SPECIAL MEETING OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF NOVI
 MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2006 AT 7:00 P.M.
COUNCIL CHAMBERS – NOVI CIVIC CENTER – 45175 W. TEN MILE ROAD

Mayor Landry called the meeting to order at 7:00 P.M.

ROLL CALL: Mayor Landry, Mayor Pro Tem Capello*, Council Members Gatt, Margolis-absent/excused, Mutch, Nagy-absent/excused, Paul

ALSO PRESENT: Clay Pearson, City Manager

Pam Antil, Assistant City Manager

Tom Schultz, City Attorney

David Molloy, Police Chief

Mr. Pearson said there were two distinct but related presentations. The Police Department master plan and analysis of options for an indoor gun range training center and facility build-out began with a study that was commissioned by the Council in March of 06.

Chief Molloy introduced Mr. Dan Kritta who is the senior architect for Wold Architects and Engineers, out of Troy, MI. Dan has been the contact and liaison. Over the last several months, since City Council commissioned this study, with this overall project, we took a look at our existing space and what our space and needs are going to be at community build-out. We researched the possibility of building an indoor gun range and expanding our current training facility. The goals all along were to have a facility that wasn’t overbuilt, wasn’t opulent, but was fiscally responsible, and always being a good neighbor to our residents to the east in the Orchard Ridge Estates subdivision. The mission of the assembled team was to meet to discuss future public safety needs and city growth and determine how the current facilities should be expanded.

Mr. Kritta said he would like to walk through the study methodology. It focused on a three step process. The first step of the process, to understand the current and future operations, was derived from information that we received from a core planning group. The entire group went on tours to other facilities, as well as, inviting all occupants of the building to convey their concerns or ideas for not only the current operations of the facility, but what might help to improve the future. The second piece, the growth needs analysis, is targeting the build-out of the City and how that impacts the police operations from now until that build-out occurs. The second step was understanding the givens of the existing building. The facility analysis was a process that included investigating that building and identifying physical deficiencies, things that might affect expandability. A second piece of that was also a program analysis, which is a place holding special requirement for input from the core planning group; not only for improving their current facility, but also, what kinds of space needs are going to be required with growth. The third step of the process was to generate options. There was an invitation to a public information meeting that allowed some of those options to be reviewed by the community to get their insight. Taking that into consideration, as well as meeting with the core planning group, we developed a preferred option.

Chief Molloy said that during the process the goal was to have a committee set up so we would get the information from all levels of the organization. It wasn’t something that was going to start and finish in police administration. It was going to be driven from the staff from all levels; Line Staff, Dispatchers, Police Officers, Detectives, and up to Police Administration. It’s going to work both horizontally and vertically throughout the organization to make sure it was very inclusive, very transparent and not autocratic in any way. There were several meetings when staff was invited to meet with the architects to give their feedback, absent any supervisory personnel or any administrative personnel. They had the opportunity to tell their side of the story on what they felt was important. Chief Molloy recognized the core planning group; Deputy Chief Lindberg, Assistant Sergeant Michael Warren from the uniform division, Detective Jared Hart from the investigative division, Lieutenant Keith Woutinen who commands the uniform patrol division, and Jim Petres who is an analyst planner in Police Administration. There were five more people he recognized; Cindy Hayes from Records, Karen Jackson from Communication, and there is great leadership from Planning, Community Relations and the City Managers Office. Over twelve meetings, a set of guiding principles were developed.

Mr. Kritta said that they emphasized to have some guiding principles because it is a criteria for design and options. It gives parameters. Some of the things the core planning group came up with was a consideration for long term build-out, creating a source of pride, a safe haven for the entire community, offering protection for the citizens, bridging the officers to the community, using durable and high-quality materials for a finished product, having a technologically advanced facility, being fiscally responsibility but not opulent or overbuilt, emphasizing a spirit of involvement and volunteerism and making sure the facility caters to those beliefs, striving for excellence with continuous improvement, and to treat others the way you want to be treated. They made sure to check back with the list of guiding principles. They weighed the options in and weren’t missing anything as they came to a solution based dialogue with the core planning group.

Chief Molloy said the biggest part when trying to plan for the future is looking at the projections, current population, and current staffing levels. They found the current population, estimated at 54,000, then worked with the Planning Department to come up with an estimate in 2024 of about 68,000, based on the current data from permits that have been issued and approved plans. When it came to staff projections, they looked at the number of current personnel, sworn and non-sworn, 70 sworn officers with 29 support staff, and a total of 99. By community build-out he said they will probably grow to 102 officers, with the addition of 4 or 5 support staff to bring them to a total of 34. According to the FBI averages, our area falls into an average of about 1.7 officers per 1,000 citizens, we are currently at 1.29 officers, and we have always used the 1.5 officers per 1,000 as our bench mark. That is where we got the background for the projections we are using today, not the Police Department, but we engaged the real planners who realize what the community is going to look like as far as build-out.

Mr. Kritta said as they went to the core planning group process and listened to some of the facility staff, there were some common denominators as far as functional issues that already existed in the building. Right now the building doesn’t flow very well, based on additions and things that have happened over time. Another issue was the evolving needs of the officers and having a locker room able to support those needs, and also equity between the male and female amenities in the locker areas. Having an inadequate prisoner intake garage, right now there is a single stall; there is really a need for a second one. The heating, ventilation, and air conditioning control problems have been ongoing. Security deficiencies where the public interacts at the two counters on the first and second floor, and not having a separate fire arms training, media, or tactic spaces in the facility are some more problems. Also, general limitations on training and storage space which was very obvious the first time we walked through.

