Coffee with Clawson Candidates
Have a cup of coffee with candidates for elected offices in Clawson, Michigan, this fall 2025. Clawson resident and former Clawson City Charter Commission member BT Irwin sits down for friendly and relaxed conversations with all 14 candidates, asking them questions that shine the light on their Clawson stories, their character, and what they imagine and plan for Clawson (and how they will bring it about if they get into office). These interviews reveal the candidates as they really are (and not as they appear to be in campaign literature and soundbites).
Coffee with Clawson Candidates
Aidan O'Rourke, candidate for Clawson City Council
Aidan O'Rourke is a recent addition to the Clawson community (and one of the youngest candidates for office), but he is already active in public service as a member of the Clawson Zoning Board of Appeals. He's ready to take the next step in public service. He is running to complete the term of a council member who resigned earlier this year, which would put him on Clawson City Council until November 2027.
For your hometown Clawson real estate needs, get KW Domain certified Realtor Erin Redmond at eredrealestate@gmail.com or call (586) 242-8419.
Expecting and new parents, certified postpartum doula and pediatric sleep coach Lynn Eads can help you and your new baby settle into your life together. Learn more at learnwithlynne.com.
Get out and vote, Clawson! Learn all about how, when, and where to vote by clicking here or call (248) 435-4500x118.
Friends, hello, I'm B.T. Irwin, your neighbor in Clausen for 13 years now. Welcome to Coffee with Clausen Candidates, a limited podcast series that gives each candidate for Clausen City Council and Mayor their own episode. These are in-depth, but relaxed conversations in which all 14 candidates reveal their hearts, minds, and personalities. More on that in a minute or two. First, please know that the information you're hearing in this introduction is the same for all 14 episodes. So if you already heard it when listening to another episode, you don't have to listen to it again. Just skip straight to the interview. If this is your first episode of Coffee with Claus and Candidates, I think the information I'm about to share with you in this introduction will help you understand the election coming up in Clausen this fall and how this podcast can help you choose who will get your votes. Before we get to that, you may want to know who is hosting this show and whether he's fit for your time and trust. Now I'm not a professional journalist, but I do have a lot of experience interviewing public figures for the Christian News Organization where I work part-time. More important to Clausen folks like you, however, is my unusual level of involvement in Clausen government over the last few years. It started in 2020 when I accepted an appointment to the Zoning Board of Appeals. In November 2021, I was elected to the Clausen City Charter Commission, where I served until the people of Clausen adopted the revised city charter we proposed in November 2023. Through those experiences, I've gotten to know Clausen City government and many of the people who work in it. So that's me. Now let's talk about the election happening in Clausen this fall, 2025. This is your crash course. If you didn't know, this year's Clausen City election is historic for at least two reasons. First, it is the first general election to take place after the adoption of the revised city charter in November 2023. This fall, our city council is expanding from one two-year mayor and four at-large four-year members to one four-year mayor and six four-year members. Second, if the fourteen candidates running for city offices in Clausen this fall are not a record, I'd like to see an election where more candidates ran. I can't imagine that we've ever had this many people running for office at the same time in Clausen. So this is a big election with lots of candidates running for more seats than Clausen has ever had on its city ballot. There are a total of six seats up for election in what will be a seven-seat city council come November 2025. I think it can get confusing, so I'm going to break it down for you. First, the office of mayor is up for election. The mayor chairs the city council and is a voting member of it. Until now, Clausen's mayor always served a two-year term. The revised charter, however, changes the mayor's term to four years to match the other members of city council. Whoever the people of Clausen elect as their mayor this fall will serve from November 2025 to November 2029. Two candidates are running for mayor. Incumbent mayor Paula Milan, who has been in office since 2021, and Clausen City Council member Sue Moffat. Next, there are four at-large city council seats up for election. Two of those seats are existing seats with expiring terms. Bruce Anderson and Glenn Shepherd occupy those seats, which they won as the top two vote getters in the November 2021 election. The two existing seats are for four-year terms, running from November 2025 to November 2029. And then there are two new seats that the revised city charter adds to the city council this year. Of the ten candidates running, the top four vote getters will take the four at-large seats. The top three vote getters will serve four-year terms from 2025 to 2029. But the fourth place vote getter will serve only two years until 2027. This will happen only once. In 2027, that seat will become a four-year term like all the others. The revised charter calls for this unusual arrangement so that the city council eventually gets on a cycle of four of its seats being up for election every four years, and three of its seats being up for election every four years on a rotating basis. So, in review, there are four at-large city council seats up for election this fall twenty twenty five, two of them existing and two of them new. The top three vote getters will serve four-year terms, and the fourth place vote getter will serve a two-year term. The ten candidates running for those four seats are incumbents Bruce Anderson and Glenn Shepherd, and challengers George Georges, Scott Manning, Meredith Pelton, Billy Renshaw, Heather Rinkovich, Loris Lowinski, Alex Beshawk, and Scott Tenlin. Are you keeping score? We're up to five seats on the ballot. I said there