Duty crew, law suit settlement discussed in VBT

During a brief public hearing on the 2015 amended budgets and 2016 proposed budgets at the Nov. 17 meeting of the Van Buren Township Board of Trustees, two members of the audience wanted to talk about fire department duty crews.
No one addressed the VBT General Fund Budget revenues estimated at $11,179,154 in 2016 or the proposed expenditures for 2016 of $14,368,353.
The fire department duty crew was the issue.
The board had no immediate comment on the substance of an email from the board’s contract attorney stating the board was going to drop duty crews from the fire department. But at the end of the meeting Clerk Leon Wright explained the financial problems in covering the Public Safety Department budget.
A duty crew is a two-person team at each fire hall that is on duty for 12 hours and then the next crew is on duty for 12 hours – giving 24-hour, seven-day coverage. This give immediate response to calls, rather than waiting for fire fighters to come from their homes to respond.
The board was cutting out duty crews because voters turned down the 6.5-mill tax proposed in the Nov. 3 election, said the Nov. 13 email from VBT’s insurance/contract attorney Ethan Vinson, who was seeking a date for a discussion on the matter with fire department union officials.
The letter was sent to four individuals, but by the weekend it had been emailed throughout the township.
The letter started out: “As you may be aware, the Public Safety Mileage (sic) Proposal was voted down in the recent election. As a result thereof, the township Board has decided to implement certain cost reduction measures. One of which will be the elimination of the duty crew…”
John Delaney commented from the audience that voters voted in 2007 for 4 mills for fire department “boots on the ground” 24/7 and a five-beat police patrol system, and the five-beat system never materialized.
“We voted to keep the duty crew,” Delaney told the board. “… Now your thoughts are of dropping the duty crew … we got lied to again.”
Don Schoenberger got up and read the whole email from Ethan Vinson and then said, “To me, that’s a scare tactic.”
“It’s an outright bait and switch, an out and out lie,” Schoenberger said of the plan to close down the duty crews when people were told they would have duty crews.
He said the fire chief wants a secretary you could call to say there’s a fire, but they’ll be nobody to go to the fire.
He chastized the board for considering giving themselves a raise in pay. He said the board wanted more pay because the directors’ pay is close to theirs. That board raise had been taken out of the budget.
“You say you need money, but everbody gets a raise,” he said of the across-the-board 1.5% pay raises for employees in the 2016 budget.
“People should not be getting a raise in salaries. So underpaid? Quit! You are making more than people in the city of Detroit with 700,000 population,” Schoenberger said.
“You want more money for public safety and give everbody raises!” he repeated, saying they are using scare tactics.
“You have the unmitigated gall to ask for pay raises,” Schoenberger said. “Not one person in this township is not making enough money to live good on.”
Treasurer Sharry Budd, who was chairing the Nov. 17 meeting in the absence of Supervisor Linda Combs, invited Schoenberger to come in to the office and talk to board members about the details.
“We never heard that from our Supervisor,” Schoenberger said of the invitation. “We talk to the wall.”
“Come in and talk,” Treasurer Budd repeated. “It’s the supervisor’s budget, but we can talk about it.”
She said they can have Public Safety Director Greg Laurain, and Deputy Director-Police Jason Wright and even representatives of the fire department come in and talk to him about the issue.
Schoenberger said he loves Treasurer Budd and he thinks Director Laurain is the best person for the job he’s in, but he gets frustrated.
“Please call,” Budd said.
The statements by Delaney and Schoenberger were the only comments under the nine-minute public hearing for the amended 2015 budgets and proposed 2016 budgets.
When the meeting got to Public Comment, Schoenberger wanted to talk about the $650,000 settlement in the VBT civil rights law suit.
“I don’t understand how the director is telling police officers to evacuate a building without a court order,” he said.
He said anyone in a public post doing that should be fired. He said then they go back and harass this guy, referring to the owner of the motel.
Schoenberger said in a corporate world those responsible would be fired because the suit lost hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“Who gives that director of development the right to do that?” he asked.
“We did get it stopped,” Budd said. “We have policies in place so that will not happen again.”
Trustee Phil Hart said the board asked how can this series of events happen? He said it is a lesson learned so this will never, ever happened again.
Clerk Leon Wright said the township is not out $100,000 for the insurance deductible. He said the township’s insurance carrier, MMRMA, has a Stop-Loss program and the township pays $75,000 for deductibles for the year.
“This is the first time I’ve heard you’re as outraged as I am,” Schoenberger said.
Delaney said an administrative assistant to the supervisor sent out a letter.
“We’ve had 16 law suits since 2010,” Delaney said, adding the township can lose its MMRMA rider.
“We lose a lot of money here,” Delaney said. “Lawyers love to sue out here and we always settle.”
Clerk Wright, who sits on the MMRMA board, said VBT is an individual member of MMRMA and, “Our lookback period is good.” He said MMRMA has no plan to drop coverage and that VBT’s settlements have not been excessive.