Chief Molloy said that many people have been in the facility, whether it was the training center or different parts of the building. The training center is really too small for the needs we are looking at. As we get closer to build-out, we are going to have to expand that, and are very happy that the plan provides for about a 1,200 square foot increase to that facility. Also, where storage is a premium, we don’t have the storage space or the meeting space to accommodate staff meetings. The next part of the presentation went over some facilities that were toured including the Troy Police Department, Waterford, and Dearborn Heights. We also thought it would be important for you to understand the current limitations of the gun range that we have at Farmington. The first facility visited was the City of Troy. They have enhanced security measures at their front desk, not only where the citizens greet the police staff but also in the records section. We realized we have had a deficiency there for quite some years. This reigned true in August of 2005 when we had a gentleman report that he left an explosive device out front, we had to evacuate portions of our building. Staff said that they didn’t feel safe because they didn’t feel protected; there was no barrier between them and the gentleman. We took that into consideration, you will see that built into our first floor entrance and our second floor record room. We need a dedicated multi-functional media room, currently in the event that the training center is activated as the emergency operations center, in the event we had to brief the media because of a man made or a natural disaster, we would end up coming over here. There is no way you can use the training center for both an EOC and a media briefing room. Like Dan said, the building doesn’t flow well. Our officers are briefed in one room, go to another room to get their rifles, AED’s and tasers, they go to a third room to get their equipment bags and in this process they are going through several different doors where they are getting banged up with the equipment they are carrying. We learned from some of our colleagues in Troy, Waterford, and Dearborn Heights, that you have to have this stuff efficiently stored. The briefing room needs to be next to the equipment room to be efficient, saving the officer’s staff time by 5 or 10 minutes. They will be back in their cars on the streets responding to service. Especially with the communications section where we provide 24 hour day, 7 days a week, regional communications center for southwest Oakland County. We learned from the City of Troy, an excellent example of how we need the kitchen and restrooms adjacent to each other. Currently our staff has to leave our facility to use the restroom or have their meals. What we call sally port in the law enforcement field is the prisoner garage, we only have one prisoner garage in Novi, and the norm is to have a double bay garage. Any given Friday or Saturday night you can have 6 or 7 scout cars bringing prisoners to us that are stacked up outside. It isn’t safe for the office, or provides security for the building or inmate. The predominate standard for any type of indoor gun range is the reclining granular trap range. There is a large sheet of bullet proof metal in the back and 4 or 5 foot of granulated rubber covered by a self adhesive cover. That rubber slows down the bullets from hitting the metal. The real problem and emission of lead occurs when the bullet makes contact with the metal and it explodes. With the reclining granular trap range the bullet goes through the rubber and is slowed down almost to the point that it won’t hit the metal, if it does the impact is reduced significantly, which reduces the lead emissions into the air. The second facility was the Waterford Township Police Department, same security measure at the front desk. They are utilizing the digital biometric technology, increasing and enhancing the efficiencies of an organization. Rather than having a Sergeant and an officer there signing items out with a clip board and paper, the officer puts his thumb print on the computer screen, allowing the officer to check out the weapon. It is great for inventory, for equipment, repair, taking it out of service. They have the predominate reclining granular trap range as well. Increase functionally by having it open but they have the ability to set their individual shooting stalls in the event the range officer has to work one on one. We also liked that Waterford had enhanced controls. Their range was built in early 2001 and it is one of the state of the art indoor gun ranges in our area. A lot of the functionality that they have, we do not have in Farmington. The third facility, Dearborn Heights Police Department, again had the protective securities at their front desk. They have a dedicated emergency operations center, they took it to the nth degree and really did a nice job not only having the positions for all their department heads and emergency managers but also dedicated telephones, lap tops, and computer hook ups for all their elected leaders and city officials. Currently, Novi utilizes a fire arms training system, which is a computerized scenario, it is basically a shoot or don’t shoot scenario. That is currently kept in the training center, which doubles as the emergency operations center. It takes several hours to set up and take down. A lot of other law enforcement agencies who have built new buildings in the last several years have the dedicated fire arms training room where the officers and detectives can do their defensive tactics, and we won’t lose the 2 to 3 hours of set up and tear down. In our proposal we say that if we have a room dedicated to that, it can serve as our back up media room in the event we had to utilize that in an emergency disaster. Several have the dedicated training center which we have, ours is equal to or maybe a little larger compared to others, they also have the dedicated EOC so they make up for it there. Again, they have the double vehicle sally port space with the individual control room. Page 19 shows the current control room from the Farmington Range which they currently utilize on 9 Mile and Farmington Road. The range was built in the mid 1970s. The City of Novi did not contribute financially to the construction of that range, but we have used it for several years. Page 20 shows the control panel, where the range master sits, the system is antiquated and broken down, it lacks the ability for the range officers. A big part of the officer’s qualification is not knowing whether that is a friendly or a foe when the targets are out there. Currently it does not have the ability to edge and face. We try to utilize the Farmington facility at least once a month, in recent years we have only been able to use it about 58% of the time, in 05-06 we were able to use it only 68% of the time. It is an old system and is breaking down quite a bit. Page 22 shows some broken down areas. Most importantly is the metal track that takes the metal targets to and from. It weighs several hundred pounds. On a state of the art range, that track moves forward and comes back in advance. Right now there are times when our officers have to go out and push it by hand to get it down to the 15 yard line and back. That is not lending itself well to the training of our current officers, and with the fact that the targets aren’t able to edge and face, it severely limits our ability in fire arms training.

Mr. Kritta said the program analysis is a broad overview of what was a much more detailed analysis. That identified current existing space and the needs to accommodate future staff positions in future build-out. The existing column, versus the program needs, is showing what kinds of expansion, some of those are renovations, some are expansions, and some are combinations of both. They boil down to a net square footage, the bridge between the net square footage and the gross square footage is simply some of the general circulation; mechanical, chases, stairwells, thickness of walls. The gross square footage in comparison of the existing of 36,300 rises to a program need of 53,080 is encapsulating the entire footprint of the building.

*Member Capello arrived at 7:20 p.m.

Chief Molloy said page 27 shows where the red lines are drawn. That is where interior renovations and building expansions will be taking place. To highlight a couple, the officers briefing and equipment, area is very fragmented, they believe they can improve their efficiency and get the staff out on the street, where they are able to respond to calls for service. A big part is the property and evidence. Currently the evidence is stored on the first floor, just outside the vehicle maintenance garage. If a detective has to get a piece of evidence and process it, they have to go downstairs, bring it upstairs to the crime lab, process it and then repeat that process, which wastes time. At a lot of the facilities they visited, they saw a good example of having adjacencies located next to one another that is what they did on the first floor by rearranging some of the mechanical. He said they have to build out the locker rooms. They currently only have 88 male lockers and 28 female lockers, they know they will grow much larger. Unfortunately, just one locker does not accommodate the equipment of staff. This is not only a proposal to look at where they are going at build-out, but any type of renovation and expansion is just going to improve the efficiency of the organization overall, it will improve the quality of service that they are able to deliver to the residents. There are no real changes on the upper level except some reprogramming of space where they are looking at moving the weight facility downstairs to a separate exercise room to accommodate for the build-out and investigations. They lack a lot of conference and meeting room space. It is difficult to have a senior staff meeting with police administration because absent using the training center, there are no rooms that they can all sit down in. They are requesting and looking at some of the proposals, certainly option 1, is to have a conference room/situation room off of police administration. One of the other components of option one, their recommendation, is to construct an indoor gun range at the Public Works Facility, they will refer to it as the field services complex, because of the fact that is houses the parks and recreation, forestry maintenance crew, the Water Department, the fuel depot, and the communication towers. The cost for that is about $1.725 million, $377,000 of that is actually just site development costs which will assist in developing some parking, the utility connections that will be needed for any type of renovations at the facility, as well as screening and berming to the north. They realize that regardless if they construct at Public Works, or the Police Station, they will need to seek the approval of Planning Commission for a special land use. They know they will be doing some berming to the north, as well as, shifting the recycling center from its current location, at the Field Services Complex, a little further to the west, to accommodate the potential indoor gun range. He explained the next few slides, being some overviews, one of what it would look like if the indoor gun range was constructed now absent the full build-out of the Department of Public Works at the Field Service Complex, the costs remain the same. There are still site development costs which they could pay for out of their forfeiture funds. Option 2 is a repeat of option 1; the only difference is that the indoor gun range would be built at the police facility that is not their recommendation. They are suggesting that if an indoor gun range is built that it be built at the Field Services Complex. Option 3 is complete renovation and build-out of the current police headquarters with no gun range at the Field Services Complex or the Police Department.

Mr. Kritta said that page 38 highlights some of the issues they observed in the current facility. During a facility analysis they look at the physical deficiencies of the current facility, as well as some expandability hurdles that may present themselves. On the site, they are looking at the walks, pavement, and the drainage issues. One that is highlighted is a drainage issue that is located in the lower mechanical space; the drainage gets trapped at the bottom of the stairwell. On the exterior they looked at roofs, walls, and window systems. One of the things they flagged is that some of the seals on the window systems have deteriorated, causing some leaks and damage on the inside. The interior side is looking at the finishes of the space as well as cabinetry and those kinds of built-in things to see if they are functioning properly. Accessibility highlights the ADA compliance. Hazardous materials is strictly looking at the material and seeing if there is anything that would fall under that category, there wasn’t any evidence in the facility that this was taking place. Life safety is focusing on code compliance and Fire Marshal issues. Lastly, electrical and mechanical systems is looking at the current infrastructure of those systems, lighting, mechanical, temperature control, the things that make the building tick which are behind the walls. The one thing that was highlighted is the control system in the mechanical side; it has been problematic and was the one thing that was repeatedly brought to their attention during the facility analysis.