are six, so here's the last one. Back in the spring, Councilmember Matt Benkowski resigned his seat because he was moving out of the city. Minkowski won his four-year term in November 2023. So he was to fill his seat until November 2027. When a city council member leaves office during her or his term, the revised city charter calls for city council to appoint a replacement who will serve until the next regular city election, at which time the public will elect someone to finish out the full term. Not long after Benkowski resigned, City Council appointed Richard Scott to fill the seat until the November 2025 election. On your ballot, this city council seat will be listed apart from the other four. Whichever candidate gets the most votes for this seat will serve out the rest of Vinkowski's term that runs through November 2027. Scott is running to retain the seat for the next two years. Aiden O'Rourke is running to challenge him for it. So now that you know what is up for election in Clausen this fall and who is running, let's get to how this podcast might help you decide who gets your votes. I interviewed all fourteen candidates, one episode for each one. I wanted to do something different from the other candidate interviews that are out there. Not to say that those other interviews are not helpful. I think they are quite helpful, and I follow them myself. But I find that the usual candidate interview format to be too narrow or too short to really get to know the candidates as people. I like to know where candidates stand on the quote unquote issues, yes, but I really want to know what they know, how and what they think, what makes them tick, who they are as human beings. So I designed these podcast interviews to be friendly and relaxed and full of open-ended questions. I wanted the candidates to feel like they could open up and just talk about what they think is important and why. I also wanted them to be able to talk about themselves, without the pressure of needing to react to questions about issues and one-minute sound bites. I can say that I enjoyed every one of the fourteen conversations as I sat across from candidates at places like the Clausen Historical Museum, Blair Memorial Public Library, and Cave Cafe in downtown Clausen. Even interviewed one candidate on a front porch. And I learned a lot from just about every candidate who opened up to me. So I hope you learn a lot too, and that in learning about the candidates, you'll fill out your ballot with confidence and even, dare I say it, joy. So without further ado, please enjoy this episode of Coffee with Clausen Candidates. We are sitting in Kave Cafe in downtown Clausen, my new old favorite coffee spot. And sitting across from me is Aiden O'Rourke, who is running to finish a four-year four-year city council term that Matthew Benkowski moved out of the city. And so, according to our charter, we need someone to complete that. Somebody who will be on the ballot in November. Aiden is one of the two that's running to finish that four-year term that ends in November 2027. Aiden has been a resident here for four years in Clausen. He'll tell you more about that. And uh he has he's filled eight months on the Zoning Board of Appeals. He was appointed eight months ago. He's currently on the Zoning Board of Appeals. I have some love for that because that's how I got my start here in Clausen was being on the ZBA. It's a lot more fun than you think it's gonna be when you get on. It's it's where the action is. So Aiden, thanks for having a cup of coffee with us today.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, thanks, Brad, for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah, and I I've uh Kavey. I have loved their lattes. I've been here probably four times in the past week. So thanks for them for hosting. The new owners are grateful. Oh, he's great. But yeah, so I moved here four years ago. I was renting in Royal Oak and I was looking for my first home, a starter home. House on Mesoitan Maine came up, and I was like, it needed some work. But I'm a D I'm a DIY guy, so I'm like, we're gonna make this our own, we're gonna fix it up, and four years later, it's uh I've got it all set up. I got engaged a couple months ago. So my fiancee will be moving in next year, and I plan to start a family here. So it's it's it's a great neighborhood. My neighbors are amazing, and I just I fell in love with how how warm everybody is here. And like you said, I'm on the ZBA, so I like two years ago I started really paying attention, you know, like you know, looking at all the agendas for planning, what's going in at 400 South Main, this sort of thing. And so I started watching all the watching all the all the YouTube videos, and I was like, oh, I can I can volunteer. I you know, I can I can do more than just sit behind a computer and watch it. And so I applied. I applied for planning. All the site, all the seats were filled at the time, but the mayor said, hey, we got a spot on ZBA and alternate spots. I'm an alternate spot on ZBA, but due to you know attendance and stuff, I've been I've been new to that for the last four uh meetings, and it's been it's been really cool. I've I've dealt with you know back step back um variances, temporary use variances. So I'm learning a ton about the zoning and ordinance um on this board. So it's it's been great. But yeah, that's kind of the the top top view. I've just I've I've fallen in love with the city and I want to see it succeed going into the future.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and so for people that aren't familiar with this the zoning board of appeals, it's the only body in Klaus and governance that has alternates, which is kind of like a bullpen. So off the top of my head, I can't, it's five people, five people on the zoning board of appeals, and I think two alternates, right? Yes. That's in case someone is absent. You make a call to the bullpen and uh bring in your your alternate. Exactly. And uh just because I'm a civics nerd and I love this kind of stuff, and people listening may wonder why why do we have alternates on the zoning board of appeals and not another governing body? Do you know the reason? I actually don't. Here's the reason the zoning board of appeals, folks, take notes, is a quasi-judicial body. It actually has a subpoena power.
