Millhaven — The Millhaven City Council voted 7–0 Tuesday to formally raise awareness of the city's deteriorating stormwater infrastructure, and then immediately adjourned, with members describing the unanimous resolution as "a real watershed moment" and "honestly more than most cities do."

The resolution, titled Acknowledging the Existence and General Nature of the Stormwater Problem Facing Millhaven and Its Residents (Non-Binding), passed after eleven minutes of deliberation and was met with sustained applause from the dais. No funding was allocated. No committee was formed. No timeline was established.

"People forget that awareness is really the hard part," said Council President Donna Featherwick, signing the resolution with a pen she then pocketed as a keepsake. "Before tonight, residents may not have known there was a problem. Now they do. That's government working."

When a reporter noted that residents had been submitting flooded-basement complaints for six consecutive years, Featherwick said that those residents had been "ahead of the curve" and deserved recognition.

"We have moved the needle from 'unaware' to 'aware.' What happens next is frankly a conversation for a future council."

The resolution was drafted with assistance from Dr. Clement Orbus, Senior Fellow in Symbolic Municipal Gestures at the Tri-County Institute for Governance Optics, who testified that awareness-based solutions now account for roughly 34 percent of all local government activity nationwide, up from 21 percent in 2019.

"The literature is very clear," Dr. Orbus told the council. "Once a governing body acknowledges that a thing is bad, the average constituent experiences a measurable reduction in the desire to hear more about it. You've essentially inoculated the public against further urgency. That's not nothing."

The council did briefly consider a follow-up resolution that would have raised awareness of the original resolution's passage, but tabled it pending a feasibility study on whether Millhaven's awareness infrastructure could handle the additional load.

Councilmember Tad Brunelle, who represents the Millhaven Flats district where three streets have been intermittently submerged since 2021, called the vote "a strong first step" and said he looked forward to discussing next steps at a date to be determined by a subcommittee yet to be named.

The full text of the resolution is available on the city website under the tab labeled "Action Items," immediately below a 2017 resolution raising awareness of potholes and a 2020 resolution acknowledging that the potholes remained.

Millhaven's next scheduled council meeting is in six weeks. The agenda currently lists one item: a vote on whether to raise awareness of the backlog of unresolved awareness resolutions.

Flooding season begins in April.