Chief Molloy said the final part of the analysis was to look at the potential addition of a drug education facility. In doing so, they met with the D.A.R.E. instructors who teach to three different levels in the district, they also talked with representatives from the Novi Middle School who are involved in that type of activity on a daily basis. The core planning group met and toured the facility. The Novi Middle School auditorium holds just over 550 people and the message they received from them is that the youth are going to learn better in a smaller group setting, groups of 10, 15, or 20. If they were interested in renting that out or partnering with the school district, they would have that option available, not only at the Novi Middle School, but also at the auditorium at the Novi High School which holds just over 1,000. They are proposing the addition of roughly 1,200 additional square feet to the current training facility; they have had a lot of uses for that recently. The Beck Road scoping study was held there, the human resources had after hour’s meetings to explain to staff the differences in their health care. They have tested fire fighters there, and have opened the doors to several homeowners’ groups to utilize that facility. They hoped that their presentation gave a broad spectrum on where they are looking to go in the next 15 or 20 years, and some of the immediate needs with the indoor gun range.

Mr. Pearson said don’t lose track of the analysis and thorough review that the Police Department and the core planning group did of the facility. Particularly the indoor gun range, the time savings that would be involved, efficiencies of having our own dedicated facility within the city limits, they did time analysis of the trips for officers, the number of opportunities we have. We have to pause and think about when it comes to officer safety training; it doesn’t get much more basic and important than fire arms training. You want to be able to have the best training possible and that is why the Chief and the office brought these options. Their strong recommendation is for option 1 and to proceed with the indoor firing range.

Member Mutch said he was impressed by the level of detail that was provided in the report. It answered most of his questions before the meeting. He doesn’t think people realize how much work actually goes into condensing that down to the power point. He asked about staffing ratios and the fact that we used the combination, looking at the FBI averages for certain regions and also the 1.5 officer standard. You said we currently have 1.29 officers per 1,000. During the budget session last year, a couple Council Members discussed what the appropriate staffing ratio would be, looking toward build-out. He didn’t have any specific numbers in mind. If Council decided at some point that they wanted to target a smaller number than the 1.7 or the 1.5, where would they see that impact in terms of the facility? Would Council see a significant difference in terms of the size of the facility they would be building or would they be building the same footprint of the same infrastructure that is presented?

Chief Molloy said that it would be the same footprint. They know the city is going to grow, and the Police Department is going to grow as well. They haven’t had time to take a look at other measures. The Finance Department identified a measure in the fiscal analysis; Northwestern University also has another ratio. They just haven’t had time, with putting this together, to sit down and take a look. It is something they want to do before budget time next year. He said he feels comfortable with the 1.29 that we have now, he feels they have the proper number of officers to meet the needs. They see that their calls for service are increasing, as most communities in southwest Oakland County and in northwestern Wayne because of the growth and development. He feels comfortable with 1.29, realizing that the 1.7 is a very lofty number as an average for our region on the country. That is why they have always taken back a few percentage points and used the 1.5 as the benchmark. Knowing that, there will not be any dramatic changes from the footprint that we have set forth.

Member Mutch said a recommendation that came to Council was to try and immediately address the needs that were identified in this study as critical needs, on page 36 and 37. He asked Chief Molloy to walk through those; he thought the cost was about $500,000 for that.

Chief Molloy said the first set was broken up into architectural; there is some water that is pooling at the lower level, which is basically a stairwell that leads down to the lower level mechanical room that is approximately $4,800. There is a curb that was built in front of the boiler room door, on the main floor of the law enforcement building. They need to remove it so they can get equipment in and out more efficiently that is $6,200. The windows along the second story and some on the first floor are mostly original windows. The interior seals have been broken; they look dirty from the inside because the seals are broken. You can’t get them clean, from a variety of wind and wear, they are worn out. That is a major improvement in an amount of $83,000. The heating, ventilating, and cooling pneumatic controls, they are outdated. They need to upgrade those with an expense of $140,000. To replace the existing exhaust fans is $21,000. It is $22,000 to replace two main air handling units, as well as rebalance all their air and water systems. The temperatures currently fluctuate from 65 degrees in Administration to 95 degrees in Records. There are space heaters, and fans, which is not the efficient way to do things. They need to provide supplemental cooling in the training area which is $15,000. The duct work is all the original work in the building, it is their understanding that is has never been cleaned out and the building is 26 years old. They believe now is the appropriate and critical time to do that. Increasing the holding cell heating capacity, is not a big priority on his list, they are given a blanket and are not typically there for more then 24 hours. It is not cold, it is not cruel or inhumane, but is something they would look at once they get a firmer price. They will need to update their generator system, so that if they do make an expansion of the building, they will have the proper backup emergency generator space in order to accommodate that. Some other miscellaneous costs include lights in restrooms and storage closets. That totals about $519,000; those are what they addressed as our critical needs.

Member Mutch said a couple obvious needs are the entrance security situation, and the issue of the dispatch operations in terms of where things are located. He knows there are limitations on that until they expand the building and can move some spaces. Those two jumped out as areas that are impacting the safety and operations of the facility and to the community as a whole.

Chief Molloy said first and foremost he made it clear that they believe they do have a safe facility. He would not put staff members at risk on any day and any point and time. The front desk area and counter space, there are always law enforcement officers near by; typically there is a Sergeant right behind where the front desk clerk is. They did not identify it as a critical need, knowing that would be one of the first steps taken when the building is prepared for build-out and they do a renovation. In dispatch operations, they do need a restroom off the dispatch facility and they do need the kitchenette as well. Those people are in there for 12 hours at a time and they do need that break time. They learned from some colleagues in other buildings that they probably didn’t do it right when they did pervious renovations. They need to make up for that now so they have the efficiencies and adjacencies to keep staff not only in the building, but also so they can have their down time and break time.

Member Mutch said at that location he didn’t see anything that addressed vehicle storage in terms of patrol cars when they are not in use. He asked if they have covered parking.

Chief Molloy said they do not have covered parking.

Member Mutch asked if all the patrol cars were stored in the back parking lot. He also asked if the build-out plan addressed that at all.

Chief Molloy said they were all stored in the back parking lot. The build-out plan addressed the expansion on the back parking lot. Right now there are only about 100 parking spaces; they use 34 or 35 for marked and unmarked fleet. They have not put any costs into covered storage. They are outside and subject to the elements. They did do some preliminary cost figures a couple years ago with the initial forfeiture evaluation. They have not moved forward with any type of covered storage for their vehicles.

Member Mutch said that he was surprised not to see that addressed because it was an important part of the build-out plans for the DPW site. The recognition that they are spending that much money on vehicles, granted a patrol car is not as much as a DPW snow plow, but on the other hand if there is an emergency he would expect a patrol car to show up first. The wear and tear on the vehicles just sitting out, he would be looking in the long range plans for something either on site or off site that addresses that.

Chief Molloy said they might have had a miscommunication because the majority of the vehicles are going out at 7 in the morning and will come back at 7 at night. At about 7:30, they are going back out. The cars have a 24 hour a day cycle to them. He saw Member Mutch’s point in the fact that there are some unmarked cars that are exposed to the elements. There are 3 to 4 vehicles that are down time to time and not covered.

Member Mutch said he recognized that the cars are in operation the majority of the time. In terms of the gun range location at the DPW facility, the option that is being recommended, does that include the second story storage area that would be incorporated into a future DPW site build-out?

Chief Molloy said the way they are constructing it allows for the expansion to where Public Works could have mezzanine storage.

Member Mutch said it’s not going to be used that way initially, but that is the thought. In terms of the range usage, when officers are sent to the Farmington range, how many officers are sent at a time?