SPEAKER_01:This I did know.
SPEAKER_00:So, yeah, so the zoning board of appeals has the authority to overturn the zoning ordinances. So uh, Mike, this is I don't know this for a fact, but you don't want a body that has that kind of power to to be short to members, you know, when there's an important vote, or not have people show up or not be able to have a meeting because you don't have a quorum, right? Exactly. So yeah, that's that's a little closing government government trivia for y'all out there that may not be aware.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, and I I learned so much. I did a workshop, Oakland County. Uh the county put on a great workshop uh a few months ago. It was a three-hour workshop. The uh city sponsored it, and it was so eye-opening how important it is, because you yeah, you can if you don't have the right people up there, if you're not, you know, looking at variances very carefully, you could be changing, you know, things about your city that are unintended, you know. Like you got to stick to your master plan, and you know, you got to use the ZBA in you know minute areas because you don't want to just be approving everything. So I learned a ton about how important ZBA is, and so it makes me, you know, I I want to prepare hours before I get to those meetings so that I'm making the best decision for the 12,000 residents of the city.
SPEAKER_00:So well, tell us about your day job because the ZBA uh does not pay. Well, it probably pays enough to buy a cup of coffee, right? Uh so you've and you just bought a house and you're getting married next year, so uh what how do you make your living?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I am in the auto industry. I've been in the auto industry ever since I uh graduated from Oakland University. Um and so I I work at an automotive supplier right now. I'm what you call a resident slash application engineer. So I I sit at the OEM, so I sit at General Motors, um, and I am kind of the voice of the customer over there. So I'm the I'm the in between my company and our and our uh customer. So I'm interested. I take the voices of both and make sure we're you know on the same page.
SPEAKER_00:Interesting.
SPEAKER_01:So and I and I see that as kind of uh I can use those skills that I've learned in that job for city council because you know I I'm gonna be the voice of the customer, quote unquote, for our residents. So when when they need their voice heard, I need to be able to amplify that, right? So I view that as, you know, a good skill set that I've learned over the past eight years and something that'll translate into city council.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And that that I that's a good point because most of the engineers that I've known, whether they work at uh one of the auto companies or one of the suppliers, they're always grouchy with the people at the on the other side. So you you get to be the guy, you know, who deals with you know General Motors being grouchy with the suppliers and suppliers being grouchy with General Motors.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. I'm like, guys, we can come to a solution together, you know. It doesn't have to be that cutthroat. So but but yeah, and I'd love that. And I, you know, I outside of my job, I you know, I volunteer at my church. I'm I'm very music, music and nature are my it is a little you know, a little side thing. It's not nitty-gritty business here for city council. I I love singing and playing guitar, so that's my you know, that's my relief after work, on top of you know, watching city council meetings and planning commission meetings. But uh, but yeah, so yeah, work in the auto industry and love to volunteer for my community.
