Hello, 2025
Has it really already been four years?
Hey Neighbor,
Happy 2025! I hope everyone is staying safe, warm, and sane this week.
As of 4:00pm last Tuesday, it’s official: I’ll be on the ballot in May! Here’s the lineup of candidates for our local election.
Mayor: Robert DeSana, Curtis Kile
City Council (six to elect): Robert Alderman, Chris Calvin, Kaylyn Crayne, Dan Galeski, Todd Hanna, Kelly Stec, Patrick Sutka, Adriana Villanueva-Cerulla
City Assessor: Theodore Galeski
City Treasurer: Todd Browning
City Clerk: Larry Stec
I continue to believe it is vital to have a City Council with a broad spectrum of life and professional experiences in order to make sound decisions for our city. I also believe that you, as residents, should have a direct line to your officials! To that end, my next coffee hour will be 1:30-2:30pm at Kekoa Coffee on Friday, January 31st. I hope to see you there, but if you can’t make it, give me a shout at kstec@wyandottemi.gov and we can find a time to connect.
In the rest of this enews, you’ll see a calendar of some upcoming city happenings, my plans for 2025, and a reflection on a current hot topic in city government. Before I get to that, I also want to make a plug for the Fourth Annual City Club Chili Cookoff, which will be held Sunday, February 2 at 3pm at PRCU (1430 Oak St.). Tickets are $5 and all proceeds will go towards the Wyandotte Public Schools Scholarship Foundation. If you’re not into chili, come for your chance to get some once-in-a-lifetime Lions merch!
Take care and talk soon,
Kelly
Community Calendar
Thursday, January 30
Wayne County Health Fair, 2-6pm, Wayne County Community College (2100 Northline Rd., Taylor MI)
Friday, January 31
Coffee with Kelly, 1:30-2:30pm at Kekoa (3351 3rd St.)
Saturday, February 1
Heroes Movement Fundraiser, PRCU (1430 Oak St.), 6pm, $20 entry
Sunday, February 2
City Club Chili Cookoff, 3-5pm at PRCU (1430 Oak St.), $5 entry
Friday, February 7
Wyandotte Museums Wedding Dress Exhibit, 5-8pm, 2610 Biddle
Saturday, February 8
Wyandotte Museums Wedding Dress Exhibit, 1-4pm, 2610 Biddle
Sunday, February 9
Super Bowl! Check your local clubs for parties and fundraising opportunities
Monday, February 10
City Council Meeting, 7pm, 3rd Floor City Hall or see website for virtual participation
Friday, February 21
Shop the Dotte 3rd Friday: Cocoa and Corks, Downtown Wyandotte
Monday, February 24
City Council Meeting, 7pm, 3rd Floor City Hall or see website for virtual participation
Friday, February 28
Coffee with Kelly, 12-1pm at Kekoa (3351 3rd St.)
Saturday, March 8
ChurchCon 2025, 11am-6pm, First Congregational Church, details to come
Some of Wyandotte’s young people are putting on an anime convention! Bring your kids and friends and support our youth!
PRCU Party Gras Fundraiser, 6pm, PRCU (1430 Oak St.), $15 presale ticket until 2/25 or $20 at the door
Monday, March 10
City Council Meeting, 7pm, 3rd Floor City Hall or see website for virtual participation
Friday, March 21
Coffee with Kelly, 2-3pm, Bacon Memorial Library (45 Vinewood)
Afterschool Storytime with Kelly, 3:30-4:30pm, Bacon Memorial Library (45 Vinewood)
Shop the Dotte 3rd Friday: Mystery Event, Downtown Wyandotte
Friday, March 21 and Saturday, March 22
Historic Women of Wyandotte, 6-9pm, Wyandotte Museum (2610 Biddle), call the museum for $5 tickets, (734) 324-7284
Monday, March 24
City Council Meeting, 7pm, 3rd Floor City Hall or see website for virtual participation
Kelly’s 2025 Action Plan
Heading into the new year, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on what’s going to be important to our City in the coming year. As council members, we are effectively volunteers--it’s certainly not anyone’s full time job! Given that, I think it’s important for each of us to pick a few key things to focus our time and efforts on so that instead of doing a bunch of things medium-to-badly, we can do a few things well. Below, you’ll see a list of what I’m planning to focus on this year and my commitments to action for each topic.
I don’t think anything on this list will be a surprise, but I wanted to share where my head is at, and I want to hear from you on what’s missing! Give me a shout in the comments or at kstec@wyandottemi.gov with your thoughts.