Chief Molloy said they usually have one person down there who is the range master and depending on staffing levels, there are times they can send 2 or 3 officers at a time, depending on the number of officers on shift that day.

Member Mutch asked if it would be similar with the proposed range or if we would be sending more officers.

Chief Molloy said it would be similar so they are not taking them off the street and out of service.

Member Mutch asked how many lanes the proposal has.

Chief Molloy said it had 8 shooting lanes. He said that is the standard and what they see a lot of their colleagues in the field are doing; in the event they were looking to rent it out to a larger law enforcement organization.

Member Mutch asked how many hours a week the range would be in use.

Chief Molloy said 10 to 15 hours a week, more or less depending on new staff brought in. Sometimes they have officers, like him, who go back and take some extra practice after being behind a desk for a while. It is not uncommon for range officers to spend some extra time with the staff.

Member Mutch said in terms of the range officer who will be working that site, will that be built into the regular schedule or will it be overtime hours?

Chief Molloy said currently it is off the regular schedule. They take officers off the shift. If they were ever to look at renting the range out to other municipalities they would make it part of the rental agreement that they pay to have a Novi Officer there, and that officer would be on an overtime basis, not shorting their shift or community.

Member Mutch said in addition to the money we are allocating from the forfeiture funds for the gun range, about $1.7 million, we are also talking about spending another $500,000 on the critical needs. In the initial proposal we have been looking at, in 2008, there is another $500,000 allocated towards facility improvements. Was that targeted at any specific improvements you can point to?

Chief Molloy said the critical assessment of the needs was something they thought they should target right away; the additional $700,022 for the construction of the range at Public Works is something they would like to move forward with. The $500,000 that you see over the next few years is an estimate to set that money aside, put it in a special fund, so they are looking at a fiscal plan, to prepare that facility for build-out.

Member Mutch asked what year they were looking at starting the architectural work and the construction.

Chief Molloy said for the indoor gun range, they would like to see that begin as soon as possible. For the assessment of the facilities, with the exception of the critical needs, 4 or 5 years.

Member Gatt thanked the Chief for putting together such a detailed presentation. Every question of his was answered. He pointed out that not only does it take 4 hours to break down and put away and 4 hours to put back, everybody knows that when you take something down, that is when they get broken more easily. He thought a room dedicated to the fire arms training was a worthwhile endeavor.

Member Paul said she appreciated Mr. Kritta’s analysis. She has been asking about the shooting range for about a year. She asked how many years we have been using the Farmington shooting range.

Chief Molloy said at least 20.

Member Paul asked if other municipalities also use the Farmington shooting range.

Chief Molloy said yes.

Member Paul asked how much it cost for us use that for a year.

Chief Molloy said approximately $1,800.

Member Paul asked if we still have to have outdoor shooting range for each of our officers.

Chief Molloy said yes, they currently use the outdoor gun range in the Township of Canton because of the patrol rifles they shoot. The officers are required to qualify with those at lengths up to 100 yards. That has to be done at an outdoor facility.

Member Paul asked if the facility he was talking about, in option 1, had 100 yards or if they would still have to go outside do to that.

Chief Molloy said they would still have to go outside to the Canton range, but by having the facility at the Field Services complex, they would be able to reduce the amount of times the officers are sent to Canton. Right now they rent the Canton range twice a month. They have to rent it a minimum of one time a month for their snipers to qualify with their rifles at an extended distance; they will never get away from doing that. They also qualify their officers with the rifles throughout the year. They feel that they will be able to reduce that amount of training time by at least 4 days because the officers will be able to shoot the rifles indoors at the indoor gun range in marks of upwards of 25 yards. They will be able to practice those while practicing with their fire arms. He thinks that will reduce the amount of time they have to use the Canton range by at least 4 times.

Member Paul asked how much they pay annually for the outdoor shooting range in Canton.

Chief Molloy said about $9,600 if they use it the full number of times.

Member Paul asked if they would need a range officer in position for anyone who would be utilizing the Novi facility.

Chief Molloy said that would be his recommendation and what he would move forward with. When you looked at the deterioration of the Farmington range it is because there are so many municipalities that come in. They get new range officers that don’t know how they are operating the controls, and don’t have the proper training and education that has probably lead to the breakdown of the facility. His recommendation is if there is another municipality that would like to rent out our firing range; they would have to cover the cost of having a Novi range officer there to run the range for them. That would help recoup some of their costs, and also would lend itself for the lifecycle and care and maintenance on site.

Member Paul asked if our shooting range officer would be a trained police officer, of a Sergeant.

Chief Molloy said it would be a trained police officer who has gone through a special training to become a fire arms instructor. Right now they have 10 fire arms instructors, they are looking to add 2 more in December. Those individuals range in rank from Officer, Detective, Sergeant, up to Lieutenant. They would post it if they knew they had overtime in advance because hypothetically, if Walled Lake was coming to qualify, they would post that 8 hours in advance, and the Officers, Detectives, Sergeants, and Lieutenants would have the ability to sign up for that. It would be additional overtime.

Member Paul asked if the shooting range position, the fire arms instructor, would have to be present when Novi officers used the gun range.

Chief Molloy said always.

Member Paul asked for an approximate idea of cost because they are talking about overtime.

Chief Molloy said it wouldn’t be overtime to qualify their officers; those would be individuals taking off the shift or patrol duty.

Member Paul asked what the cost we would recoup would be if we rented it out to another community.

Chief Molloy said they have looked at some preliminary costs; they always use the overtime rate of about $53 an hour for the contracted overtime. Multiplying that by an 8 hour day, it is $425. They also assessed a $130 to $150 fee to rent the range. That would help with the filter replacement and scheduled maintenance that they would have to de every 18 to 36 months. On average, they are looking at $575 to $600 a day to rent it to another agency.

Member Paul asked if another municipality would want to spend $500 more to come to our facility, even though it is new, if they can go to Farmington for $75 a day.

Chief Molloy said that would be up to them. This facility will be state of the art, they won’t have to push the mechanical system down or pull it back, they will have targets that will edge and face, and they will be able to communicate with their officers on the line. That will be an administrative decision that his colleagues in the other communities would make. Preliminarily, some of them are interested in it. They haven’t discussed the full range of figures. If they are looking at doing that and recouping the costs, they do have to share the costs of long range filtration replacements and clean out and not bear the cost on their own.

Member Paul said she went to the Farmington Hills facility and asked if there were any thoughts of having some type of facility they would use in that capacity because it is much closer, that is where she thought they went was the Farmington Hills instead of Farmington.

Chief Molloy said that would be a little farther than the one they are using now. The one they are using is 3 miles from the eastern border of Haggerty Road. The Orchard Lake and 11 Mile would be a few miles further. They have never explored the possibility of partnering with Farmington Hills on that, he anticipates it would be significantly more than the $75 they are paying in Farmington.

Member Paul said she toured the facility about a year ago and it has many lanes, their machines that bring the torso forward are automatic. It is a very nice facility, the FBI uses it. It just makes her wonder because, depending on which option, they are talking about anywhere from 2 million to 6 million. It is a big jump in numbers that concerns her. If they did option 1, the gun range would be at the DPW yard. What are you talking about in regards to the actual police facility, will there be any expansion there in option 1.

Chief Molloy said absolutely, starting on page 27, the floor plan for the current facility with the potential expansion that is outlined. The first floor is on page 27, the second floor is on page 28, and on page 30 it shows the footprint of having the indoor gun range at the Field Services complex.

Member Paul said the cost of option 1 is almost $7 million at the current police facility, then there is another almost 2 million for the gun range.

Chief Molloy said that 6.67 is a total amount for the complete build-out of police headquarters and the indoor gun range at the Field Services complex.