SPEAKER_00:All right. Yeah, one more, one more kind of personal question. I uh you know, I've got uh I mentioned this in another interview. I'm reading Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, which came out I think in the 90s. Yeah. It's a great sociological study on the decline of civic engagement in the United States, and I'm reading it because I actually vacationed in his hometown this summer and found on Wikipedia. Oh, Robert Putnam's from here. So that's in in my conversations with family and friends over the last two months. I've been bringing up this book, Bowling Alone. What are you reading right now? Where are you getting your information?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so what am I reading right now? So I'm I like to, like I was telling you, I like to stay up to date on what's going on locally for me. That's you know, I feel like I have the most tangible impact on that. So I read crank cranes a lot. So, you know, the div what's what's developing here, what's what's the dollars and cents of our community, what new businesses are coming, how are employment numbers looking. So I I enjoy reading that. I I also like enjoying the the the council pack, all the packets for our city. So like if for people that don't know, you can go online. I don't know the exact website, but there are folders for every single committee, board, commission, council, pub, all public notices are up there. And so I I love reading everything about that. Because that's uh if if elected, that's that's gonna be my duty, is to you know, educate myself. I'm not just going there to, you know, put a stamp on something. It's like people are looking to, you know, the city council to make the most educated decisions for their pocketbooks, for their way of life. And so that's I've I've been doing that for a couple years now. That's I I enjoy that.
SPEAKER_00:The meeting packets are voluminous.
SPEAKER_01:There's a lot of info in there. You go to the bills, you see. There's a lot of reading sheets. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:They are I think about whose job is it to put all that together.
SPEAKER_01:You know, we got some good administrations.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. So there are a few thousand people who live in Clawson who are eligible to run for office, but only 14 of them said, okay, I'll do it. And you're one of them. Sure. Why you and why now?
SPEAKER_01:I ask myself that every day. Why am I doing this? What why am I putting myself through this? It's a lot, especially a first, you know, first time doing this. But I I quickly remind myself why I am doing this. It's a very important election. I started getting involved during the special election, and you know, that that was a hot button issue. People have strong opinions on that. And you know, I had a strong opinion on that too. And once that passed, to open it up to two more people, I was like, I gotta put my name. Like, you know, if if if not me, who you know, people say, Well, we need higher quality, you can't like I want to be the change that I want to see in my community. So, hey, I want to give people a choice. Like, hey, if you like what I'm selling, give me your vote. So that's it was really the special election that that really started getting me involved. And then it's perfect for your podcast here. You put on the called the city council workshop, how to run workshop. But for those at home who don't know, Brad put on a a wonderful workshop at a local church and brought in a bunch of local elected officials that have run successful campaigns, and it gave me the confidence. Well, the literature, the packets you gave us, gave me the confidence like, hey, I can do this because it's very daunting just looking from the outside in. You gotta do yeah, you gotta get your uh tax ID number, the IRS is involved, all these like you know, steps. In going to the workshop, I was like, you know what, I can do this. I I have a sub I I got my fiance, I got I got support system, I got people that are behind me. I can do this, they can help me. So that was that's how it all started. Was you know, not that long ago, actually.
SPEAKER_00:That's gratifying to hear.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. So thank you.
SPEAKER_00:It's I was talking to somebody about that workshop. I can't remember who. It wasn't somebody who went through the workshop, but it was someone else who ran for office, and they were talking about it's as if they don't want you to run. You you have to kind of hunt and peck and go all over the place as if they don't want you to run for office. And so that's what I my idea was how is there like a step-by-step process that you can give people to actually be like, okay, now I can see the roadmap. I just have to follow this map, and then I can get on the ballot. So that's gratifying to me. Thank you. Thank you for the compliment.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Let's say you do get elected. Could you name one or two people after whom you would most like to resemble? How you go about the work of being an elected public official, and what about their habits and style appeals to you?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's a great question. I would say somebody close to home, my probably my father. He he's retired now, but he was a senior manager at at Stellantes, managed a ton of people, had to make hard decisions all the time, you know. Hard decisions for the people who worked for him and you know, for the the dollars and cents of his his organization. And he he always uh made those decisions with integrity and wasn't afraid of making the hard decisions, too. That you he you you know some decisions are unpopular, but you know your org it's it's what's right for the people. And so I've I've looked to that as inspiration, how I live my life and how I would, you know, how I'd run my you know business on city council. You know, people aren't always gonna agree with you, people aren't always gonna love how you're how you're doing things. But if at the end of the day you can look yourself in the mirror and say, I am truly trying to make the best decision for my neighbors, I I can live with that, you know. So my father, yeah, he's role model and just watching him work, it's uh it's inspiring. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's good to go with dads to that question.
SPEAKER_01:If you're listening, love you, Dad.
