CITY OF PORT HURON QUALITY OF LIFE COMMISSION MEETING - FEBRUARY 24, 2010

The City of Port Huron's Quality of Life Commission met in room 408 of the Municipal Office Center on February 24th at 5 p.m. Present were Chairperson Hilary Bridge, Vice Chair Darrin Rushing, Commissioner John Cooper, Commissioner Fire Chief Bob Eick, Commissioner Randy Fernandez would be attending but was not there at roll call, Commissioner Kathleen McCready, Commissioner Police Chief Don Porrett, and new Commissioner George "Sandy" Duffy, Jr.

There were no additions to the agenda and the meeting minutes of February 10, 2010 were approved unanimously.

The opened the floor for public audience, and while there were people in attendance, they indicated they were listening to the meeting this time.

The Commission then listened to Communications and Petitions. There were several letters of resignation being submitted. Commissioner Lonnie Stevens had tendered her resignation earlier which had allowed the City Manager, Bruce Brown, to make his choice in appointing Commissioner Duffy. Commissioner Mike Bodies had submitted his resignation as well as Commissioner Ken Harris. Commissioner Harris and Commissioner Bodeis were not happy with the direction they felt the commission needed to go.

Commissioner McCready wanted to contact Mr. Harris to see if he would reconsider his resignation.

Commissioner Cooper was not happy that these folks were resigning. He didn't know what issue would cause them to resign.

Commissioner McCready said she was in agreement with Mr. Harris when he stated that opposing views were not being tolerated.

Vice Chair Rushing said that he thought what Mr. Harris was really objecting to was what happened at the City Council meeting on Monday night.

Commissioner Cooper said that what he thought Mr. Harris' main complaint was in regards to him not being able to get up at City Council meetings and state his views as a member of the Quality of Life Commission. He thought the group had agreed at the last meeting that Chair Bridge would represent the group at council meetings.

Commissioner McCready has submitted a letter to Chair Bridge earlier but wanted to read it to the commission at that point. She stated in her letter that she felt the real objection from Mr. Harris stemmed from the city council meeting of February 22nd when Councilmember Sherry Archibald (who is also a commission member) stated that she had talked to several commission members in regards to the appointment of Mr. Duffy and she indicated the entire commission were in support of Mr. Duffy's appointment. But, in fact, the Commissioners had not been contacted and they had not given their support. She said that she was neither for, nor against the appointment because she realizes that the City Manager has the ability to appoint whomever he sees fit to appoint, but the big objection comes because Commissioner Archibald spoke on behalf of the entire commission and they had reprimanded Mr. Harris just the meeting before because he had done it and they had asked that he not do it again.

Chair Bridge said she had been notified by Bruce Brown that he had appointed Mr. Duffy and it's totally his discretion to do so. Since Chair Bridge was at the council meeting, Councilmember/Commissioner Archibald had approached her and asked how she felt about the appointment. Since Chair Bridge had knowledge of all the good works Mr. Duffy had done in the community over the years, she was excited to work with him. She felt that Councilmember/Commissioner Archibald wanted to make an argument for his appointment. Because she sits on city council, Chair Bridge did not think she was making a statement for the commission. She also was not sure this was the real reason Mr. Harris quit. It appears he has a problem with not speaking when he wants.

Commissioner McCready pointed out that Councilmember/Commissioner Archibald did exactly what he was told not to.

Vice Chair Rushing said that in the long term, Bruce Brown makes the decisions but it's unfortunate that Mr. Harris' decision was over this one thing.

At the end of the discussion, the Commission asked that Chair Bridge send a letter to all those who had resigned and thank them for their service and encourage them to continue to come to the meetings and comment when they see fit.

This motion was voted on and approved unanimously.

Kim Harmer, Department Head of the Planning Department gave her presentation, report and updates. Ms. Harmer had been working with Todd Shoudy, legal council to the city, on a draft that would be inserted into the ordinance about blight. This ordinance was Section 10-121 which says:


ARTICLE IV. PROPERTY MAINTENANCE CODE

Sec. 10-121. Adopted.
Pursuant to the provisions of section 3(k) of Public Act No. 279 of 1909 (MCL 117.3(k)) and section 23 of the Charter, the International Property Maintenance Code, 2000 edition, as promulgated and proposed by the International Code Council, is hereby adopted and incorporated by reference as fully as if set out at length in this section, for the purpose of providing minimum requirements for the protection of life, limb, health, property, safety and welfare of the general public and the owners and occupants of structures.
(Code 1975, § 8-43; Ord. No. 1017, 9-23-1991; Code 1992, § 16-1; Ord. No. 1081, 2-27-1995; Ord. No. 1137, 11-10-1997)
Secs. 10-122--10-150. Reserved.


They are adding sections B, C, D. A has always been there which is the text above. The idea would have the buyer or landlord enter into a work agreement with the city to bring the property up to code. If they did not, Mr. Shoudy wanted there to be a civil infraction added. This was not anything the Commission had to act on. Ms. Harmer said that she just wanted to bring the Commission up to date on this. There will also be a 2 line item stating that 10 days prior to foreclosure, the city must have an updated address which states which bank branch holds the paper on the property so if the city needs to contact them about fixing something, they don't have to chase all over the country to find which branch has it. They were also going to have the newest owner record the deed at the registrar of deeds even if it is the bank or place a lien on the property.

Commissioner Cooper said he had major concerns with this idea.

