June 2005 Status Report

It is my pleasure to submit my monthly status report for your review and consideration. Since we did not hold the June 27th meeting I have prepared this and mailed it to you so you can stay up to date on what is happening in the city. If you have any questions about any items mentioned here or you would like information on subjects I did not cover in this report, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

1. Construction Projects

Construction is moving along well. We have already completed our sewer relining projects and, as you may have noticed, they have paved the northern section of University Street. McGuirk is still working on the southern section from High Street to Bellows. It should be completed in time for return of the students. The new street in Project 2000 is also under construction and will also be completed this summer. The Bradley Street project began this past week, so little work has been done at this point. Our resurfacing project is also underway and should be completed within a few days.

2. Budget Process

We have received and are in the process of reviewing all of the division and department requests. We have also scheduled a series of meetings with the Budget Committee to review the proposed budget. As you may recall from my budget presentation, we set certain parameters for the 2006 budget, and I am pleased to report that the various divisions have been able to meet the targets set for them.

3. Wastewater Treatment Plant Discharge Permit

As you know, we have recently received a proposed permit from the Environmental Protection Agency. As I indicated to you in previous memos on this issue, the discharge limits are pretty much in line with what we currently have, so we don’t see any major problems in meeting those limits. This past week we received a letter from the EPA indicating that they would now schedule the required public hearing on the proposed limits. At this point in time we do not have a date for that hearing.

4. Mission Street Bridge

While this is not our project, I thought you might like a quick update. They seem to be making good progress. The old bridge is completely out and they are now doing the realignment of old Mission Road, making it more of a 90 degree angle to US-127-BR, and they have started erecting steel for the new bridge. As a way of reminder, the project is to take approximately one year.

5. Union Negotiations

Negotiations are proceeding with three of our unions: AFSCME, IAFF and Part-Paid Firefighters.

6. State Shared Revenue

As you know, there was some movement afoot a few weeks ago to cut an additional $20 million from state shared revenue. Fortunately that did not occur, as both the Senate and the House agreed to protect revenue sharing. In fact, they indicated that revenue sharing was one of their top priorities. One of the reasons for their decision to protect revenue sharing dealt with their concern over public safety issues. I learned at an MML meeting on Friday that there are 1,100 fewer public safety officers in Michigan communities than there were in September of 2001. Most of this reduction could be traced directly to budget problems in many of our cities. In fact, there has been some discussion among League staff about trying to tie revenue sharing closer to public safety operations. Nothing firm has been developed along these lines at this time.

7. Rental Inspection Legislation

A bill has been introduced in the House that would restrict our ability to perform rental inspections. Right now we conduct inspections every year, and this legislation would permit us to do it only every three years. It would also limit the items that we can include when we do the determination of the cost of performing the inspections; for example, we couldn’t charge gas, oil and overhead for operation of fleet vehicles. Our new Fire Chief, Greg Walterhouse, testified against the bill a few weeks ago. Bill Yeagley, Greg and I met with Representative Caul a week or so ago and urged him to oppose the bill. My understanding is that it is stalled in the House and may not come up for a vote.

8. Neighborhood Study Committee

You have heard us mention our concern about more and more vacancies in rental units in some of our neighborhoods and in our rental complexes. We have established an in-house committee that is going to look into this issue, and one of their first tasks will be to try to determine as close as we can the number of vacancies that we currently see in the city. We hope to be able to come up with some ideas on how to address this issue.

9. Michigan Municipal League Legislative And Urban Affairs Committee Meeting

On Friday the 24th I attended a committee meeting at which time we reviewed legislation that directly impacts local communities. One of those bills was the rental inspection issue, and that’s where we learned that it may not proceed much further.

There are also some other bills of interest to us. The first deals with a bill that would allow drinking establishments that serve food to stay open later than the normal closing time to continue to serve food. Supposedly this is an issue in the larger communities in Michigan, so that visitors, conventioneers and citizens can enjoy their downtowns longer than the normal 2:00 a.m. closing time. The legislation would be strictly permissive on the part of the city. That means that you would not have to extend the hours unless you choose to do so.

Other pieces of legislation deal with the ability to expand or add on to existing DDA and TIFA districts. This is something that may be of interest to us and to other communities, so the Committee voted to support that legislation. There is also a bill that would consolidate the city, county and township planning acts into one act. While there would be a consolidation of the act, the act itself is nearly 50 pages in length since it clearly spells out the differences and the peculiarities of each of the three entities’ zoning and planning requirements.

I did have an opportunity at the end of the meeting to explain the recent Project 2000 tax case decision and its implication not only for us but for other communities around the state. The League is aware of the decision, and they will be contacting me in the near future so we can talk about possible ways of dealing with this problem through the legislative process.

10. Joint Meeting With Union Township

Just a reminder that a joint meeting with Union Township has been scheduled for July 21st at noon at City Hall to talk about common issues and concerns.

11. Special Meeting

A reminder that there will be a special meeting of the City Commission on July 7th at 4:00 p.m.

12. Hiring Of Part-Time Office Assistant

We have extended an offer to Tammy Bow to become Jana Ervin’s assistant. She plans to start work in the office on July 11th.

13. Traffic Control Orders

The following traffic control orders have been in place since mid-April. Final approval of these traffic control orders will be placed on the July 11th agenda for your consideration.

#6-05: Install “Stop” sign on Michigan Street at Leaton Street, westbound

#7-05: Install “Stop” signs on Kinney Street at Locust Street for both north and southbound traffic

#8-05: Install “No Parking Here To Corner” signs on the east and west sides of Washington Street north of Illinois Street