Member Paul said the project cost and the gun range construction costs are not matching in that case. She sees the project costs as 1.459 on page 27 and on page 30 it is 1.725.

Chief Molloy said that is due to the site development costs that they would be paying for at the Field Services Complex.

Mr. Kritta clarified how the construction cost got to a total cost. Project costs envelopes the fees and testing, furniture, equipment, and contingency at this conceptual stage. That ranges between 25% and 30% on top of the construction cost. The pure construction cost, on option one, is $5,212,350. The project cost is laid on top of that for the testing and things that go along with creating a project budget. The overall costs, including the gun range, in the constructing dollars, envelopes the build-out at the Police Department site, as well as the gun range at Field Services complex. Looking at the construction costs for the indoor gun range of $1,347,500, that is a pure construction cost. The project cost on top of that is $377,800 that is the fees and testing, furniture, equipment, and contingency, so there is an established budget throughout the entire project. The $1.725 million is for the indoor gun range, the total project cost is $6.671 million.

Member Paul said she has no problem looking at the cost of the windows and other analysis they have talked about. She wanted to pay for the windows when it was $52,000, now it is $83,000 one year later and that is a hard number for her to swallow. They made a decision last year not to fund that project and now they will have to fund it at almost 1 and a half times what it would have been. Looking at the boiler room where all the leaking is, she doesn’t think it is great for the facility to have that much water sitting on the concrete. She would like to hear how he thinks they are going to get $6,671,000.

Chief Molloy said that he thinks that is a discussion for a later day. He is not proposing that they do the complete build-out of the entire police facility right now. That is something they will be looking at doing over the next 5 to 7 years depending on the growth of the community, and the number of new officers hired. The fact remains that they will have to expand their current police headquarter and they don’t have the appropriate amount or enough forfeiture dollars to do that. This is providing them with a roadmap on how they will have to budget and look at capital improvements over the next 5 or 6 years.

Member Paul asked what the overhead cost would be for the firing range at the DPW yard.

Chief Molloy said they looked at some of the other ranges with the metal back stops. Their filtration and clean out is at a much higher rate because of the ammunition they are firing, when the bullet makes impact on the metal that is when they are seeing it. They have put together a time line of some other ranges they have studied in the area that used the reclining granular rubber track ranges. They are estimating right now that every 18 months they will be changing the filters at approximately $1,500. They also know that every 36 months they will have to have a complete clean out, roughly $6,300 or $6,400. He thinks they will see a slight increase in the amount of yearly reoccurring costs, not necessarily in the cleaning but the amount of ammunition they purchase. Their officers will be shooting and training more, they will be spending anywhere between 5 or 6 thousand dollars more a year in ammunition.

Member Paul went over the minutes and said Chief Molloy gave them a cost of $50,000 for the cost of rubber backing that would collect the bullets and the filtration, the baluster that would be it, heating and cooling, ammunition. She sees a $50,000 annual cost, given previously, give or take. Currently, they only spend $18,000 a year, and they are still going to have to spend $10,000 at Canton. The tax payers are being asked to spend a lot of money. There is also a facility they are asking to change at $7 million. They still have to come up with either 1.2 or 1.4 million dollars to pay a debt they own for the current police building. What is the cost that we still have remaining that we have to pay down the bond by 2007?

Mr. Pearson said he wanted to make sure everyone was using the same numbers. The fire arms range is estimated at $1.72 million that includes the project soft costs, utilities, contingencies, soils, other things. $1 million has already been allocated towards that from existing drug asset forfeitures, the recommendation, which they will get into at a later date, for an action item would be an additional $720,000 of existing drug asset forfeiture monies to go out and start construction. As the Chief mentioned, the entire recommended option 1 is $6.6 million, which includes the firing range. That leaves about $5 million that will take this police station to meet current efficiencies and service the community at build-out. Those are the numbers to be looking at, for discussion purposes; we had outlined financing, making some down payments on that with some drug asset monies until those are done, if Council chooses. It is a manageable plan to complete that. With regards to the existing police station bond issues there is a principle of about $2.8 million funds available of which Council has allocated $1.2 million from existing drug asset to pay that down. If we wanted to make a deposit of some kind and call the bonds, we could, that is otherwise programmed to be paid as part of any of our other debt service payments over the next 10 years.

Member Paul said that we currently owe $1.3 million by 2007 for the current bond that we have just put into activation.

Mr. Pearson said that if Council decided to pay off that debt and call those bonds immediately, the soonest it could be done is October of 2008. Rough estimates, would be to have $1.3 million additional money to be able to do that.

Member Paul said she has a hard time with the whole deal. There is overhead for the expansion of the current building, they never paid for the leaky windows in the boiler room and the poor boiler system that they currently have which is approximately $500,000 all that is very necessary. There will be overhead to run the actual firing range, give or take $50,000, and still having to go to Canton at $10,000. That is a cost of a police officer. You are talking about expanding the Police Department, having more numbers on the street to help protect the people, how will that be paid for? The economic times in the state are not good, the funding has been threatened at the state level, she thinks about how they can save money to put more police officers on the street. They’ve talked about an Administrative Sergeant in the past; there have been other things they wanted talked about, more cars. All those things are important, but you have to look at fiscal responsibility. She understands the need of the firing range, she looks at the current facility that was just expanded and they still owe money on that. Now you’re looking to expand again. She looks at the tax payers and sees a responsibility she has to them to pay for things police wants as well as things that they have to have. She would rather have more police officers on the road and less overhead. She won’t be supporting the firing range.

Mayor Pro Tem Capello asked if the firing range facility itself was looking to use lead bullets.

Chief Molloy said that with the reclining granular trap range they don’t have to look at the lead free ammunition. The ammunition before it will penetrate to the metal back stop will be slowed down to such a degree that there will be no dangerous lead emission. There will be some to a certain degree, but it will be trapped there. They studied the lead free ammunition, according their insurance provider; they still have to qualify with the regular ammunition, iIf there is a difference between training with the lead free and then qualifying with the actual ammunition carried on the street. They feel that by utilizing the regular ammunition throughout training with the reclining granular trap range, there will not be the level of lead emission into the air because it will be trapped in the rubber, once it cycles and is cleaned out, that will be taken out. They didn’t put it in to shoot with the lead free ammunition because of the cost, and the liability.

Mayor Pro Tem Capello asked if the insurance company was not up to date with the lead free ammunition and that is why the officers can not qualify with it or if there was some other reason.

Chief Molloy said they were up to date and that is where their recommendation was coming from. He said they can train and practice with the lead free ammunition, but there is a difference in the power that is delivered when the primer hits the firing cartridge on the actual bullet. He thinks they are looking at they have to train, qualify, and practice with real life situations that you will face on the streets.

Mayor Pro Tem Capello said it is one thing to shoot straight and hit the target, it is another to be able to react in circumstances that are unknown, does the facility offer any situations when there is a good guy and bad guy to make them think on their feet.

Chief Molloy said yes, the facility they are proposing would have several features. The first would be a running man, a target that goes back and forth at the end of the range where the officer would shoot at a moving target. At the current facility, we lack the ability on several different times for the targets to edge and face. When the targets go down range, they typically edge so the officer can’t see what type of threat he or she might be seeing. The officer only has to look at the target and they see that it is a friend, foe, shoot or don’t shoot type of situation. Our new facility would have that. It would also have the ability for the officers to move out and move in advance at the range. We don’t, currently, have the opportunity to do that because of their filtration system. They are required to stay back at the initial shooting line. He said you have to be able to shoot in a variety of different situations. You have to be able to shoot in low light; the officers have to be shooting with their jackets and gloves on, because we don’t work in an optimal setting of 70 degrees where we don’t need our gloves, and hats. He is very confident they can to that in the new indoor gun range.

