City of Davison, Michigan

“Pete the Mayor is on the phone” Cindy informs me.

“Good Morning Mayor, what can I do you out of today?”

“Pete, John Smith’s wife just went into the hospital. We should send her some flowers from the city, John has been working on voluntary committees for the city for 20 years.”

This is a conversation that may have happened years ago in city government. It was common in local government, as in private industry to send flowers or cards letting people know that we care about them and wishing them a speedy recovery or offer our support during a time of loss or morning. Not any more. There are several Michigan Attorney General Opinions that clearly state that we can not use tax payer funds to purchase or give as gifts.

We had a pre-bid meeting today for contractors who may want to bid on our Inflow and Infiltration (I/I) Pilot Program. We do not always do a pre-bid meeting, but this is a unique project. We have 10 different properties to do work on and we will be doing work in and on private property and not just in our right of way and on our sewer system.

Each property is going to be different and then there is always Mr. Murphy, who you know will raise his head sometime during this project.

This was a good meeting with good feedback from the contractors, staff and our engineer. Pre-bid meetings will hopefully help us get a better, more accurate bid price. This helps us keep cost over runs down (knock on wood).

The next step is the bid opening which will be next Friday morning. After we open the bids Rowe Incorporated (one of the city’s engineering firms) will tabulate the bids and have a recommendation for City Council Monday October 1oth.

Then we will finally get to see some dirt being turned and see if we can get significantly less rain water into our sanitary sewer system.

During lunch and prior to our Industrial Mutual Association (IMA)Recreation meeting yesterday Pat Gerace handed me a copy of the Halo-Foutch Baseball team program. This team just finished up winning the Stan Musial National Championship. What a great accomplishment for this 18 and over group of guys.

The team sponsor was Terry Thomas of Halo Burger (a true Flint area institution in itself), and Coached by Roger Foutch.

The City of Davison has a partnership with the IMA to run softball programs in Abernathy Regional Park. During the regular season the IMA league has over 90 teams competing.

I am always impressed by people dedicated to working together to accomplish a common goal. Maybe that’s why we get excited about being the best at something, and for 2005 this group proved they were the best team in the country. Congratulations to the Halo-Foutch 2005 National Champs.

Teamwork is something that we have been striving for within the City of Davison organization. We can do so much more working together, as a team, for a common outcome. I’m proud to work with a team that is making a difference in people’s everyday lives.

What a workshop. I previously did a blog on the 14 or so items on our workshop agenda. It was a very productive meeting. A lot of good discussion between City Council, the public that was in attendance and staff.

One of the items (number 12 on our agenda) was about new telecommunication law that is now being debated in Lansing (our State capital). It was interesting to see an article today in the Detroit News on the topic. Like most issues there are two or three sides to every legislation. One of the challenges a local municipality has with State or Federal Legislation is that legislation normally is one size fits all. That would be fine if we were all the same, but we are not.

Remember when there was a phone company? That’s right, companies that just deal with telephone calls. Well they have gone by the wayside much like their predecessor the telegraph companies. Now we have more technology the lines have become increasingly blurred. Phone companies are getting into other forms of communications and entertainment. “Cable” companies are getting into the telephone business. It is hard to keep it all straight.

Like most major industries, the people in telecommunications are lobbying for State legislation that would make their businesses more profitable, easier to run, or limit their competition. There is nothing wrong with that process. The Public Service commission is the unit in Michigan that currently oversees telecommunications. What the City Council discussed last night was how such changes in legislation effects people in our area.

We can not predict the future of telecommunications, but we can look at how things have evolved in the past. Last year we did a Mayor’s Exchange with the City of Lowell, Michigan. One of the stories that stuck in my mind was back when cable television was starting out none of the franchises wanted to invest in Lowell due their population size and return on the cable companies investment. OK. But the City Council wanted to make sure Lowell residents and business were not left behind in the world of technology. The city moved ahead and invested a lot of money to make sure the city had what a lot of the world was getting. To this day they still run a very reliable cable system (which rates are lower that what we pay here). It is self supportive now and they continue to make improvements, but the point is without the ability to start their own franchise, Lowell would have been left behind until it became profitable for someone else to provide that service.