SPEAKER_00:So let's get down, yeah. Dad, you better be listening. Your son's running for office here. So let's get down to the nitty-gritty of governing the city of Claus. And what is one thing about how the city works that the public ought to know, but most folks don't know. And how might we change that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's that's a that's a big question there. First, my knee jerk is all the all the info's out there. Like I, you know, I'm I'm in the Facebook groups and stuff, and I you know, I try I try to, if somebody's got a question, what's going on with Sean? What's going on with this? I try like educate like this is what's going on. Hey, or what's you know, what's the Elmwood construction? When's that happening? Oh, here's it's you know the information's out there for people, but I don't think they know where to look sometimes. It's not well publicized. You know, so I'll I'll see you know our Instagram account will post the the front page of the agenda or something. But I want I want uh an educated an educated community is you know gonna be able to voice their opinions better, get their ideas across to the our elected officials. So I want to somehow make it so easily accessible, people just fall fall into it basically because it's there's so much info and it answers a lot of the questions that people have that you know they're frustrated, they're like, what the heck? Why why yeah why can't I find this? And I get it, that's super frustrating. So really educating our educating neighbors, educating constituents on how to find this information so that they can voice their opinion better. The more information they have, the better we are off. So making making being as transparent as possible and making sure the information's very easily accessible.
SPEAKER_00:Do you have any ideas? I because I agree with you, it's all there. Yeah, you really kind of have to know how to look for it though sometimes. Yes. And I think there's gotta be a more intuitive way to do this. And I haven't come up with any ideas yet. I wonder if I wonder if you can solve the problem right now on this podcast.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's probably not gonna happen today, but I would say so social media is a great way to get people get people involved. A lot of people are you know in the Facebook groups, a lot of people are on are following our Instagram page now. So I want to give credit where credit's due. Uh the admin's doing a good job of you know building up portals, interactive things. Like they have a great, they started, I think it was the assistant city manager, Nick, him and his team, they started a page, it's like closing development. It's very easy. It's just like, you know, this is up for a variance, this is up for a rezoning. And it's just tabs and you can see the addresses, you can see the packets. So I think continuing that, yeah. I want to see one day, like our neighbors to the north, Troy, they have a really nice uh development map where it's a map, and yes they do. The property's outlined, you can click on it, the agenda's there, the date that it was approved, or not that I think we're getting there. And we're doing uh we're doing great, great work with what resources we have. But yeah, I think that sort of thing, just making it so silly easy to get to, is how we're gonna get people that information.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Good answer. All right, so let's let's move on to something more challenging. As in I want you to pick what you think is one of the biggest, most consequential challenges we face here in Clausen. Now tell us why that challenge is so big and consequential, and then I want you to put on your teacher hat and give us the the 101 on the challenge. How did it emerge? What's feeding into it, and how might we as a community and city government working together do something about that challenge in the years ahead?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's a that's a great question. I think there's a couple. I'll start with start with one. But it's gonna be the it's gonna be how we uh develop Klaus and going forward. As people know, you know, there's there's a lot more pressure now. It seems like I don't know if people didn't know about Klos and how special we were, but it's we're getting a lot of attention now. You know, the the PUDs are coming in, more projects are asking for variances.
SPEAKER_00:So explain a PUD for those that don't know what that is.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so it's a planned unit development, and basically what it is is it's if if our current zoning ordinance doesn't allow something special that a developer wants to build under, they can apply for a PUD. And but it goes through way more approval processes. Excuse me. And so because you're you're getting relief on a lot of our laws, our local laws. And so you're expected to provide something substantial for the community. Yeah, and I I I think that's PUDs are a good way to get special things in our community. We just need to make sure we're we're getting what we want, not what you know, we need to balance what the developers want with what our community wants. So that's gonna be extremely important going forward because I uh we have some, you know, we have some vacant property around here, and I I guarantee you developers are gonna be coming in and trying to trying for PUDs, trying for you know variances. We need to make sure we're getting what we want as a community and balancing it with you know them being able to make a profit because they need to make money to develop, but it it can't it cannot encroach on our you know quiet neighborhoods and quiet way of life. So and in addition to that, also except on 4th of July. That's right, we're cool with that. That's just a fantastic.
SPEAKER_00:We save it all up for we save it all up for that week.