Ms. Harmer said that if there is a lien on the property and the city is not notified of an exchange of ownership, it's hard to catch up with to collect on the lien.

Commissioner Cooper felt this would clog up the system and cause more work for agents when it comes to 3rd and 4th generation buyers.

Ms. Harmer said that the whole idea is to require the buyer to enter into a work agreement with the city to bring the house up to code. This will not address the vacant building situation at this time. That is a much bigger issues and she felt it would require corporate council to look closer at it. She also passed out a list of recent demolitions which shows the city has been busy since December.

Chair Bridge wanted to give Commissioner Duffy a chance to share his goals with the group. Commissioner Duffy said he basically wanted to have a chance to think about that but stated his interest was on the south end of town. He has been working with citizens groups for 30 years. Back about 10 years ago, Jim Acheson had asked for the community input on how they wanted things to look on the southend. He felt that the commission might revisit that information. He still works closely with the Southside Coalition which has been working on the Knox Field improvements. He meets with the Low Income Housing Staff (which he could not remember the name of at that moment). He found out that they have planned extensive demolishing in that area which will give the police much better visibility there. But one of his concerns is what will happen to those people who are being displaced.

The group received copies of the priority list they had talked about over the last 2 meetings.

Commissioner McCready asked if Chair Bridge and Ms. Harmer had put it together and was it to be expanded on.

Chair Bridge said she knew it was broad strokes but it is based on what resources the city has and what they can get done quickly

Commissioner Eick felt that they should do some press releases that this was done and get the word out that things are happening.

Chair Bridge reminded everyone that this group is not a body who implements things, but truly an advisory board.

Commissioner Eick felt the goals list should be presented to council.

Chair Bridge said that she was going to do a quarterly report presentation to the council the last meeting in March.

Commissioner Eick felt that waiting until the end of March was a long time. He wants to see Chair Bridge get up and present this soon.

Commissioner McCready asked Ms. Harmer if the Community Block Development Grant action plan was going to be presented at the March 8th City Council meeting. She thought that maybe they should wait until the last meeting in March.

Commissioner Eick just wanted to be sure the goals list was presented.

Chair Bridge suggested she put together the presentation and have it emailed to everyone before she does it so they can look at it.

Commissioner Duffy asked if there was a procedure in place to present to council and was there another way to let the public know what is going on.

Chair Bridge told him that there is a link of the city website to the Quality of Life Commission and they do have an email which is qolc@porthuron.org which can be used.

Commissioner Duffy felt that Chair Bridge should get in the habit of being a quest writer every quarter for the Times Herald.

Commissioner McCready asked if there was an inventory of action items or what good things that are in the neighborhoods.

Ms. Harmer said they have been using interns from Baker College and SC4 successfully for some time. They would have an intern go out in the neighborhoods and take inventory of them.

Commissioner McCready said that she would be happy to do this as well when she goes out to walk her dog.

Vice Chair Rushing asked if 8 X 14 blocks is considered the measure for a neighborhood.

Ms. Harmer said that was the general way they measured it.

The group talked about using the right language to discuss neighborhoods that are falling behind. They wanted to remain positive in how they discuss this.

Chair Bridge came up with neighborhoods with untapped potential. Everyone loved that.

There was no new business that any of the Commissioners brought up.

Commissioner Porrett said that there was some old business he had forgotten to bring up at the time. He said that 126 surveys had been returned out of the 500 they sent out. He has not opened them. He is working with the class at SC4 and they will open them and then tabulate the results. This is their class project and they will come to present this to the Commission when they are done.

They also had information given to them that talked about the number of registered rental properties in the city right now, the procedures for registration and researching limiting the number of rentals within the city.

Ms. Harmer gave the Commission information Land Banks (which the county was working on right now). Her department was researching other communities and how they handle rental property. Do some communities put a cap on rentals allowed? She said that there were a few communities that had put a moratorium on rentals until further notice.

Commissioner Eick said that this information was on registered rental units and are there units that don't show up?

Ms. Harmer said that there most likely are. Her staff looks in the paper for rental units being advertised. They also look at water bills and assessor records to try to keep informed in case someone is trying to sneak by. She pointed out that this does not take into account vacancies.

Commissioner Fernandez asked if there had ever been any studies done, because everyone knows that have been a lot of studies done in Port Huron, as what the development of the model city would be? What would the proper percentage of rentals to owner occupied be? He said that even though he's lived in this community all his life, he was not really aware that about half of our housing is rentals. This is not good and he is just appalled.

Ms. Harmer read some statistics on this. Wyandott has 73% owner occupied and 27% rentals. Marysville is 83% owner occupied. The U.S. is 66% owner occupied.

Commissioner Fernandez said he would be afraid to ask how many other cities have rental percentages comparable to ours because he thinks ours is one of the highest. He also felt out quality of life is better than some but our housing stock is bad. He stated that he did not think this was a group who was organized to create jobs. He said its purpose should be to look at ordinances and find ways to enforce them.

Commissioner Cooper wanted to know how much of this conversation could be gleaned from census data. He wanted to know the nature of employment of our residents and how it affects housing.

Ms. Harmer said that census data would not tell them that Manufacturing jobs equaled X number of rentals for example.

Commissioner Cooper said that the National Association of Realtors might have a model number of a good percentage of renters vs. owner occupied housing. What would be the right model number of renters vs. owner occupied.

As there was no more additions to the conversation, the meeting was adjourned.

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