Mayor Pro Tem Capello asked if that was something that Farmington provided.

Chief Smith said that system had been broken down several times through recent budgetary years. There have been some years they could only use it about 58% of the time, some years 66% of the time. It is not uncommon to schedule the range day and then learn there are fuses blown or the system is inoperable so our staff doesn’t get to train that month.

Mayor Pro Tem Capello said it made a lot of sense to move the proposed range over to the DPW grounds. Besides the fact that some surrounding neighbors don’t want it that close to their homes. He is in support of the range. They have made a commitment by allocating a million dollars already. The department does need some additional work. We need to look at that at budget time.

Mayor Landry said in looking over the materials, he understands that right now we have available drug forfeiture funds of $2,644,808. We have already allocated $1 million to the gun range. If we were to use drug forfeiture funds to complete the gun range at the DPW center, we would need to allocate $725,300 for that. When the issue of a gun range came up about a year ago, and then came up another 6 months ago, those who opposed it indicated that they should use drug forfeiture money to first pay off the police bond. That was a reason to oppose it. We appropriated $1.2 million, as a total we need to appropriate another $1.3 to pay that off. The next reason given was that there were needs at the current Police Department we needed to fix, to fix all those critical needs of $519,050. A year ago he suggested that they hold off because they were told they would get more forfeiture money. He was confident they would have enough forfeiture money to do both. He said that we expect even another million dollars to come in.

Chief Molloy said they are expecting more funds and are planning on receiving a minimum of another $1,020,000 and there is a possibility that they could receive another $300,000 to $350,000 depending on the sale and forfeiture of real property as well.

Mayor Landry said of the $2.6 million that is available from drug forfeiture money, we allocated $725,000, the remainder needed to build the gun range. They allocated $519,000 to take care of all the critical needs at the police station, subtract that from the $2.6 they have $1.4 million left. He said we need $1.3 million to pay off the police fund and it appears they have enough money to do everything without having to take a nickel out of the general fund. He said we don’t have to pay the bond by 2007 or 2008; it’s not due at that time; that is the earliest we could choose to pay it off. That is not a debt looming over our head. When the shooting range came up, the other issue that was raised was the proximity to the neighbors. It seems that they have found a solution to that problem also by moving it away from the people who live next to the police station and moving it over to the DPW yard. He thinks all the issues have been addressed; they found the money to pay for it without dipping into the funds. They were given very detailed facts and figures on the gun range. 35 hours of police time a month would be saved with a police range in Novi.

Chief Molloy said they estimated they would get an additional 35 hours of time that not only uniform patrol but the investigators are in the City of Novi available for immediate call out and not 3 miles away in the City of Farmington.

Mayor Landry said the savings from what we wouldn’t pay in rent versus the recurring maintenance cost is about a wash. The figures show that every 3 years we will gain about $800.

Chief Molloy said that the range rentals and expense for cleaning and filtration is about a wash, they will see an increase because their officers will be qualifying and practicing more. In essence they will have to purchase more ammunition.

Mayor Landry said he would wholeheartedly support this, he thinks there is enough money from drug forfeiture to do both, pay off the bond, do the critical needs at the police station and build the range. Another critical fact for him is that Novi is in a unique position. We don’t only have about 54,000 people but we house more regional shopping than anywhere in the state of Michigan. At holiday time the population doubles on any given day. We have about 100,000 people in this city at Christmas time. He would want our police officers to have the highest training they could to protect our 54,000 people and the other 50,000 people that come into the city to Christmas shop. He thanked them for the presentation and Wold Architects.

Member Mutch wanted the Chief to address, because it was a concern of the residents that live adjacent to the police station, with the proposal to move the gun range to the DPW site that addresses a lot of the concerns raised. In terms of timing of actual expansion from their view points, they won’t see anything happen until 2010 or 2011. The critical needs are all internal activities.

Chief Molloy said that should not affect the neighbors. It will be ongoing construction, replacement of windows and hopefully with some of the improvements we might be able to lower the heating, ventilating, and cooling noises that have been problematic. They are very sympathetic to their neighbors to the east. They know it isn’t pleasant that those sirens have to go off at 7 in the morning and 7 at night, but it comes down to the nature of the business. When it is imperative that it gets to a person having a heart attack, we need to make sure the lights and sirens are working, that is why we have to test and be prepared like we are.

Member Mutch said at the point that we are actually doing expansion, it will have to go through a site plan process and all the opportunities for the neighbors to have input. That is beyond Council who was just elected. He hopes at the time it comes forward, Council takes into consideration the impact on homes.

Chief Molloy said that their number one priority is to meet the needs of the residents and to protect the natural green space, plant trees if they have to and take advantage of berming opportunities.

Member Gatt said that when the current police station was built a quarter of a century ago, there was a plan to build a pistol range in the basement of that current building. The current Council chose not to go forward with that plan because of monetary restraints. One of the previous speakers was talking about money and money saved for the tax payers, keep in mind that when half the shift, 3 or 4 or 5 police officers are 3 or 4 miles out of the city practicing with their weapons; they are not in the city to protect you. In an emergency, they will drop what they are doing and get back here, but that is 10 or 15 minutes. In a life and death situation that can be too much time. There was a proposal that we might go further to a different range that is 7 or 8 miles away, in a more congested part of the county, that would add even more time. Add to that, they fact that outside of the city, our officers are not being trained up to maximum standards. They are trained. There are some officers that need more training than others. If there was a range in our city, every Officer on our Police Department would become an excellent, proficient shooter. We are very fortunate in this city because you don’t read about shootings all the time or our officers having to use their weapons, but it could happen any time, any minute, any place. If they don’t have a trained working police force, the money you might save could be eaten up in one lawsuit. Any lawyer will tell you, a penny saved today might be good except that it might cost $2 tomorrow. The fathers who made our decision 25 years ago not to build that range, if you ask them today they will tell you that is a mistake they made. He doesn’t want them to make the same mistake. The range will be in use for the next 50 years. Unfortunately, officers have to carry a gun with them that is the nature of their business.

Mr. Pearson said the city has property on 11 Mile and Delwal Drive which houses the public works operations but also is multi purpose, we have parks, recreation, and forestry, maintenance, water and sewer, and engineering is a possibility to relocate there. It also includes the fueling stations, communication towers, and the recycling center.

Mr. McCusker said they were looking at a future growth plan and the Police Department has some shared efficiencies now. Part of the facility plan was set up almost with the same process that was used with the Police Department facilities; they knew that they were limited to the amount of space left at the public works facility since it is a 20 year old facility. They put a core team together; the group entailed everyone at the facility, clerical staff, parks and recreation, and engineering, to get their opinion of what the needs were. The facility was built in the late 80s, there was a small addition to it in the early 90s and that was to house the communications center for Oakland County, the voting machines for the clerical space and some parks and recreation equipment that was being stored outside, and some water and sewer equipment. Right now they are back to where they were in the 90s. They have multimillion dollars in equipment that no longer fits inside the facility, 50% stays outside because there is not room inside due to the growth in the last 6 or 7 years. The numbers of subdivisions that have come on board increase the amount of needed equipment to do the basic services, water and sewer, snowplowing, street sweeping, and tree trimming. The expansion of the parks facilities has also brought on additional equipment that is at the facility. It is very expensive equipment with no place to go but outside. Certain critical equipment for the Public Works Department and the Water Department can not be housed outside in the wintertime. About 2 years ago they did a short office expansion, adding 2 or 3 offices in the front and the conference room displaced more equipment outside. He thinks one of the main parts of the facility that has a need is a gathering spot for the group as a team. They work together throughout the year, spend a lot of Christmas’s and New Years’ together. There is not a lunch room facility that houses them in any one spot, there isn’t a training facility, and they clear the garage out for the training facility because there is no room in any given space to accommodate the size of the three staffs there. They did the same analysis that the Police Department did. They looked at incremental builds, the opportunity of having the gun range down there. It starts the motion forward to looking at where they need to be 5 years down the road and 15 years down the road. They are recommending only a partial phase at this time.

