In a nutshell, the City of Belleville is in pretty good shape. City Council and the City administration have taken many steps to improve our fiscal and operational position, and we have a plan to address the challenges that we still face.
I’d like to give some context regarding how we got where we are today. I apologize in advance for the length of this report, but context is important to consider.
Background
The City has a Downtown Development Authority (DDA). DDAs were created by the state legislature to encourage and implement development and redevelopment in downtowns and thereby increase tax base. This was done at a time in the 1970s when traditional downtowns were fading, and malls and strip centers were taking their place. DDAs are semi-autonomous. They make decisions independently of the municipality they fall within. The Mayor appoints DDA board members with City Council approval and the City Council approves the DDA budget. The DDA district in Belleville encompasses the entire Main Street/downtown area, Belleville’s industrial park, the Columbia Court senior housing facility and the Victoria Commons subdivision. There are several ways that DDAs are funded. Most commonly, DDAs use a mechanism called Tax Increment Financing (TIF), DDAs can also assess up to 2 mils of property tax within their district but Belleville’s DDA does not assess a millage, It is funded solely through tax increment financing. Tax increment financing works as follows. A tax increment finance district was established as part of the DDA. A TIF district can include all or part of the DDA district. In Belleville’s case, the TIF district’s borders are the same as the DDA’s. As of the date that the TIF district is established, (which in Belleville’s case is 1985), the DDA captures the increment of tax that occurs on any improvement within the district. The problem with Belleville’s DDA and TIF districts is that relative to the overall size of the City, they are too large and capture too much of the City’s general operating millage. In the 90’s, the DDA spearheaded the development of Victoria Commons subdivision and at that time a maintenance agreement between the DDA and the City was established to help cover some of the City’s general fund costs within the district. This scheme worked well for the City for many years until approximately 2015 when the DDA board decided to arbitrarily cut the amount of money the City received. This cut along with the accumulated statutory Headlee tax rollbacks and cuts in State revenue sharing which occurred several years earlier caused the City to make several cutbacks. As such, the police department operated at less than full strength (including having a part time police chief), as did the Department of Public Works. In addition, a great deal of deferred maintenance occurred and many public works projects that would have been small jobs if done in a timely manner became bigger jobs and thus much more expensive. The city’s parks, Hillside Cemetery and other public areas were overgrown and looked unkempt. In addition, the City’s engineers declared that the City’s streets were in generally poor condition and that to bring them up to be in good condition would be prohibitively expensive. The City also cut back on important programs such as street sweeping and fall leaf pickup.
In 2019, the City Council decided that things had become critical and under then Mayor Conley’s leadership, the City’s pressing fiscal issues began to be addressed. The Council conducted an advisory vote by the citizens, and they approved an increase to the public safety millage. Additionally, under former City Manager Robinson, the maintenance agreement between the City and the DDA was renegotiated, and that funding was increased. Many other things have been done to improve the City’s fiscal position since then including establishing a capital purchase fund and implementing a 5-year capital purchase plan. The City also recently began investing in the Michigan Class Fund, which pays a competitive rate of interest on the City’s funds until they are needed for expenses. This will provide a not so insignificant additional stream of income for the City. In addition, the City has engaged a grant consulting firm and has aggressively sought out appropriate grant funding for various purposes. Most recently and by example, the City received a grant to cover most of the cost of a sorely needed new fire truck, a relatively modest grant for street improvements in Harbor Point Subdivision and received a $750,000 grant from the State Legislature to fund necessary improvements to the lake bank at Horizon Park on High Street. The City Council and administration are focused on securing further grant funding where available and in creatively leveraging the revenue that we collect to make necessary improvements.
Department of Public Works
In 2024, the entire Department of Public Works was reorganized and reequipped. The yard and the DPW buildings were cleaned out and reorganized. The roof on the main DPW building which had been leaking for years was replaced and the internal damage from the leakage was mitigated and repaired. Weekly street sweeping was reintroduced as well as the fall leaf pickup program.
City Hall
At City Hall, the 40-year-old roof which had been leaking was replaced. In July of 2023, the City’s IT system had a catastrophic failure. It took 100s of hours and a great deal of effort by the city administration and our accounting firm to recreate the significant data that was lost. We engaged a consultant to evaluate our system and then bid out replacement of the system. We hired a new IT provider to rebuild the system complete with the necessary redundancy and data protection. No IT system is completely secure but ours is now very robust. Our water meter system began to show its age, and the reader system began to fail so we bid out replacement of the entire system and awarded a contract for its replacement. The chosen vendor is currently in the process of replacing all the meters.
Public Safety
In terms of public safety, we have made significant progress in the past year. The fire department also got a new roof because theirs was also quite old and had been leaking. The kitchen has been replaced. The new fire truck is in service and other improvements are planned in the new year including a new generator to keep the fire hall powered up during any electrical utility failure, and improved drainage in the fire truck bays among others. In the police department a new patrol vehicle has secured at a favorable price, and more importantly, we brought the department up to full strength. There aren’t too many departments anywhere that can make that claim. The police hiring climate has become very competitive nationwide. We also selected a new school resource officer to replace Chief Faull and an ordinance officer.
