Councilman Voigt says council not interested in defunding public safety

Responding to comments at the July 6 regular meeting of the Belleville City Council, Councilman Ken Voigt said, “We are not at all interested in defunding public safety. That’s not what we intend to do.”
“We never had a conversation on defunding the police department,” Mayor Kerreen Conley agreed. “Our community policing is different than what others see … We know them and appreciate them.”
Several people attended the virtual meeting to discuss the way the council had taken the public safety millage money of $180,000 and allocated it to other spending when it approved the amended budget at the last meeting.
Voigt referred to a letter from M.J. Dawson that was published in the July 2 Independent and said a letter had been delivered to him from Judy Jordan addressed to the mayor and city manager, as a response to Dawson’s letter. He read Jordan’s letter, which said she strongly disagrees with taking money away from the police and fire department and those department need to be fully equipped.
Dawson said she would like an explanation of why funds for public safety were spent on the sea wall, pensions and other things.
“Is this legal?” she asked.
Mayor Conley said all of the tax revenue coming into the city did not cover the needs of public safety, so the millage was levied. The $180,000 that came in was used for public safety-related things, she said, including pension costs. Some funds were earmarked for capital purchases and operations, she said.
“We know there’s an issue with the fire truck,” Mayor Conley said, noting a fire truck costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and it’s not in this year’s budget.
She said Mayor Pro Tem Jesse Marcotte had recommended the city look at options, such as leasing.
Conley said the state revenue sharing is derived from sales tax and during the pandemic people could not go shopping and buy things, except for food which has no sales tax, so there is a reduction of revenues.
She said they were able to present a balanced budget which was adopted at the first meeting in June.
“Our auditors, folks from Plante Morgan are confident this is legal,” she said.
“We spent every penny for police and fire,” Councilman Tom Fielder said, referring to past budgets. “We took money out of services for that.”
He said every department head had an impact on the budget. And there’s a commitment to a fire truck.
“God bless Kelly and the city manager,” Councilman Fielder said. “I couldn’t believe they came up with a balanced budget.” He referred to the Plante Moran consultant and interim city manager Tracey Schultz Kobylarz.
Conley said the city got a grant from the state for a seawall and Dawson’s statement on the seawall was a little bit incorrect.
“Every one who voted for the public safety millage thought it would go to public safety,” Dawson said of last year’s advisory vote.
“To me it looked like money hanging out and you said, let’s use that,” Dawson said, who is an elected member of the Belleville Area District Library Board. “It’s like on the library board if we decided to take the library money to paint three businesses downtown.”
“It looks like a shifting of funds,” said Mayor Pro Tem Marcotte. He said they added a police officer.
He said if they end up getting more from the state, they could look at the funds again. He said $500,000 is a conservative figure for a fire engine and Fire Chief Brian Loranger is actively getting figures for the fire engine.
Fire fighter Chris Zweng said there was a presumption the public safety millage would go for public safety.
“It was a shell game that worked,” Zweng said. “You said nobody ever said it would go to public safety.”
“The city was faced with cuts,” Conley said.
Chief Loranger said the council passed the budget amendment in the last meeting that spelled out where the $180,000 from the public safety millage was allocated.
“I’m the reason the capital equipment plan got put on the budget,” said Chief Loranger, noting he’s been asking for it for six or seven years.
“We could have had a truck by now,” Dawson noted.
Fielder noted the city had a capital fund in 2003 or 2004 and it ended in 2012 or so when everything went south.
“Defunding public safety is far from the truth,” Voigt said.
Zweng said a grant writer was going to get a grant for a fire truck but they didn’t get the information needed from the city.
Marcotte stressed while it is possible to get a grant, nobody can count on getting a grant.
Voigt said he wasn’t happy the grant didn’t go through and there will be investigation into that.
Dawson said about the seawall, there was a shortfall from the grant.
Conley said the work was about $330,000 and the grant was $250,000 and the extra originally came from the fund balance.
She said someone inferred the mayor tried to dissolve the fire department and it cost the fire department a lot of money to hire an attorney and that wasn’t true.
In other business at Monday’s one-hour-and-45-minute meeting, the council:
• Reconvened the June 26 meeting since it had ended abruptly with a technical difficulty before public comment or a motion to adjourn. Mayor Conley said only the people who were at the original meeting could comment under public comment;
• Delayed approval of the June 26 special meeting minutes because they were incomplete. The minutes will be considered once the minutes are finalized;
• Discussed City Manager Kobylarz’s recommendation to sell unused city property by using JNG Auction Services of Belleville for 25% of the gross proceeds. Items include two vehicles formerly used by the fire department, two vehicles formerly used by the police department, contents of the unit attached to city hall, unclaimed property recovered by the police department and unused property at the DPW yard. Marcotte said municipalities usually pay around 10% to have things auctioned off. Those with ideas on this are asked to send them to Kobylarz and she was given until mid August to finalize plans for the sale and for what to do with the empty building next door;
• Discussed at length how to handle the legal firms who had sent proposals for services. Kobylarz said Steve Hitchcock, present city attorney, didn’t send in a proposal because he didn’t know they were going out for proposals. Kobylarz was directed to use Police Chief Dave Robinson and DPW Chief Rick Rutherford and herself as an administrative committee to come up with a recommendation and bring it back to the council. The mayor said there were six proposals. Fire Chief Loranger said his department rarely uses the city attorney but when he was on the city council, Hitchcock was attorney and, in Loranger’s opinion, “basically, he tells the council what he thinks they want to hear instead of what’s best for the city.” Hitchcock was disqualified because the call for proposals specifies a proposal must be presented for consideration;
• Set the hours for the DORA (Designated Outdoor Recreation Area) district as 4-10 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon to 10 p.m. on Saturday, with no hours on Sunday. Kobylarz said she spoke to city attorney Hitchcock about DORA and he didn’t know anything about it. But he called back and said the city was doing everything correctly; and
• Approved accounts payable of $113,329.29 and the following expenditures in excess of $500: to R&R Fire Truck, $5,350.99 for annual service / maintenance and pump/air testing; and to Cadillac Asphalt, $857.90 for road patch from the streets budget.