Flash forward to the legislation we were talking about. This would prohibit a community from doing what Lowell did with cable to lets say broadband, or wireless service in a downtown area. This is where our City Council had issues. Why would the State pass a law that could hand cuff Davison with old technology (because the private sector does not feel we are worth the investment) while the rest of the world moves forward?

City Council discussed passing a resolution at the next meeting supporting Local Government control over Broadband & Cable Franchising.

During the down pour of rain last week my oldest daughter was in her first car accident. A hit and run, chain reaction during a driving rain. No one was injured, and minor damage to the vehicles that stopped, but it was an educational experience. We have not had a driving rain like that in a long time.

It reminded me of the power of mother nature. The two hurricanes that we just witnessed (almost live if you were able to watch cable TV) also demonstrated the power of nature. All the creative inventions that mankind has come up with, we still can’t control nature.

I was sent these photos over the internet so I can not credit the photographer like I would like. Each photo seems to bring a powerful image of the on coming storm.

What we do in local government is try to learn from other’s experience with mother nature. We try to make plans. Some are how to react before hand, but the part the public sees is how we respond after nature hits that counts.

I got an interesting response from someone who has been following this blog. “Man, you go to a lot of meetings.”

Yes, you are correct. It seems that I have at least a meeting a day to attend. Wednesday was an example as I attended our Downtown Development Authority (DDA) Meeting. I don’t get to go to DDA meetings as much I may like, but our Community Development Director (Colleen Hackney) is our staff liaison to this important arm of city government.

At Wednesday’s meeting Mayor Rappuhn was awarding a Certificate of Achievement to Teresa Raysin (who owns and operates Auntie M’s doll shop downtown) as her term expired at the beginning of the month. Teresa was a big help in a lot of our events downtown and queen of organizing parades. We still hope to lean on here for some help during our activities.

Mark Gorbut (manager of Ugly Mug coffee House) was appointed to the DDA at the last City Council meeting and Sean O’Brien (the O’Brian Law Firm) was re-appointed to a four year term.

The DDA meets in the City Council chambers in the
lower level of City Hall.

There was a lot on the DDA agenda, including two resignations from the board. Doug Gilmore (Davison Office Products) and Karla Hansen (Hansen Funeral Home) both are stepping down effective after the meeting.

We will now be looking for some more people to work with us on downtown development. People should contact Colleen, City Clerk Cindy Payton, or myself if interested in filling one of these spots.

The DDA took care of some business leading up to Pumpkin Fest next month, but also had the opportunity to speak with the City’s code enforcement official, Dennis Miller. Temporary signs has become an issue and the DDA request that Dennis enforce the ordinance as written, not as how things may have been done in the past. The DDA also ask that the city increase it’s code enforcement downtown.

Back to the comment about meetings that the city has. There are approximately a dozen meetings scheduled every month that help move our city forward. There are even more meetings that we attend to represent the city’s interest, such as;

• County Technical advisory Committee
• County 911 Communications Committee
• Water & Waste Advisory Committee
• metropolitan alliance
• Small Cities Association
• Tri-Unit

Then there are meetings with residents, business owners, developers, other officials regionally and in Lansing, the list goes on and on.

So yes , we do end up going to a lot of meetings.

Where has the week gone?

It’s already Thursday, that means the City Council workshop packets have to go out tomorrow. We get the City Council packets of information of what will be discussed so they can have the information to think about so our workshops can be very interactive.

As I look at our tentative Agenda, we already have 14 items to discuss. Could be a longer workshop than normal, hope someone brings the popcorn…

So there is no time to blog today.

Brandon Dunn explains the process for CDBG Funds for 2006.

I swear one of the first classes in government 101 is how to label programs with every letter in the English alphabet. Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) is another one of those federal programs run through Housing & Urban Development (HUD). In Genesee County most HUD programs are run through our Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), which the County Planning Commission supplies the staff and other resources for.

We are a part of this organization and I sit on the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) which advises the metropolitan alliance, in which the city is represented by Council Member Pat Conley and resident Jim Cowan.

In Genesee County CDBG program we are eligible for this Federal Funding every three years. We are in what is referred to as an entitlement community in which a portion of the federal grant is set aside every year, and in our county we roll that number over for a three year allotment so that we can do larger projects.

Our last CDBG project was used to put in a the side walk that connects the city with the new U.S. Post Office at the end of the city limits on Flint Street. During that funding cycle we received just under $80,000. After three years of federal cuts to the program it looks like this years grant will be just under $60,000.

