City of Davison, Michigan

At last night’s City Council Workshop we again were discussing the city’s I/I program. The issue of the day was when and how to enforce our Ordinance about not allowing weep tiles, downspouts, and other rain water from our sanitary sewer system.

I know I’ve blogged on this before, it has been covered by our local and regional newspapers, we’ve had many studies done over the last 40 years, but we still have not got the word out.

$$$$$$

Long time Davison business owner Dave Larson was at last night’s workshop and made an interesting observation and I’ll paraphrase; I’ve been in this community for a long time, my parents have lived in this community even longer and I didn’t understand the gravity of the situation until just now hearing these discussions.

We know this is an issue. People don’t see how their downspouts or weep tiles could be a major issue. We have the data that show the spikes in our metered sanitary sewer flow. It spikes 10 times the normal amount during our rain events in the city of flags.

Our normal sewer fee that we pay Genesee county is around $16,000 per month. There have been months when we pay over $80,000, all the extra is to treat rain water.

Back in the 1960’s the Sanitary Sewer People figured out the error in the way we designed the sewers. The Federal Government, State of Michigan, and County Government all realized what had to happen. So much so, they changed the building codes and regulations on how homes after 1967 were to be built.

At all levels of government laws have been put in place that state weep tiles and downspouts can not be attached to sanitary sewer systems. But it is still very difficult to explain to people.

We are going to try to put an education program out there to get more people in the know. In the mean time if anyone has any ideas on how to educate the public on these issues, I’m all ears…

The City of Davison has for a long time championed creative partnerships to do more that what we could do alone. Flint Area Narcotics Group (FANG) is one of those joint ventures. The City of Davison is proud of our partnership with many other local governments that actively participate by supplying manpower, funding or both to aggressively go after drugs in our region.

The challenge with undercover drug operations is we don’t get to cheer all of their successes because it may hinder other operations or expose some of our talented law enforcement agents who are working in this seedy underworld.

Recently the ABC affiliate channel 12 ran a story on one of FANG’s latest drug finds.

It is good to hear theses stories and our successes. Drugs and the crime that follows the illegal drug trade do not know boundaries and therefore we need multi- jurisdictional task force to combat the folks wherever they go.

Rumor has it that the goal is to reach $100,000 for this one day event. That’s right, what a great target number. I know our community will respond accordingly, and the right person in in charge to get us to that level. Sue Csutoras is the Chair can be contacted at 810-658-8008 or msue@chartermi.net or sue@CBHomeAndHearth.com .

SWAT teams were made popular back in the 1970’s with the popular TV show. Some of the metropolitan areas have enough manpower and resources to man and fund such specialized units. We are fortunate to have a neighboring community with such a unit. The City of Burton Police Department has such a unit and was visiting Davison on Tuesday.

The guys blow off a liitle steam after a training run.

On Saturday February 11 the Davison City Council held their annual Goals and Objectives Workshop. For the last two years we have been meeting at Something Special in downtown Davison.

The format is structured so that City Council can review each of our departments and how they faired on last year’s objectives, review the direction for Davison’s long term success and set some objectives for the next year.

Last year we hit about 89% of our objectives. An objective is defined as something we think we can accomplish in the next year. This differs from our goals which may take many years to accomplish. We link our objectives to our goals to ensure the items we work on this year get us closer to the goals we have for the city.

Something Special did an excellent job of providing us nourishment throughout the day.

City Council basically talked issues from 8:00 am to just after 4:00 pm. There were no breaks and we kept talking right through lunch. Of course there is not enough room on this blog to cover the entire discussion, but here is a brief synopsis of the Goals and Objectives for our City.

Planning the City’s future. Start discussions to determine department’s path. What does the City Council want our Police Department to be in the future? What does the City Council see as the future DPW, Community Development, Building Department etc…?

Local Street Improvement Plan. This five year program could include sidewalks

Improve Communication with Public. Use existing resources such as Channel 19 and technology like PowerPoint to tell the city’s story. We have several items that we need to educate the public on, e.g.
I/I
Municipal Center
Downtown

Rental Ordinance. With close to 50% of our residential units being rental units, the City Council wants to look at a requirement that would maintain a certain standard for safety for this type of business to ensure that these structures remain up to code.

Noise Ordinance. City Council wants to review our Noise Ordinance to see if it needs to be updated, tweaked or out right changed.

Conditional use Compliance Plan. City Council wants to explore a way to revisit conditional uses and monitor whether the property maintains the standards or requirements that were granted are being followed.

Set up rules to run meeting. As required by our charter the City Council needs to establish rules on how the City council runs meetings and also set the standard that they expect all city boards and or committees to run by.

It looks to be another busy year. Now Department Heard will review their departments objectives for next year and tie them to city councils direction. This is the start of putting our budget together and helps staff set priorities.

You have read here on several occasions about the City of Davison’s I/I Program. Over the past few years the city has taken an aggressive position in attempting to disconnect any non-sanitary connections to our sanitary sewer system.

