Recently, I posted about updating our Ethics Ordinance. I introduced a document outlining a few potential changes for the ordinance.

[UPDATE 4/5/2020: I have introduced a second document outlining a sampling of ethics/legal offenders in the Metro Detroit area]

At our last City Council meeting, we populated the Ethics Ordinance Ad Hoc Committee. The goal of the five-person committee is to propose changes to the City Council regarding the Ethics Ordinance. The committee consists of two City Councilpersons, myself and Councilman Rob Baker, and three residents: Mike Klinefelt, Gary Lippard Jr., and Walter Martin.

Each year, the City has an opportunity to buy foreclosed homes from Macomb County. For many years now, the City has opted to buy these homes. For a few years, the City would bundle all the properties and sell them to the highest bidder. Usually, this worked decently well. But sometimes, it did not work well. The City would be having Dangerous Building Hearings on some of these properties, because the contractor let the bad ones go, while making a profit on the nicer homes. We have now adopted a poicy that should address this downfall. In general, the City will now only sell homes to non-profits, or will renovate them itself and sell them on the market. Please review our Tax Reversion Policy here to see all the details.

It's been a year! Time for an update on the proposed medical marijuana ordinance. (I am going to use the "j" spelling of marijuana for my own consistency, while State Law uses the "h" spelling)

• December 4, 2018: There was a Public Hearing at the City Council meeting. Many residents spoke at hearing.
• May 28, 2019: A Joint City Council and Planning Commission meeting was held to discuss a potential medical marijuana ordinance.
• June 18, 2019: City Council voted to direct the City Attorney to draft a medical marijuana ordinance.
• August 6, 2019: City Council discusses proposed medical marijuana ordinance with input from joint meeting.
• December 17, 2019: City Council votes to confirm the Planning Commission continue with its review of the proposed medical marijuana ordinance (yeas: DeMonaco, Lucido, Curley; nays: Owens, Baker)
• February 13, 2020: Planning Commission holds Special Meeting to continue discussing proposed medical marijuana ordinance. 
• March 17, 2020: Medical marijuana ordinance on City Council agenda. Click here for the ordinance modifying building regulations, and here for the zoning ordinance change.
• June 16, 2020: Second Reading and adoption of Medical Marijuana Facility Ordinances - Building Regulations and Zoning.

City Council has been provided maps showing potential parcels for medical marijuana facilities according to our proposed Ordinance language, as well as a few other maps for illustrative purposes. The maps have been created using GIS, and were provided by our professional planner, McKenna Associates.

[Updated July 8, 2020]

Recently, the Ford Fund and Macomb County Habitat for Humanity announced they were looking for a City to work with on a potential container home project in Macomb county. The Ford Fund is providing $100,000 in grant assistance. The City Council showed support for the project at their December 17, 2019, meeting (see motion language below), our Economic Development Manager Kim Homan produced and submitted an application on December 30, 2019, and City Council set a public hearing with the Planning Commission to potentially modify the appropriate ordinances to build the container homes: