Michael Dotson reelected chairman of the Van Buren Township LDFA

Michael Dotson, manager of the Wayne County Community College Ted Scott Campus in Van Buren Township, was reelected chairman of the VBT Local Development Finance Authority at its regular meeting Jan. 8.
Doug Peters, retired attorney and artist, was reelected vice-chairman and John Delaney was reelected corresponding secretary.
After Chuck Covington made a motion to reelect the whole slate, Peters said the slate was all male and maybe they should put a female on the slate.
Shareen Barker, financial director for the Van Buren Public Schools, is the only female on the LDFA and she declined, saying she had a lot going on right now.
The board members then reelected the former board one by one.
Ron Akers, director of the VBT planning and economic development department, presented the 2018 Synopsis of Activities of the LDFA, as required by Public Act 57 of 2018, the Recodified Tax Increment Financing Act.
Akers wrote: “The original purpose of the Local Development Finance Authority (LDFA) was to finance and construct eligible public improvements for the Visteon Village project which was completed in 2004.”
He explained how the LDFA established a development plan and tax increment financing plan which identified the improvements, estimated the costs of the improvements and estimated the amount of tax revenue the authority would capture based on the proposed improvements.
In order to finance the construction of the public improvements, the LDFA issued bonds to cover the costs of the improvements and those bonds were guaranteed by the township’s ability to tax.
These public improvements have been completed and the primary focus of the LDFA at this time is the payment of the debt obligations as a result of those public improvements.
The tax increment financing plan overestimated the amount of tax revenue which would be captured by the LDFA and due to this there is a projected shortfall which will occur in 2019.
The Synopsis is required to be put on the LDFA part of the township website after approval.
Peters noted there was no mention of the litigation against Visteon over the shortfall and Akers said he didn’t feel that was a part of the LDFA activities since the township is suing.
Peters asked him to add to the Synopsis that the LDFA continued to support township litigation against Visteon. Akers said he would add that sentence, send the amended Synopsis to Chairman Dotson for approval, and then put it on the website as required.
Also required by the new state law are public information meetings. The LDFA will hold its first Public Information Meeting during the next regular LDFA meeting at 2 p.m., March 12.
After some discussion, Dotson directed Akers to investigate best practices on how other LDFAs handle absences and what makes an absence unexcused. Also, how many absences should there be before a member is removed from the LDFA.
When the VBT LDFA went from one meeting a month to a meeting every other month, the number of maximum absences allowed remained at three. Since there are six meetings a year now, if you missed three that is 50%, Delaney pointed out.
Delaney said one unnamed individual LDFA member has missed three meetings and has yet to be sworn in.
Peters said adjusting the attendance requirements would help the LDFA avoid the quorum problems it has had.
“Non feasance” is the official term for excessive absences, Akers said.
Peters said maybe they should just call this person and find out if he wants to be removed.
Covington said he is negotiating with the Teamsters for his transportation firm and he knows you can’t be making rules for an individual.
Dotson said they will bring back the information to the next meeting and possibly pass a motion to change the bylaws.