As I am always thinking of the environment, I was excited to vote "yes" on this motion. The City Council awarded the planting of approximately 40 trees along Gratiot. The tree canopy of Metro Detroit needs increasing, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, ReLeaf Michigan, and other organizations, and this is one project that can help achieve this goal.
The City Council approves the purchase of an in-house sign cutting system. Being able to create our own signs, ensures that we will always have readable and modern side street signs. Also, the signs will continue to have shamrocks affixed to them, by my urging.
Not often are we able to reconstruct our main roads in the City, so it was exciting to be able to start the process of reconstructing all of Kelly Road from 8 Mile to 10 Mile. This portion was northbound from Stephens to 10 Mile. It was approved by City Council on June 2, 2015.
To better handle the fiscal priorities of our retirement system, the City Council voted in 2013 to move the funds from a local account administered by the City Employees' Retirement System Board of Trustees to the Municipal Employees' Retirement System (MERS). The Ordinance can be found here. MERS administers Defined Benefit and Definted Contribution plans, and those plans were moved to this third-party system. The City finished the final steps on May 12, 2015.