SPEAKER_01:Just exactly bear with it for three days longer than that, but but yeah, and also in addition to that, protecting the green space, because you know, there's a lot of impervious surface, you know, there's there's a lot of concrete around, and we have, you know, we have we have combined sewers, and so you know, water runoff's important, protecting our green space for you know, community gathering space, that's super important to keep that sense of community going. So it's gonna be a balancing act. It's we're gonna have to we're gonna really have to take our time with it. We don't want to rush into anything. We have our master plan as a guide, and I think you know, our boards and commissions and council be are well well tooled up to take on the take on the challenge. But yeah, it's gonna take everybody paying attention and voicing their opinions to make sure it's done right.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'm gonna ask you to give an example of a of a PUD that maybe people around town would be familiar with, so they can be like, oh, I see what that is.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, sure. I think we right now we have for sure note two, 150 North Main is the one that is the old PNC building, and then there's one on Roth in Maine. That's a that's a smaller one. Uh the 150 North Main one, that's gonna be, I don't know, I think it might be 60 or 70 units or whatever it is. So it's gonna be it's gonna be a big it's gonna be a big deal. Yeah, but it's gonna be a it's gonna be good. It's it's gonna bring a ton of people to our local businesses, hopefully bring some more families in, you know, children for our schools, because we need our school system to succeed. So the more the more families we have, the better. But yeah, those are the two ones that off the top of my head, but there's some I've I've seen some in our surrounding community, not in our community, but ones in the surrounding communities that are they don't fit the area. There's there's single family homes just right next to them and just completely towering over them. They're getting, you know, huge variances for for parking. There's a balance, and we need to make sure we find that here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, one of the weird things about Clausen is because it's this it's two square miles, is the way everything's mashed together here. So in my neighborhood where I live, we we live close to that Crooks corridor where you have a lot of factories, like industrial buildings, right? And those mash right up against homes on Elmwood and what is that? Uh Kennelworth. Yes. Elmwood and Kinilworth, right? So those those homes back right up to the you almost can't help it because we're landlocked and we can't spread out, and so everything is gonna end up on top of each other. And that's you're you're talking about plan unit development that gives a everybody listening, is a pretty good example of the kinds of trade-offs we have to figure out how to make here. It's awesome.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. It's total trade-offs. And I mean, my thing is our neighborhoods are very special, and we need to make sure that any any development that's happening, any puties that are happening, is not encroaching on you know somebody who's lived there four years.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And they don't want their you know sunset taken away. You need to make sure that's protected.
SPEAKER_00:It's tough.
SPEAKER_01:It is tough.
SPEAKER_00:All right, so that's a challenge. Let's talk about opportunities. Give us a crash course on one of the biggest opportunities ahead of us right now. What opportunity, if city government and the residents can come together over the next term or two and take action on it, will be a real game changer for Clausen now and for generations to come.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I guess I will continue with what we were just talking about. With with some of the, you know, some of the areas in our downtown are a little disconnected right now. Like, you know, west side, west side of Fort, west of Maine and Fort Team. There's a couple, there's some gaps there. We have the opportunity to fill in these gaps and make it extremely walkable, extremely continuous, you know, where somebody can go to Gusnug, go shop for apparel, and they just they just keep walking down the line and just hitting all of our businesses. So we have an opportunity to add, carefully add housing because our if you look at the census, our population is unfortunately declining in class. So it's I we have to we have to add residents, we have to bring in people for the school system, we have to bring in people for the school small businesses like we're sitting in right now. That is that's gonna be incredibly, incredibly important that we we add the right housing. You know, we don't want we don't want 20 story apartment complexes downtown, but you know to add the right housing that we want that brings in you know the families. And brings in this more small businesses that we're we're known for. That's the draw. You know, people can go to Weiss, people go to Grand River. And if we can add more housing where people can just walk, just walk, walk home. They work down maybe it's a work-from-home situation. They work after work, cave, weiss. I think that that'll make our downtown very special.
