Eric Bartkus Lowell City Council

We had a well-attended and productive first Monday night meeting. Attended by seven residents plus Jim and me. Topics discussed are listed below:

*Flat River Island-a resident offered to provide and tend goats to remove poison ivy from the island. Long term goal to make the island more usable.

*New Stop Signs on Monroe and Washington-concern that signs aren’t helping/situated correctly and may be at odds with the DOT’s manual on uniform control devices. Perhaps a traffic study is needed.

*Riverside diversion-requests for a traffic study to compare to pre-barricade traffic of 4000 cars/week.

*Monroe/Main Island Planned-concern that if travel straight across Main is allowed this will still cause backups/safety issues.

*DDA Service Area-questions from West Main businesses about sidewalk clearing in their area, not just the downtown.

*City Manager Notes-would like to see these kept up to date.

*Covenant Park 425 agreement-questions about how issues/problems are handled (e.g. businesses closing, etc.). Also wondering about status of project.

*Closed Session Council Meetings-residents would like to know general topics covered. Some thinking that details on Covenant Park have been discussed in closed session which is not the case. Council hasn’t discussed any financials on Covenant Park to date.

Please contact me to discuss further. I am at 517 East Main most weekdays, email ebartkus@ci.lowell.mi.us or phone 616-240-0227. Next coffee with council Monday Feb 24 (5:30-7:30pm) at the Chamber building. Thanks, Eric