Belleville City Council approves new look for winter tax bill

Belleville Mayor Ken Voigt emphasized that the city taxes are not going up, but the public safety millage will just be allocated on the winter tax bill to make sure police and fire get the funds directly.
At the Sept. 16 regular meeting of the city council, city manager Jason Smith said the resolution setting the tax rate request for the winter billing is required and he recommended shifting the 11.25 mills for public safety into a direct millage to that department.
This is more realistic for the cost of public safety rather than taking public safety from the general fund, an extra step, the way the city has been doing, the mayor said.
Councilman Jeremiah Beebe asked why they are changing this now and city manager Smith said the way it is now the 7.25 mills is captured in full for public safety and the rest needed goes through the general fund. He said that means what goes through the general fund is among those funds up for capture by the Downtown Development Authority, the county, and other entities. The $261,000 captured by the 11.25 mills now would go directly to police and fire without any capture.
“It will take a small chunk out of the DDA budget,” Smith said.
“Nobody will lose any money,” Mayor Voigt said. “This should have been done 25 years ago.”
The operating millage on next summer’s tax will be reduced to reflect the shift of public safety from the summer operating millage to the winter public safety millage.
Smith said the city is allowed to levy 20 mills total and if the city is “handcuffed” it could add a mill here or there for roads. He said now they are bumping 15.8 mills.
“We could add a mill without having to go to a vote of the people,” Smith said.
Mayor Voigt said this makes it more clear where the money is going.
The council voted unanimously for the resolution outlining the change. Absent and excused were councilwoman Julie Kissel and councilman Randy Priest.
In other business at its one-hour-47-minute meeting, the council:
• Approved paying $23,196 for lease and repairs to the Sany front loader, which had been brought to the DPW on demo on the recommendation of former DPW director Tony Bollini. Smith said the former director told Sany the city would buy it. It was to be here two days on demo and the city kept it for two months and now it is dented, scratched, caked in mud inside, and has more than 50 hours put on it. The city received an invoice for pickup and to fix the damage. Instead the city could lease it at $34,000 a year, or buy it outright at $160,000. After much discussion, it was decided the city doesn’t need that piece of equipment, a poor decision was made, and the city just needs to cut its losses and pay for the lease/repairs;
• Approved a $156,000 quote from Hard Rock to piggyback repairing Church Street while they are in town for their work on Harbour Pointe. Hard Rock offered $250,000 to do both Church and Charles, but the city decided on just Church because it was worse. Mayor Voigt said the city can’t pave all the city streets at once without an assessment, so they are doing it piecemeal. Church is expected to be done during the first two weeks of October;
• Approved the bid of Advanced Roofing of Westland at $46,850 to remove and replace the fire department roof. A lower bid of $41,800 from Tri-Star Roofing had an exception added that it would not remove the sign on the north side of the building. There were five quotes. The current roof is estimated to be more than 40 years old. The sign is very heavy;
• Heard city manager Smith say that while he and Mayor Voigt were at Mackinac Island for the Michigan Municipal League conference, the roadworkers in Harbour Pointe blocked traffic into the subdivision for several hours and they tried to handle it from Mackinac Island;
• Heard Victoria Robinson of Belle Villa explain the problems with the modular home park over the last nine years, including skirts not fixed, electrical, trees dying and the park saying the residents have to cut them down, a pond with the pump not working that is now swampy with the park saying the pond is owned by the city, young families with children in the senior section, and over 280 people don’t have security lights at their drives. “I don’t know where to go for help, so I came here,” she said to the council. Mayor Voigt said, for sure, the pond does not belong to the city and for Robinson to leave her phone number and the city manager would look into the situation and get back to her. He said mobile home parks have strong lobbying groups in Lansing and a state agency oversees the parks;
• Heard Valerie Kelley-Bonner of SOOAR give a presentation on Narcan, at the invitation of the mayor. She told how her group distributes Narcan, provided by Michigan Health and Human Services, for her harm-reduction activities. She told how they started with HIV and AIDs prevention activities and now they also work with people who use drugs. It’s not easy to stop drug addiction, but you don’t have to die because you use drugs, she said. She presented a sample ordinance on addiction prevention. She said they meet people where they are and find out their needs and meet weekly with them, knowing their names. She put Ashley Shukait, who was home sick, on the phone and her comments supported Kelley-Bonner. Amy O’Brian, a friend of Shukait, said so far this year, SOOAR has reversed 631 overdoses. Kelley-Bonner gave the council a copy of an Independent story reporting on what VBT adopted in 2021;
• Hear Rick Lawson of the Huron River Watershed Council give a presentation on the nonprofit that was organized in 1965 to protect the Huron River waters from Oakland County to Lake Erie, including Belleville Lake along the way. They are now working on a residential rain garden project for Belleville and Brighton. They have had some hearing sessions at the library in Belleville and are going door to door in some parts of town to survey the interest. He said they offer free rain garden assessments to people and the upcoming rain garden course in January and February to show how to do it. They tried to offer the survey in Van Buren Township but were told there is a no-soliciting ordinance and they can’t go door to door, so they moved back to just Belleville for the project. The rain gardens capture water and it goes into the ground before it gets to drains. He said it’s not hard to do and collectively the gardens can do a lot in cleaning up the lake water; and
• Moved the proposal on ATI Workstation Assessments and Ergonomic Training to the next meeting. The physical therapy study deals with making sure everyone is in the right chair.