SPEAKER_00:I think I've been to a lot of, you know, I've been to, I don't want to say a lot, I've been to planning commission meetings, I've been to city council meetings, of course I was on the zoning board of appeals, and I paid attention to campaigns and what people talk about. And there's been a a lot of concern about the multi-unit housing going in downtown. Sure. You've mentioned a couple of those projects right there. Clausen's population is declining because you know, back when we were at our peak, you'd have a family of five or six living in the housing stock that we have now, which is fairly small housing stock. But you know, those kids grew up, moved away, people aged in place, families aren't as big anymore, so you're not having three or four kids, you're having one or two. And Americans just want bigger houses these days. So folks might move to Clausen and think, well, that's a nice starter home. But once we, you know, once we have a second kid, of course we're gonna move to Troy, you know, and get a bigger house. So where we've talked a lot about multi-unit housing in Clausen, I feel like one of our other challenges is that the housing stock that we have is just not what the market wants these days. And we in another interview that I had with another candidate, we talked about your housing lots. When you take a house down and you replace it with a bigger house, you've got a long, skinny lot, and so all you can do is is build up. And so what kind of trade-offs are we willing to make to steady our population, you know, maybe even make it the kind of place that can grow a little bit in the years ahead.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Yeah, no, and I I think a little bit of density in the downtown isn't a terrible thing, because there's people I'm I'm 30 years old, people my age, like you know, uh engineers, good jobs, they're they're getting married, they're living in apartments, like in but like high-end apartments. So it's it's not so much even like a middle ground. It's that's what they're choosing. They like being able to live in a downtown and being able to walk everywhere. That's just what a subset of my generation really wants. But I do think we have we're we have a a pretty good blend here. Like we got the Schalm and Baker projects going up. So you're gonna have, you know, you're gonna have bit larger 20, 2,500, 3,000 square foot houses for larger families. And then we have our you know, our starter home, the one that I'm in, you know, thousand square foot uh thousand square foot bungalow for for the starter homes. So I I think it's important that we have a little bit of everything for, you know, because we don't I don't know exactly who wants to move to Clausen, but I want to make sure we have the housing that they want. So I think that's important.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I drive by the I drive by the Lindsay Center every day on Crooks. It's office Troy's converting a lot of office space there on the Big Beaver corridor to high-end residential, which they their master plan is they're trying to create density along Big Beaver and trying to kind of create that downtown, that downtown feel that people your age I still think I'm your age, but I'm not, are are looking for. So, what's one thing you think would improve how city council functions in service to the people of Klaus? And and I mean this apart from how personalities manifest on the council, you cannot control that. But what changes might make city council better at representing the desires and needs of the people and better at deliberating and deciding on the people's business?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, like I was saying earlier, we need to make sure the residents have the information that city council does, so it's you know, so that they can make informed decisions, make voice informed opinions, and so that they can show up to city council meetings feeling empowered. I I don't want I don't want people coming to city council feeling like they somebody's hiding information from them or something. So so improving the transparency is paramount. The more more residents involved in the decision-making process, the better. So I want to make sure because there's some, you know, some of the ZBA meetings, I just the petitioner shows up in some city. There's been a lot more people at city council meetings lately. So that's you know, encouraging to see. But you know, when I I want to make sure our outreach is incredible, that we are we are getting our voice heard to people that hey, come come join us at city council. We want you to be a part of the decision-making process. And then on a little side note, I really I really want to do some outreach for our boards and commissions. I rather than just letting people find it and stumble upon it, I want to do some recruit, you know, recruit like like a job, you know. How do you get the best talent for a job? You post a job listing, you you do a you invest a little money to go out and you know find the best talent. Because I I want the best, most informed, best talent on our planning commission, zoning board. I mean, I want them full too. Some of you know, we we have some openings on some of them. So I want to, you know, for the people that really come to city council meetings, like, hey, like you might be good for planning, you might be good for ZBA. You you might be you might be good for parks in Rec. You seem passionate about that. So doing some sort of, you know, even if it costs a lot of money, do some community outreach, invest some money into finding people who are super passionate about these things. Because that's that's what this community deserves.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, for sure, for sure. All right, so let's have some fun here with this last question. I my wife and I, we've lived here, it'll be 13 years, actually, it just turned 13 years last week.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_00:Uh yep. And so we've we have all kinds of ideas for Klaus, and some are just kind of crazy off-the-wall things. And the example I've given in the other interviews is at Christmas time, everybody's got lights on their house, and we drive by City Park because we live in that neighborhood, and it's all dark out there. And my wife, Tracy, is just like, man, wouldn't it be awesome if we just decked out that entire park in Christmas lights? Just Christmas lights. It'd be like this winter wonderland, you know, and everybody would go hang out there and I'd sign up for that. You know, bonfires and you know, chestnuts roasting and caroling and all that. Yeah, you know. So it's just like, ah, we don't have the energy, money, or time to put that together. But let's say that a wealthy benefactor just gave us a blank check here in Clausen to make something for the whole community to enjoy. All right, so have fun with this. What what would be your idea to make something awesome for everyone in the city if if money was not an issue?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, I I like your idea. You know, string some lights across all the buildings downtown, do the Rochester style, you know, downtown lights or something like that. My mine's a mine isn't as fun, but I think it's very impactful actually. I want to I want to uncombine our sewer systems. I know it's not fun, it's not, it's not, you know, huge playgrounds and roller coasters or something. I want to uncombine our sewer systems because that's one of the that's one of the big reasons why we have so many flooded basements. And I I I can I've had people come up to me and like you know, after League of Women voters, tell me about their flooded basements. I'm like, this is crazy. Like we live in such a beautiful city, and we still have people that are have their every rain event, their basement flooded. And for those, those of you at home who don't know, our Klaus and sewer system is combined, meaning the wastewater from our homes goes into the same pipe that stormwater runoff goes into, which leads to you know the system being overwhelmed when we have large rain events. And that the sum of I don't even want to know the sum of money that it would take to you know uncom do separate systems like some of our neighbors do. But yeah, I I just think our city deserves to the residents deserve to not have their basements flooded every time it rains. So if I had a blank check, I would do that. It's you know it's not too, it's not as fun, but it's a it's more of a necessity. So yeah, I would do that.