Downtown
The City is continuing to work closely and with our DDA to help promote and implement events in the downtown by providing necessary city support. The DDA supplied the funding to purchase land at Fifth and Liberty to expand the municipal parking lot. It also purchased the former Belleville Hardware building and has tentative plans to establish a business incubator using the building. The DDA will also provide funding for the repairs to the War Memorial and to the High Street municipal parking lot.
Planning Commission
The Belleville Planning Commission undertook the herculean task of updating our master plan. The City administration also conducted a refresh of the Parks and Recreation plan to position us for further grant opportunities.
Parks
The City’s parks received needed attention in 2024. At Horizon Park, the goats returned to clean up the lake bank, the long dormant irrigation system was repaired and made usable, improvements were made to the lawn, the brick along the sidewalk was reset and emergency repairs were made to the boardwalk. At Victory Park, necessary repairs were made to the playground equipment and a series of grant funded improvements were made to the park. These include a new fence along East Columbia, and new centrally located bathrooms were constructed. More grant funded improvements will occur in the new year at Victory Park including improvements to Victory Station and the installation of a pickleball court.
At Village Park on Savage Road more grant funded improvements were started. Two new pickleball courts are being installed, improvements are being made to the pond fountains and an invasive weed mitigation program is being bid out and will be implemented in the spring.
Doane’s Landing Park was cleared of many years of overgrowth which greatly improved the view of the lake. The overgrowth behind the welcome sign was similarly cleared away to improve lake viewing.
A new “vest pocket” park was dedicated on North Liberty at the intersection of First Street. It is now known as Pump House Park. This little gem of a park is an example of a public/private partnership executed to perfection. Thanks to the efforts of the Belleville Yacht Club which provided the many, many man hours and material required to stabilize and improve the building and clear the lake bank, the Belleville Area Garden Club which did a remarkable job with the landscaping, the City DPW Department which helped prep the area and the Belleville Rotary Club’s Cozadd Foundation which provided the funding for the landscaping including the brick pavers. Our community has restored, repurposed and made a useful quaint historical structure at negligible cost to the taxpayers.
Hillside Cemetery
At Hillside Cemetery, the roads were all repaved using a couple of very generous private contributions and City funding. A private contractor was engaged to perform lawn maintenance, the non-potable water system was repaired and made functional after many years of neglect and many dead trees were removed and other trees were trimmed. Work here will continue.
Transportation
On the transportation front, a grant was secured through SEMCOG to conduct a road safety audit for Main Street from High to Five Points. This study was presented to the City Council and includes many practical suggestions to improve traffic safety on our busiest artery. The “Horseshoe” severely deteriorated roadway at Harbor Point was finally replaced using a relatively small but very helpful grant and City funding. The most deteriorated sections of Church Street, which is one of the City’s most heavily traveled roads was also replaced as soon as the Harbor Point project was complete.
Moving Forward
In the coming year we also have big plans. The improvements to the lake bank at Horizon Park will commence this spring and we are actively seeking the most beneficial and cost-effective way to update/improve the boardwalk. Improvements are also coming to the War Memorial this year and to the High Street parking lot once some drainage issues are corrected. The improvements to Victory Park and Village Park and the cemetery outlined previously will continue in the new year. We are proceeding forward with a muti-year plan to bring our roads all to at least “good” condition. We are starting in the spring with repaving High Street and North Liberty. These are also very heavily traveled. We are also focused on repairing the Main and Liberty/ Denton intersection before the Denton Road bridge is finished so that traffic doesn’t have to be interrupted a second time. Our philosophy has been and will continue to be making improvements to roads based on their level of use and overall condition. This, for example, is the reason we started with Harbor Pointe. The Horseshoe was in the worst condition by far of all city roads and it received the most traffic of all the roads in the subdivision. That is why it was selected. We will also be doing more sidewalk and road repairs in house where appropriate. We will continue to use those criteria in crafting our roads and sidewalk plan going forward. Our companion philosophy and the very reason that we are not replacing all the roads at once is that as a council, we do not want to raise taxes. If we were to borrow the money to conduct all the road repairs needed at once (which could well exceed 12 million dollars), it would require a substantial increase in the millage rate to make the bond payments over many years. While we are not opposed to borrowing money for needed projects, we would rather take a little more time to do the major repairs to not raise taxes. It took many years for things to get in the condition that they are in, but we believe that we can substantially improve our situation in a much shorter amount of time. The voters approved an advisory vote in 2019 to increase our millage rate for public safety and it is this council’s feeling that the aggregate millage that the City assesses is currently sufficient. As you can see from my previous comments, we are doing everything that we can to find grant funding sources, to use our current funding creatively and, to seek out private/public partnerships where appropriate.
We will continue to seek out and implement best practices and to maintain a mindset of continuous improvement and customer service. In my opinion, we have changed the culture of the City for the better and we will continue to do so because Belleville deserves nothing less.
Kenneth R. Voigt, Mayor
City of Belleville