Building and sustaining relationships: More than ever, I believe we need to log off our devices and meaningfully connect with people in real life. As a council member, I believe it is imperative to make opportunities to hear directly from you and to build opportunities to communicate those needs upward to our county and state officials.
I will continue hosting coffee hours and cleanups, writing this newsletter, working closely with our state officials on funding and policy needs for our city, and building bridges between organizations and residents.
Accessibility, walkability, and safety: I think Wyandotte is the greatest city in the world, and I want everyone to have that experience! One of the ways I think we can do better is to build out our infrastructure so that pedestrians are safer and our parks and buildings are accessible for people of all abilities.
I plan to continue pushing for projects to increase pedestrian safety, such as signaled crossings and bike lanes, and to keep working closely with our Parks and Rec Department on park updates that work for all ages and bodies.
Supporting public employees: Wyandotte’s public servants are some of the finest around. They give their all, they show up when times are tough, and they go above and beyond their job descriptions to support residents.
I will continue supporting wage increases and strong contracts for our employees to ensure we can fill openings with talented, caring individuals and support those who are already doing the work.
Doing good government: A few years ago, I wrote about my framework for creating and supporting policy.
I will hold firm to the principles of finding a core “why,” listening to experts, balancing personal stories with data, keeping a future-focused mindset, and centering compassion when making decisions.
Engaging youth: Young people are the future of our city, and while the internet’s siren call to faraway places is deeply felt, we have to build a community that young people want to return to and build their lives in.
I will continue seeking opportunities to engage with our schools, library, and other places to build meaningful relationships with young people. I hope to expand our ability to bring young adults into city government and give them opportunities to learn about how they can be engaged in our community in ways that are meaningful to them.
Reflection Corner
I want to take a moment to address the elephant in the room of city governance over the last few months: the decision to make 13th and 15th one-way streets. There are a lot of big, valid thoughts and feelings on both sides. Not everyone is happy about the decision--I have never met a policy proposal that resulted in 100% agreement. But more importantly, people have approached me with frustration about how it happened, so I want to lay out the timeline of how it came to be, why I ultimately voted the way I did, and what we’ve done to improve processes in the aftermath.
First, I think it is important to recognize that this change came as a direct result of a citizen-led petition--albeit not the originally requested outcome. In the aftermath of a student being struck by a car, and after years of traffic being described as a zoo/nightmare/debacle/your preferred terminology for traffic congestion, neighbors came together to sign a petition asking for speed bumps to be placed. At the November 11 council meeting, this petition was received and forwarded to WPD for review. I think this is the part of the process that went completely correctly--residents noted a problem and came together to propose a solution to their government. This is good!
That week, the Police and Fire Commission held a meeting where they discussed the petition, ultimately recommending the conversion to one-way streets over speed bumps for a number of safety reasons, including pedestrian safety and emergency response times to the schools if speed bumps were to be installed. This is the part I think could have gone better--I wish more residents had been able to hear about and attend that commission meeting to express their thoughts and hear the commissioners’ discussion directly. To help remedy this, council passed a resolution at our January 13 meeting to update notification requirements for all commissions to match those of the Planning and Zoning Commissions, which give a radius of impacted residences right of notification.
At the November 25 council meeting, Chief Hamilton presented the Commission’s response to council, which you can view here (Commission minutes can also be seen in the 11/25 agenda packet linked above). At that meeting, Council took over two hours of public comment before voting. This part of the process also worked! I want to take a moment and express my deep gratitude for everyone who showed up to voice their thoughts on both sides of the issue. I was very proud of our city that night--coming to a council meeting to share your thoughts can be intimidating, and I think everyone came with thoughtful and meaningful contributions to the discussion. Whether or not we agreed, I truly appreciated being able to focus on what the pros and cons of the change were, and you directly inspired me to propose the commission notification updates.
I ultimately voted yes because I have a bias towards action over inaction. While I believe the one-ways were not a perfect or singular solution--they really, really should be coupled with additional crossing guards and stronger penalties for inattentive and reckless drivers and parkers--they are a cost-effective way to try to mitigate the overall engineering issue of streets that are not changing in width while cars continue to get wider. It’s pretty easy to pull a sign out of the ground if there is no meaningful improvement, but I would never forgive myself if we did nothing and another accident occurred. Given the strong cons of speed bumps and even stronger distaste for removing street parking for residents, I believe supporting the Police and Fire Commission’s decision was the right thing to do. I hope that everyone who got involved in this issue continues to stay engaged and share ways to keep improving traffic and pedestrian safety in the area. We need your voice!
Thank you for supporting the historical museum