SPEAKER_00:And what I'll say is that these interviews, because I asked the same questions, they're designed to to let the candidate kind of riff and and lead the conversation in a direction that the listener gets a feel for how the candidate thinks. So you failed the last question because it is supposed to be fun, but this is what you say, and you've you've given me an opportunity to ask a follow-up question that I think is really important for everyone to ponder here in Clausen. And I get it because when we had the flood of 2014, okay, 11 years ago, uh our crawl space, we it's encapsulated, it turned it into a giant waterbed because there was all this water under the encapsulation. It was like being on a waterbed. So I get nervous. I I don't like getting nervous when it rains. I like rain, you know. Yeah, I know. I don't want to be like, oh man, is this gonna the same bread? But here's a question for you because somebody else brought this up. Because we're part of the 12 towns drainage system, I don't know that we could separate uh wastewater from stormwater. Because as as since we're tied into that system, aren't we kind of stuck with the system that we've got with the 12 towns?
SPEAKER_01:You're you're pretty much right. It it unfortunately, and from what I'm not an expert in, you know, sewage and wastewater management, but from what I've heard is it basically it to some extent, it doesn't matter what we do, but we're down, we're downhill from some of our neighbors, basically. And so it we have to rely on what they do too. So it almost has to be a there has to be a huge collaboration to really make an impact. Because like, you know, I it I hate that residents come up to the the podium for meetings and they say, like, come on guys, do something about this. Like, this is stressful. That was trust me, if five times in four years, my basement I'm at D Awar, so I I did my basement myself. If I had to do that five times over, I'd get so discouraged.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you just wouldn't ever get to use your basement. You'd just be like, I give up. It'd be a crawl.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I just converted.
SPEAKER_00:My basement is a retention pond, hot tubs.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, exactly. Basically, a whole swamp. So I hate that, you know, all we have to tell them right now is basically that's just how it is. So we gotta we gotta put our thinking camps on and give a better answer. So you're right though, yes.
SPEAKER_00:Not fun, but worth talking about. See, yeah, now you've thrown me off my game because these are supposed to end with happy, you know, sorry, not be great, you know, kind of things. And and instead we gotta walk wall.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I'm an engineer, so I'm uh you know, I'm solution numbers driven. I look for the problem and I want to make solutions for it, so that's that's what I'm all about.
SPEAKER_00:All right, well, the whole interview has been fun. I'm sitting here at Kave Cafe in downtown Clausen with Aidan O'Rourke. He is running to complete Matthew Benkowski's four-year term, which started in 2025. Matt Benkowski, and I quote, fell in love and uh moved out, moved out of Claussen for love. And uh Aiden is one of two candidates running to complete his term through November 2027. Aiden, thanks for having a cup of coffee with us today.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. Thank you so much, Kavey, for the latte, and thanks for having me, Brad. It was a pleasure talking to you.
SPEAKER_00:It's been a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for listening to this episode of Coffee with Clausen Candidates. Remember to check out the other 13 Clausen candidates in the other 13 episodes. And if you found this podcast to be valuable to you, please share it with a neighbor in Clausen. Don't forget to support our local sponsors who made this podcast possible. Special thanks to Blair Memorial Public Library, the Clausen Historical Museum, and Cave Cafe, all in Clausen, for letting us record 13 of the 14 episodes at their locations. Make sure you go visit every one of them and tell them thank you. The Coffee with Clausen Candidates Podcast is written, directed, hosted, recorded, and edited by B.T. Irwin, and produced by James Flanagan at Podcast Your Boys Studios in Southfield. Visit the Clausen City Elections page at cityofclauson.com to learn how, when, and where to cast your ballot this fall. We'll post a link in the show notes. Get out there and vote, Clausen. Until next time, grace and peace to you and all your Clausen neighbors.