“We always settle it,” Budd said of a law suit. She said the MMRMA finance person has a handle on what they will pay.
Clerk Wright said the insurance premium last year was $513,000 and this year it is $486,000 with a $257,000 reimbursement from MMRMA.
Wright said a MMRMA professional discusses what each case is worth. He said in the motel case the plaintiffs started with wanting $1.2 million. The MMRMA didn’t’ want to go to trial and approved the $650,000 settlement.
He said if the township wants to go to trial, the MMRMA says you go to trial at your own risk.
“We were all appalled,” Wright said of what happened to the motel residents. “We were disgusted that that happened.”
In other business at the two hour and 12 minute meeting on Nov. 17 meeting, the board:
• Approved the job description for a part-time administrative assistant for the fire department at a pay of $15 per hour, 24 hours per week. Trustee Jeff Jahr clarified that the board is only approving the job description and not fillling it or approving spending the money;
• Postponed to the next regular meeting approval of the 2016 water and sewer rates and fee schedule for the water department after Delaney said the public wasn’t made aware before this meeting of the proposed 3% water and sewer rate hike. Budd said the resolution could be postponed until the next meeting and anyone with questions could call DPW Director James Taylor. No other fee increases in the water and sewer department are proposed;
• Approved the second (final) reading of an ordinance to rezone a single family residential parcel to C-2, Extensive Highway Business) with conditions and another parcel from C-2 to C-2 with conditions to mmake way for construction of a new motel at the corner of North I-94 Service Drive and Quirk Road;
• Approved the commercial fireworks display by Great Lakes Fireworks as part of the Belleville Area Chamber of Commerce’s Winter Fest activities after the parade on Saturday, Dec. 5;
• Approved the amended and restated VBT Governmental Non-ERISA Retirement Plan as required at regular intervals by the Internal Revenue Service. This does not result in substantive changes to the plan’s operation and will have no new fees, according to the clerk’s office;
• Approved the supervisor’s reappointments of Edward Miller and Joseph Barnabei as full members of the Board of Zoning Appeals with both terms to expire Dce. 1, 2018;
• Approved the 2016 board of trustees meeting schedule and the township’s 2016 holiday schedule, which lists 13 days off;
• Approved department fee schedules with an effective date of Jan. 1, which reflects a 1.5% wage increase over current contracts, a $5 increase in four classes, and $5 increase in all room rental rates. Notary service is free to residents and $5 to nonresidents;
• Confirmed the Local Development Finance Authority appointment of Jelani Karamoko with a term to expire at Wayne County’s descretion. Karamoko replaces a previous appointment as Wayne County representative because that person no longer works for the county;
• Heard Clerk Wright explain the situation with the Public Safety millage. He gave the history of the 4 mills approved for 2008 and how the township valuation dropped in 2012 and so less was coming in. In 2015 there were actual Public Safety Expenditures of $7,022,209 and the millage only brought in $3,486,639, so there was a shortfall of $4,435,570. “We asked for additional funds and 3,500 turned out to vote and turned it down and we have to look at what we are going to do.” He “to secure our current level of services we might have to take a step back to move forward.” He said three gentlemen in the audience (Public Safety officers) and board members have been “banging our heads together” to move forward;
• Heard Delaney said the public safety advisory committee was misguided in putting 6.5 mills before voters, noting a poll would show, “We don’t trust this board.” He said he heard Supervisor Combs’ lie in the LDFA meeting and the LDFA only heard one side. He referred to her saying the millage would give the board 2.5 mills to set aside for the Visteon Bond payments. She later denied she said that. “The township board did not have a grip on what was going on,” Delaney said of the reason he and others voted against the millage. He said to have 3,000 voterrs out of 22,000 registered voters is awful. “The public doesn’t believe the supervisor. We want to hear from the six of you more” referring to the rest of the board;
• Heard Allen Babosh say a citizens’ committee could hold hearings to come up with a proposal to present to the board. “If the public has input, there’s a better chance of passing a millage,” he said. Budd replied that the township can’t be involved in forming such a committee;
• Heard Cejay Marshall say he was a member of the most recent committee of 25-30 people. He said he has written letters to board members every week since they’ve been in office. “Anyone who doesn’t understand the seriousness of it is naïve. “We have a deficit budget using money from the landfill. When it’s full, taxes will go up,” he said, adding 6.5 mills for 7 years is a good step and just approving 4 mills will put the township further behind. “We cannot continue to operate like this. Maybe we should have a public hearing to get out the information,” Marshall said. Trustee Hart agreed that public safety has never been properly funded. He said “for some reason it was turned down.” He said public safety has almost an $8 million budget with only $4 million coming in. “The board will work hard to put something together …” Hart said; and
• Held a moment of silence in memory of Doreen Craven, who had served as township clerk and was one of the first fire commissioners. Her husband Geroge became township supervisor. Mrs. Craven retired from the Belleville Building and Planning Department.