March 2005 Status Report

It is my pleasure to submit my monthly status report for your review and information. If you should have any questions about any of the items listed here, please do not hesitate to contact me.

1. Project 2000 Tax Case

After waiting many months we thought we finally had a hearing date for our appeal on the Tax Commission’s ruling on our Project 2000 tax debate. The hearing was scheduled for April 6th at 10:00 a.m. in Lansing. A week or so after the scheduling, the State’s attorney asked for a postponement as he will be on vacation that week. We are waiting to hear when it will be rescheduled.

2. Contract Zoning

As you will recall, the Legislature recently passed legislation that allowed for contract zoning. The legislation itself is only approximately a page in length, and there seem to be a number of unanswered questions on how best to implement the provisions within the law. In February we received a fax from the Michigan Municipal League with some information regarding the new law. One private consulting firm had done some analysis of the legislation and suggested that the statute is not self-implementing, and that each city should amend its ordinance to specifically authorize this process. This information was supplied to City Attorney Steve Martineau at the time. We have now received an e-mail from a noted municipal attorney from Farmington Hills. He sent this e-mail to the Michigan Association of Municipal Attorneys, and in it he strongly urges municipal attorneys not to use the new contract zoning until some serious constitutional issues associated with its use have been addressed in corrective legislation. Attorney Fisher has already met with other municipal attorneys and developer attorneys, and he has volunteered to draft corrective legislation that eliminates the legal problems so this tool can be safely used by municipalities and developers alike.

Tony Kulick and Steve have talked about these latest developments and have decided to see what happens in Lansing before proceeding further.

3. Union Negotiations

As I have mentioned in previous status reports, we are currently involved in negotiating contracts with the International Association of Fire Fighters, Part-Paid Firefighters and AFSCME. We continue to meet and I would say that we probably have a number of meetings left before we are able to negotiate these contracts.

4. Out Of Town

I will be on vacation the week of March 28th, and Kathie Grinzinger will be at the Commission meeting on the evening of the 28th to assist you in my absence. Kathie will then leave for vacation the next day, and Duane Ellis will be in charge during our absence. Jana can reach me where I am staying for the week, so if something should come up and you need to talk to me, please don’t hesitate to call Jana and she will contact me.

5. Okaya Visit

We continue to plan for the visit of Mayor Hayashi and three other staff people from Okaya. Invitations have been mailed to you for the dedication of the trees and the street signs at Nelson Park on April 18th, and to a dinner to be held that evening. The delegation will be here a total of three and a half days. On Monday we will provide a tour of the city along with the formal dedication ceremonies and dinner in the evening at The Embers. On Tuesday the delegation will be hosted by the Tribe, and on Tuesday evening CMU President Rao and Monica Rao will host a dinner for the delegation and the International Relations Committee. On Wednesday there will be a tour of the University and then a farewell dinner hosted by the International Relations Committee. On Thursday the delegation will be traveling to Detroit to do a little touring and will then leave from the airport on Friday at approximately 3:00 p.m. We are looking forward to their visit.

6. Capital Improvement Projects

As you know we have begun taking bids for some of our capital improvement projects this year. We will be getting more bids for a variety of projects over the next couple of City Commission meetings. Since Duane prepares his own Capital Projects Status Report, I won’t go into any more detail other than to indicate we will have another very busy year.

7. City-County Meetings

As I have mentioned in my last couple of status reports, most of our time has been spent talking about the Family Recreation Center. Our most recent meeting was this past Monday when we prioritized the two percent requests. We will obviously continue to meet with the County on a regular basis to talk about issues of mutual concern, and I will keep you informed as to the topics discussed at those meetings.

8. Public Works Week

National Public Works Week will be held from May 15th through the 21st . In recognition of that week the City of Mt. Pleasant will hold an open house at our Public Works Building on Friday, May 20th, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. You are more than welcome to attend; in fact, I think it would be a good time for you to do your meet-and-greet with people who will be touring the facility. As we get closer to the date we can provide you additional information and maybe even have some times when various members of the Commission could be in attendance throughout the day.

9. Traffic Signal At Crawford And Broomfield

If you have not been out in the southwest quadrant of the City recently, you may not know that the traffic signal has been installed at the intersection. Currently it’s flashing red on Crawford and yellow on Broomfield. As you probably know, it will remain in this mode for a couple of weeks until people get used to its presence, and then it will run on its normal cycle. As you will recall, this was done both to address the traffic at that intersection and in anticipation of the upcoming detour route for the Old Mission Road bridge rebuild.

10. Annual Audit

I mentioned in my last status report that the auditors were in the building doing their portion of the work. They finished that up approximately ten days ago and will now be finalizing their report and submitting it to us for final preparation for your review.

11. Mt. Pleasant Housing Commission

As you know, Judy Green retired at the end of February. Her replacement is Kim Johnson, who has now been on the job for approximately two months. We look forward to working with Kim and her staff in the future.

12. City-CMU Liaison Committee

Our next meeting with the officials at CMU will be on May 12th. That will be our last meeting until the fall term begins. I am sure one of the issues we will discuss will be the proposed improvements along Broomfield Road. When I get additional information on what they and the Road Commission are looking at, I will provide it to you in a subsequent status report.

13. History Of Tribal Two Percent Payments

Jana has downloaded from the Tribe’s website a history of their two percent allocations to area governments and other organizations over the last ten years. As you can see, it is a substantial amount of money, and as you will notice, as of the end of 2003 the City had received almost $9.8 million, and in 2004 we received approximately $750,000 for a total now of over $10.5 million. Obviously these allocations have financed a lot of projects, many of which we would not have been able to do or would have had to delay without their assistance. I would like to extend our thanks to the Tribe for their allocations to us over the last ten years.

14. Downtown Landscape And Parking Consultant Reports

We have received a draft of the landscape architect’s recommendations. Staff has made some comments on their draft plan and we are awaiting their final report. It should be submitted to us some time within the next couple of weeks. With regards to the parking consultant, you saw some of the recommendations in Tuesday morning’s paper. Michelle Sponseller will present a little more detail on their recommendations at the City Commission work session at the first meeting in April.

15. Traffic Issues

A few weeks ago I attended a neighborhood meeting at which some concerns were expressed about traffic along High Street. I just wanted to provide you with a sort of status report on the comments that I heard. One of the concerns was the speed of trucks along High Street. Bill Yeagley informs me that the Traffic Enforcement Team is targeting West High Street to enforce speed limits there. Captain Forsberg contacted the Motor Carrier Division to alert them to our concerns about truck speeds on High Street. The other issue dealt with the change of a Yield sign at Kinney and Locust to a Stop sign. The Traffic Control Committee will be looking at this issue.

16. Michigan Council For Arts And Cultural Affairs

Michelle Sponseller informs me that we have been awarded a $1,000 grant via MICACA as a mini-grant to help sponsor Beyond The Ponds now located in the Central Business District during the summer months.

17. MML Legislative Conference

We had a good City contingent at the Conference this year. Governor Granholm spoke about her future plans for the State to create jobs. Most of what she said was first introduced in her State of the State address. She did indicate that she would protect local state shared revenue in the State’s 2006 budget. Needless to say, this received a lot of applause.