Mr. Kritta said that the lack of sufficient space to store vehicles and equipment was a major topic. When looking at a facility like this that is housing large pieces of equipment, the square footage to accommodate that goes up very quickly. The current locker rooms, restrooms, and lunch rooms can not satisfy the entire group or one department at a time. The mechanical systems are becoming obsolete. With the modernization, changes in ventilation, what is there is not meeting the modern compliance guidelines. The current lay out of the facility allows visitors easy access. It sounds like a good thing but the concern is that there are no control measures to secure the site from the visitors to access any part. Part of the diagramming tries to satisfy some line of security so the public can’t just enter the facility without anyone noticing. From a functional standpoint, compared to other groups ways of accommodating started to flag some other functional deficiencies of the current site.

Mr. McCusker showed two lunch room areas out of the 5 that are scattered throughout the facility. There is no core facility for them to sit together at lunch time or in the morning. There are 6 to 7 female employees on at a time and there is one restroom to accommodate them which in not handicap accessible. In the winter, everyone tries to keep their equipment close to the doors to get out. A lot of times they waste time moving equipment to get out in reaction to a snow storm or a main break in the winter time. A lot of things have to be on time delivery from outside vendors because they don’t have enough storage space on hand to store it. The basic outdoor facilities are lacking in parking. There is barely enough for the current staff and when the seasonal employees come in during the summer time, 25 more personnel, that is 25 more vehicles that you have to park. When they store equipment outside there is not a lot of room to do it. Most of the other facilities outdoors, cold storage area is not covered for most of their materials that they store. In the maintenance garage they can accommodate some smaller vehicles, some medium vehicles but when it comes to the larger equipment, they can not accommodate them in the facility. They help the Fire Department because certain things the trucks can not be sent out for. The fire trucks don’t fit in the facility. Some of the new equipment that is on the market right now, multi-use equipment, their service bays are not large enough to put the equipment all the way inside. Their generators for the pump stations and their backup sources, there is not enough indoor space to accommodate those vehicles. Materials storage is uncovered, in the winter when they are using sand and stone a lot of time it is frozen, they have to take it inside on trucks and let it thaw before they can use it. They benchmarked against similar communities in population and type of community. They toured most of the facilities and he has been to most of the facilities in the past and knew they probably were the ones most current. Some of the Troy Public Works has covered outside storage for their Parks Department to do some winter repairs. They have indoor and outdoor repair areas. The employee’s lunch rooms and locker rooms are unbelievably big. Troy can service any size vehicle inside their facility. In the last 10 years the Public Works facilities have changed in the way they are not the basic one way in, covered garage. They are separated, keeping the materials for each department separated. It makes housekeeping and those activities much more efficient. Everyone can go to those individual locations, get their equipment and get out right away. Auburn Hills has the type of storage that they are looking at above the PD gun range. They think it will accommodate more storage for the Police Department; some of their tactical equipment can be stored there in the future. Most communities have the new mezzanine area. Most of the areas they toured had most of the cold materials storage covered on the outside. Their vehicles were under roofs. Waterford was one of the most impressive facilities they looked at. They over built the facility and the second floor is for future expansion. They put in all the structure above it for future growth and in 5 or 10 years down the road when needed, the structure is already in place. The newer facilities have more of a camaraderie between their employees because they have large areas where everyone enters as a meeting place at any given time. Farmington Hills has a large vehicle wash space, multiple use equipment can be stored in there, there’s a lot of indoor storage. They expect that they will be to the build-out stages before 2015. With the growth rate they have been going at, most of the major subdivisions will be in place by 2015. At that point they will be at more of a custodial than new development. There are some current critical needs on the facility. Mechanical systems, some overhead doors, the HVAC systems, the rooftop units life expectancy is 20 years and they are getting close on most of those. They have done upgrades on a couple in the last couple years. They expect some of the mechanicals in the facility to have to be replaced. The existing salt dome is close to being maxed out, they are looking for more storage for salt, another dome possibly. As the western part of the city gets more fully developed, there will be a need to store more salt on site. The build-out structure without the offices will house everything they need currently. It will take care of some outdoor storage areas. In the future, the interior development of those areas can be done. Right now, they are looking to expand the structure itself. Some of the site work, they are hoping, can be done as part of the gun range, if it ends up at the DPW that will save them some large dollars also.

Mr. Kritta explained the first option was a partial build-out, at the conceptual level; they are looking at a first phase plan that satisfies some upcoming need as expressed by the facility. The pricing there is based on square footage for the types of spaces that they are seeing in the market right now. The challenge with the FSC site is that one thing dominos to the next, if you are bringing departments over or doing interior renovations to expand space, you are bumping out something else. The baseline option is accommodating the first pieces sliding around within the campus and then accommodating some shell space to grow into. It is important to understand what location would accommodate this so they are not being shortsighted if the gun range moves forward.

Mr. McCusker said that they took a good look to see if it would fit in the 33 acres that are up there to see if it would fit and would it accommodate the drainage. They think the 2024 build out is all that would be needed. Some of the communities they look at have populations similar to Novi with a lot less services provided by their Public Works Departments. They have multiple facilities for accommodating equipment inside their community’s rather then one field service center. The shared efficiencies with the Police Department, the big thing that helps them there are the security issues. Having a police presence on site 24 hours a day makes it that much easier to be able to function around there and know that the equipment will be watched most of the time. They think they will have to do some infrastructure improvements if the gun range does happen there. They looked at the number which has been budgeted in the CIP’s for expansion of the water and sanitary sewer systems; they are on the books now. They talked to Bill Bowman to look at what the excess property off of 11 Mile between Delwal and the Pentacle Complex to see what it was worth. They got a preliminary analysis on that property and believe that mid-range value is about $1.7 million. They don’t think it will be needed for the public works facility. They looked at that as part of financing down the road. They talked to a couple cell phone agencies, the old police tower is on site, and they looked at selling space on the Police Department old dispatch tower which is located in the yard. It may not generate a lot of revenue, but it could generate up to $500,000 over a number of years. They looked at different funding agencies to get them off the ground. With the Police Department possibly starting it for them, they think they have some money in hand. They talked to Kathy Smith-Roy about other ways to fund the facility. The water part of it could be a loan from the water and sewer fund or a bond issue which would go to the voters. Ms. Smith-Roy also mentioned that they could do it as a CIP and the actual building part could be funded in increments over a couple years, then 2 or 3 or 4 years from now, they could start the actual build.

Member Paul said they talked a year ago about having a concrete pad poured for the police officers to do the weigh master responsibility where they would actually weigh a commercial vehicle; it would save them time from setting up the work manually. Since we are talking about a gun range possibly being located there, is that still part of the plan to have the concrete and where?

Mr. McCusker said it was included in there. It would be in the northern most section.

Mr. Kritta said that on page 29 there was a campus plan. In the diagram it is shown in the northern part of the site where there would be an initial entrance to the north of where the current entrance is off of Delwal.

Member Paul said her understanding was that was supposed to be poured about a year ago. Are they waiting to do the poured concrete?