As you may guess, with all the links in this post, this is a large bureaucratic process. Yesterday the city clerk (Cindy Payton), the Community Development Director (Colleen Hackney) and I went to a three hour workshop on the changes, time lines and deadlines of this year’s process. We found there are some changes in the process besides the lower amount of funding.

The turn around time on this application is very quick and we will probably hold a Public Hearing on October 10, 2005 to hear any input from the public on projects they would like to see done.

The City has been very aggressive in using CDBG Funds for the broadest possible good for the community. We have received great comments on the sidewalk that connects the downtown area and residential communities with the Post Office. You can see from the photos that we did not just put a plain Jane sidewalk in, but instead we worked and saved older established trees. WE also have a brick soldier coarse on each side that not only looks better but also makes it aesthetically pleasing.

Did You Know?
Did you know that in the past 4 years your city staff has brought in over 7.5 million dollars of federal, state, or other sources of creative funding to fund services, programs and projects?

Way to go team!

“Do you know it has been 13 years that I’ve been coming to theses meetings without ever missing one?” Judge Conover, of the 67th District Court, asked me as we shook hands prior to the Tri-unit meeting. That is quite an impressive track record.

“Tri-Unit” meetings are quarterly meeting between the City of Davison, Davison and Richfield Townships, and the Davison area School representatives. We are actually a quad unit, but the name quad never “took” like the long term name of “tri-unit”.

Years ago community leaders decided we should meet an review/update our neighbors and partners in municipal services. These meetings are normally very casual and the location moves to each unit once a year. The mantel of running the meetings and keeping the minutes also is moved to each unit every year. This year the Schools are “in charge” of the meetings.

As the meeting got rolling along, the six normal updates were given. (these are six jointly run boards or authorities).

• Fire Authority- Still working on Sub-station idea in RichfielsdTownship. Also looking at a Cost Recovery Ordinance to recover cost of major incidents and false alarms.
• Library Board- Replaced carpet in entry way, most of the funds were raised by the Library Board and Friends of the Library to cover this cost.
• Senior Citizens Authority-Programs are going well and expanding. Working on “marketing” to make sure the public understands all that is available to them through the Sr. Center.
• Davison Community Schools-School year is off an running. New football stadium is living up to expectations, have homecoming game this week (parade starts at 5:00 pm on Main St.), Open House this week at Central Elementary to check out the renovations and updates.
• Joint Recreation-With Don Whitman retiring, Sue Kenkel is taking his position and a joint meeting will happen soon.
• Disaster preparedness-With the results of hurricane Katrina we need to make sure all of our plans are updated with proper names and functions as well as hierarchy of response calls.

The meeting then ran into the municipal updates…

• Richfield Township is moving forward with a Sanitary Sewer Master Plan and have received proposals from several engineering firms.
• Davison Township has many major road projects going on that they hope to get completed prior to the end of this construction season. The township also had a successful Park dedication where former Supervisor Don Parks was honored for his lasting impact to the community.
• Mayor Rappuhn went down a full page list of projects and programs that we have ongoing in the city (some of what you read on this blog).

Mayor Rappuhn (r) shares a story with School

Superintendent Clay Perkins (sitting) and Davison

Township Supervisor Kurt Soper.

The meeting is then ajourned and much networking is done. This is one of the ways our community has found to help erase the dotted lines of the political boundaries and make services work for our entire community.

Our next Tri-Unit meeting is scheduled for December 19, 2005 at Davison City Hall.

Davison’s annual Pumpkin Fest is just around the corner. And now we have a design for our sweatshirts.

Garrett Rappuhn, winner from 5th grade Hahn Intermediate, will receive Pumpkin Fest Sweatshirt, Jet’s Pizza Coupon, Scoops Coupon, Jumbo Video Coupon & $2 Activity Wristband for the Festival .

Zeke Church was the runner-up from Davison Middle School, will receive Scoops Coupon, Jumbo Video Coupon & $2 Activity Wristband for the Festival.

The winning logo has already been given to Hilton Screeners for design work. Sweatshirts should be ready the end of September, first of October. Price is undetermined, waiting for cost estimate, approximately $15.00. Should be available at Davison Office Products, Reid’s Hallmark & City Offices.