Van Buren Township voters turned down a 6.5-mill proposal for Public Safety in Tuesday’s general election.
The vote was 1,940 no to 1,543 yes.
While most of the precincts supported the new tax, the 1,248 no votes cast by absentee voters sealed the defeat.
School Sinking Fund
Van Buren Public School district voters narrowly approved the .5-mill Sinking Fund millage for school repairs on a 2,857 – 2,680 vote.
In Belleville, the School Sinking fund totals were 314 yes and 287 no. In Sumpter, the votes were 145 yes and 212 no. In Van Buren Township, the Sinking Fund tally was 1,761 yes and 1,594 no.
In Canton the votes were 390 yes and 305 no. In the two Ypsilanti Township precincts, the total tallies were 176 yes and 113 no.
City of Belleville
City of Belleville voters kept their present council intact by re-electing Kerreen Conley as Mayor and Tom Smith and Jack Loria as council members.
Total votes for mayor were:
• Kerreen Conley, incumbent, 327
• Phillip Miller, 241
• Write-in Robert Balderston, 10
• Write-in Carol Sundell, 6
Total council votes were:
• Tom Smith, incumbent, 357
• Jack Loria, incumbent, 336
• Jim Shrove, 311
These are all unofficial results until certified at the Wayne County level.
Voter turnout in Ypsilanti Township was 6.71%.
In Sumpter Towmship with 7,111 registered voters, and 597 casting ballots, turnout was 8.4%.
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10 Comments
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CeJay was very vocal about his support of the Public Safety millage which is why it was voted down. Cejay gets his information from the stagnant board member that needs to be voted out. The cops should have chosen a spokesperson that is not influenced by the hidden threat to growth and betterment of our township.
In reality informed voters knew that this was just a cover to shift general funds to cover the failed Visteon payments
In response to “Vote No” comments about CeJay, unethical, inappropriate defamation and character assassination is readily recognized by other posters and the credibility of the poster is immediately ZERO !. Vote No is correct on their assumptions. Useful correct facts and figures are beneficial to the public, whether or not we agree with the posters position on an issue. Please be respectful on another residents position on an issue. The Visteon Bond Payment issue is currently being litigated, and if the residents approve a millage to pay this bond, then Visteon is off the hook, since VBT will not have a shortfall and the residents will pay the bond. Very bad decision in 2003 by the Board at that time, and they were told, “there is a risk”. FOIA the March 4, 2003 Board Minutes. Page 3 where Mike Gormely, Underwriter, from Fahnestock $ Co. Inc. made the statement, “there is a risk”. Hart, Jahr and Sharry Budd were on the Board at that time. I think Ypsilanti Township turned this project down before Visteon came to Van Buren Township. May we hope the court rules in favor of VBT.
Everyone knows ceejay is just looking for attention. He never has the whole story or the facts. Him being a spokesman prolly sealed those undecided voters. Whoever ever is giving him information is just as stupid.
Plan B for the residents definitely needs to include some kind of permanent fix to blended rate. Whether they need to separate police and fire and/or hire a full-time FF crew that will provide 24-7 two-man duty crews at both fire stations. This is the coverage the residents were promised with the first 4 mils. Try as they might, the present system just isn’t working. We need to move on and get a better educated crew of Millage People.
My husband was there at that first mileage as the fire chief. He tried to warn the board what was going on with money being shifted and blended rate. Apparently the did not take kindly to that and as a result he was pushed out. VBT citizens need to push for answers when issues like this come out and start voting a new board with some ethics in place. These are my words without my husbands knowledge so if you want to be mad at this post blame me! Finally since they couldn’t get a real fire chief hired they reluctantly hired Dan Bessin who they continually advised was not ready for the position…. Look it up, I’m sure it’s in his file. Well maybe. They could have hid that by now.
Sorry, meant a better informed crew of millage people. Need to move on and leave the haters behind.
The post above from Deandre mayhew: what does “prolly” mean. I’ve never heard of this word? Did you mean probably? I agree that CJ just wants attention and the fact that he gets his information from an elected official is disturbing. He hasn’t lived in this community that long and he does not have the benefit of some background history except for what is being fed to him.
The township will have 2 more attempts to pass the millage. History has shown that these usually end up passing but I don’t think it will this time. The current elected board of officials have really done a number on public perception. I don’t think anything will pass until every single person on the board is gone.
What people need to realize is be fact that those “cross trained” police officers are making a huge amount of money. For the price tag for those individuals you could have several paid full time fire department employees.