm here to just ask that that school remain open i have witnessed many of the children that have gone there they all love that school they say they like they like it's smallness that their teachers care about them they have the 101 that they need um i was there i was here when mr bolger was the principal and everyone loved that school i can't imagine them being here at this big gigantic school having to deal with what they need to deal with on such an important level i'm also here because i heard the buzzy was going to close down and i retired from busing i have many neighbors now that have small children they're all looking forward to going to busy and i'm hoping that we hire the right people for buzzing so
124busy can get back to the status that it was before bussey was a great place and it was a great place just until a couple years ago so i'm hoping that the board solves that problem and just like miss betty robinson said i hope that all of the board members take the time to be a busy to see what's going on and to make sure that that school goes right i have [Music] some of the kids that i've taught their parents have called me and said where should i go to school i don't think i should go to southfield anymore buses falling apart and i don't want them to think that's indicative of our whole school system if buses run right they'll believe that everything is run right and i live in south field and
125i want kids to stay in southfield and i want them to learn as how i feel that's what i had to say thank you for the good of the order trustees i do have something um i would like to state that um i think everyone on this stage is aware that southfield is not a monolith and i think that was one of the things that attracted many of us i know it's what attracted my parents back in the 80s i think i can speak for everyone in this room that we didn't want to live in an area that was just homogenized we wanted something that was diverse we wanted something that was clean safe that had playgrounds which we do have many of we've heard everything that everyone has said here today i also would
126like to say that um bussey is open busey will be open the three of us sitting here pretty much attend every council meeting i normally have two laptops going along with she's gone now but commissioner smith charles still attends on a regular basis so i just wanted to um inform the community that bussey is open we're happy that miss rogers has stepped in to help do some things with our federal grants we announced that dr connie thomas thompson is now taking the place of director hill who retired and i believe that some good things are going to come out of us taking some steps forward there is truth that head start was there they were there for their audit we were present myself and vice president joyce were in that building for i believe president
127joyce was there the whole time i have a 9-5 so i had to go attend some meetings but i was there for the first three hours of it and it went pretty well other than that we will have some more community time forums town halls august 18th we are having a back to school rally from four to seven on this campus i just wanted to remind everyone of that we have our future meeting on september 13th that is a regular board meeting and i believe there will be some other things to come so we'll make sure that we communicate that to the community i'd also like to thank everyone for coming and attending i think it's important that the community hears what we're doing and lets us know how we're doing um so thank you
128to all of you to our presenters we will be in touch soon um if the trustees have vice president yes i just want to say that i have been a resident of sophomore for 33 years and uh i've had six children graduate from this school right here southport high school and uh like trustee hicks said you know who also attended the school looks the same nothing's changed in it there has not been improvement earlier uh when this meeting started i heard a hissing sound and if it was in the wintertime i would have been really worried that the hvac had just just stopped or we had a serious problem with hbo because every year we cross our fingers we really do because we're worried about whether we're going to have i heat i know mrs
129venable probably could share with you how old our systems are in our school can can you just hold out how old some of my misfitable huh yeah so so so our systems are very old and so a bond would really help i'm for because that bond will really help for the improvements that we need in our schools there's no way in the world that we would get bond money and just do what we want to do with it it doesn't work that way if can anybody expound on that mr jackson or someone should share with them that it just doesn't work like that we just we could just do whatever we want to do with the money it doesn't happen like that you know but we need improvements it's old i mean it's very old
130and this stuff still looks the same as it looked with the oldest child my oldest child is in his 40s i hate to say that it gives them how old i am but the oldest child is 40 and this this stuff look the same even even even even board president could tell you that things look the same she was in the schools see so we need in order to get improved and and that bond helps to improve and and to to get new systems uh climate change has caused us to have uh uh um warmer warmer of schools of years going into to the end of the school year used to be a point in time when i remember where when it when it got towards june it was getting warm out but now it's
131starting to happen before june and the classrooms are unbearable to even be in the classrooms so now the schools need air conditioning they need a way to cool so that so that the teachers would not be able to uh so the teachers could be able to teach and the kids to be comfortable so there's a lot of things that's going on and it takes money and i just want to share that with everyone thank you for president trustee what about i am not going to um reiterate in everything that has been said regarding this capital bond that we have coming up but i do want you to just consider what is it that our children deserve what about our educators what about our community and these are things that we need to work together on
132so when you do hear information that is not fact based please stop the information and the rumors that are being spread it is not going to support what we all are standing for thank you trustees anything else hearing none future meetings september 13 2022 regular board meeting this meeting is adjourned at 7 18 pm