Chief Molloy said they were looking at doing that by the end of September; however, the Department of Transportation and the Michigan State Police recently changed their standards as far as the size of the pad. They have had staff, including police and public works, working with the Department of Transportation as well as the Michigan State Police. They are waiting for them to finalize their recommendations. They have visited sites off of 127 and I-96 to look at what they are considering to be the prototype. That is a very important objective of theirs, however, they want to wait until they finalize the standards so they don’t come and say you have to change it. They think it is more prudent to wait until the final document is approved by department of transportation and by the department of State Police.

Member Paul asked when that would be.

Chief Molloy said they were told the end of September and are still waiting on the final word.

Mr. Pearson said that he thinks the location for the pad has changed. After doing the study it was found that the northern section is different than what had been envisioned previously. Once those standards come in, they will be able to build it in a better location with better traffic flow.

Member Paul said she was very interested in that portion because there would be commercial vehicles being weighed, it would be easier for the officers. It would save them manual time by quite a bit. She thought it was an hour to set up all the weighing of the commercial vehicles.

Chief Molloy said that it does take a little bit of time depending on the level of experience of the commercial motor vehicle officer. It does take a significant amount of time. Like the Manager said by having it to the north, it is not interrupting the visitor flow to public works which it would have if we would have done it on their original entrance that they have now.

Member Paul said it talks about having commercial vehicles being the approximate weight that they need to be and not destroying our roads that we pay dearly for.

Member Mutch said he doesn’t think the DPW facility is well known to many of our residents unless you are a regular at the recycling center. It is clear from the photographs that there are a lot of needs there. He joked with the City Manager and said that he appreciated the spirit of the Parks and Recreation pulling their picnic table out for their lunch facility. Who wants to sit at a picnic table for lunch day in and day out? The other obvious need is the vehicle and materials storage. In Michigan we have winters, if it isn’t snowing, it is cold. In either case, having million dollar vehicles sitting out in the winter weather doesn’t make sense. He asked Mr. McCusker currently how many vehicles of the fleet they have parked outside.

Mr. McCusker said about 15 or 16 vehicles.

Member Mutch said at a minimum to get those vehicles indoors, that is what we are looking at today. Ideally we would want to get as many of those vehicles out of the weather.

Mr. McCusker said that the cold storage area they just put up will allow them, this winter, to accommodate 7 to 10 more vehicles because they moved a lot of the non-used equipment out in the cold storage.

Member Mutch said that besides the salt dome, do you have any other materials storage, or is it just sitting out?

Mr. McCusker said it was covered with tarps.

Member Mutch said in terms of the timing of the improvements that they would be looking at, whether they pick one or any of the options, what is the time frame for when you would want to start construction on the site, separating out the gun range issue, just in terms of your facility on the site.

Mr. McCusker said they are looking at a 3 to 5 year program.

Member Mutch said one of the things that was brought up in the previous presentation was a list of what the department and consultant had developed at critical needs, the things they want to take care of today. He said that he didn’t see a similar list in this presentation and asked if he had a list.

Mr. McCusker said theirs is a lot smaller then the Police Department’s, it is about $300,000.

Mr. Kritta said that project costs are a little higher than that, overall, it was close to the PD’s identification. The facility analysis that was published in the report actually called out where the deficiencies are. Each of the solutions was based on they knew there was a deficiency so they put price tags to those deficiencies. It wasn’t the same format. It is about $604,000 and a lot of that is contributed to the mechanical systems.

Member Mutch said that one of the reasons Council went through the process and the process with the Police Department is looking ahead. They want to address it as soon as possible, whether it is life safety issues or having a decent work environment. Some improvement will help pay for themselves through efficiencies in terms of the utility cost associated, upgrading the utilities and the heating and cooling. The bigger challenge is how they will pay for the proposals long term, looking at a $6 million Police Department Proposal, a $7 to $13 million proposal for the DPW site, the Library proposal which is another $15 million. When people are asking why he’s not committing to projects that is what he is looking at, $35 million of known costs that we have as a city and need to address. He thinks it will be a challenge. When Council sits down at budget time, they need to prioritize and figure out a long term strategy that allows them to pay for that. One thing they had a chance to look at were financing strategies to pay for these various improvements. Unfortunately DPW doesn’t have the advantage as the Police Department because they don’t have the forfeiture funds to tap into. They might get some indirect benefit if the gun range is built at that location, but DPW is looking for Council to find the money in the budget. There is some discussion about utilizing the water and sewer fund, which seems legitimate in terms of how that corresponds in terms of their use of the facility. The bottom line numbers are big numbers, they are talking about potentially pulling out a half million dollars out of the general fund each year until they start construction and beyond that for financing the Public Works Facility, $500,000 a year for the Police Department up until the point that they want to start construction to finance that facility and beyond that. What he would be looking to the City Administration for a better understanding of the bottom line impact of those kinds of commitments. They are talking about making a commitment to the Police Department, DPW facility, and other city services and facilities. Every dollar that is being put away for improvements, as important and as needed as those improvements are, those are dollars and cents that they don’t have for other services. He thinks that Council realizes the day of getting a lot of money through revenue sharing is over. There was a recent article in the Novi News about lack of residential development and the lack of fees that we will get from that, and the lack on increase in our tax base that will occur because of that. He thinks there are some real challenges moving forward and any suggestions that can be made in terms of the DPW proposal to break that down further, coming up with another couple options that would allow us to tackle some of the most important improvements in the short term would be helpful because they will be challenged in the long term. One of the previous Councils had discussed moving the Fire Station #1 to the DPW site, obviously there is a cost associated with that. He just talked about $35 million in costs and if they want to do that it has a number associated with it. On the other hand it is something that needs to be considered in the long term, not the next year or two, but it needs to be planned for. In his mind, looking at that site, where they are proposing to move that, it should be on 11 Mile, not the entrance of the DPW facility. He thinks for the response time the Fire Department needs, it needs to be on 11 Mile. That ties into his feeling on the excess property issue. They are not making any more vacant land in Novi. The City of Novi outside of what we own in our Parks inventory, we only have a couple hundred acres, if that, total of land that is utilized for the Civic Center Complex. He doesn’t know what is going to happen in the next 15 years, but whatever the property is sold for, if we need property in the future, it would cost us double in the future, if we can even find it which would be a challenge. In his mind whatever financial benefit that we would get for selling the property isn’t worth taking the chance that we may need that in the future. It is a resource that we have. We just had a discussion about needing soccer fields, they would be expensive soccer fields in that location, but it points out that there are a lot of needs that we haven’t met, and he isn’t willing to sell land to finance the improvements. The information provided gives Council a starting point so when Council sits down in January and figures out what they need to do, they have an idea of what they need to tackle. If they could provide some more information on the critical costs, that is something he would be looking at in terms of capital improvement program funding for the upcoming budget year that he would be targeting.

Mayor Landry thanked the DPW Department and the Administration. He said it was amazing. It is a facility that may be used by 3 departments in the City, DPW, Parks and Recreation, and the Police Department, which is exactly what we owe the tax payers. He thinks it is the future of the way the government should run in the city. He commended Wold Architects and Engineers. The study was very informative. He agreed with Member Mutch saying that it is exactly the kind of information they need when they sit down at budget time and long range planning time, it is very useful. He was hoping that was what they would have gotten to assess senior needs and the library but that isn’t going to happen. This was an example of how useful that information is. He would also agree that if there is additional information that Mr. McCusker thinks Council needs, don’t be shy, give them whatever information they should have.

Council entered Executive Session at 9:15 and returned at 9:53 p.m.

There being no further business to come before Council, the meeting was adjourned at 9:54 P.M.

________________________________ _______________________________

David Landry, Mayor Maryanne Cornelius, City Clerk

________________________________ Date approved: December 4, 2006

Transcribed by Natalie Laitinen