You may have read in past blogs of my agitation to State and Federal non-funded mandates to local governments. These mandates sometimes seem to be nothing but busy work sometimes due to the fact we, at the local level never see the impact of what we are doing.

I/I (Inflow and Infiltration) is one of those non-mandates, or is it?

At our last City Council meeting we had good discussion on our ordinance that deals with these disconnections from our sewer system. Chapter 1044 of our code deals with sewer regulations.
The details of this discussion are important to today’s blog. Although that discussion has created a lot of communication/questions among Council Members, staff and some general public.

What I found interesting is our city’s lack of ability to communicate this story to the public. This is not new. The City of Davison is not alone with this issue of getting the word out. But…if we look at the history of I/I it would look something like this:

• Until the late 1960’s the popular thought on sewer treatment was that the solution to pollution was dilution. An other words, if we dilute the sanitary sewer system with rain water it will be easier to breakdown and produce the cleaner outflow at our Sanitary Sewer Treatment Plants.
• Until this time it was normal to hook up a homes weep tiles (the drainage tiles that are under your home and remove any rain water away from your home as the rain water follows your basement walls down into the ground) to the Sanitary Sewer System.
• In about 1967 the Building codes or regulations changed not allowing the above to happen.
• Around 1970 the City of Davison did its first I/I study which resulted in the above linked Ordinance (1972).
• In the 1980’s the city performed another I/I study which led to placing collector tiles behind some curbs to make it easier for homeowners to disconnect their weep tiles, down spouts and sump pumps from the Sanitary Sewer System. This was a voluntary disconnection program and from what I understand only a half dozen or so homes participated.
• The late 1990’s the Federal Government mandated that Sewer Operations disconnect any cross connected systems.
• The City of Davison started our third I/I study.
• We have found that we have major I/I system issues. Our normal system treatment charges are $15,000-$16,000 per month. In a wet month (January had unseasonably warm up and some rain) our sewer fees are around $36,000. In a real wet month (one or two months per year) we pay as much as $80,000 for sewer treatment.

So as far as unfunded Federal Mandates go, this one the feds have given us a little notice to change (around 40 years).

This still doesn’t make the solution easy, and that is what we are working on now. The hardest part is funding an entire project (around $20 million). The second hardest item is getting the story out. We have had 40 years to explain it and we must do better, we already have Ordinances on the books to change over to a more efficient and less costly system. It is taking the next step that gets difficult.

Friday February 17th was the day that the city accepted Request For Qualifications (RFQ) for architectural services for our municipal center project. This process is a little different than most projects that go out for a Request For Proposals (RFP). RFP’s are very specific and include items like cost. A big challenge that we have found is once you receive the lowest price quote there is a big weight to select someone on price alone.

Where cost is a major concern to any public project, years of doing things this way have cost many communities. “You get what you pay for” is the the phrase most often used when you hear someone who is not happy after the fact.

An RFQ selection process attemptes to qualify quality firms based on the firms themselves. After a selection is made negotiations commence to get a fair price. If a price (cost) can not be agreed upon, then we move to the next most qualified firm.

Friday we received eight packets of information. These eight firms have shown an interest in working with our community:

• THA (Tomblinson/Harburn) from Flint, MI
• FTC&H (Fishbeck, Thompson, Carr, and Huber from Grand Rapids, MI
• W.H. Hall/GAV & Associates from Flint, MI
• Hull-Stevens & Associates from Swartz Creek, MI
• Redstone Architects from Southfield, MI
• Straub-Pettitt-Yaste from Clawson, MI
• French Associates from Rochester, MI
• CHMP from Grand Blanc, MI

A visit to the web sites will give you a taste of the tough decisions that will have to be made. Some real quality firms have applied. The process is now for me to work through all the information and give our city council a break down to narrow the field down to a manageable level.

The city council will then choose three firms to work with and give us some design ideas. Then the city council will choose who we negotiate with to move this process forward. This should prove to be an exciting project.

I had the opportunity to attend a kick off event yesterday for Wireless Genesee. It was an enthusiastic meeting of many stakeholders to announce the initiative launched by the Genesee County Board of Commissioners in conjunction with the Genesee Regional Chamber of Commerce, GlimaEast and underwriten from a grant from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

The impact of this program could be huge. The purpose is to supply all 642 acre of Genesee County with wireless internet services. The game plan is a public/private venture to hit five targets.

Eliminate digital divide in rural and urban areas: Wireless Genesee will seek firms to provide low cost or no cost wireless service to every resident, business and visitor in Genesee County. Broadband access will also be available at competitive rates.

Create an environment for economic growth. Wireless: Genesee is an essential hi-tech tool required to retain and attract businesses and jobs to our community and to prepare Genesee County residents for the jobs and technologies of the future.

Create a hi-tech learning environment for all students: Wireless Genesee will enhance educational opportunities for all residents, especially K-16 students who will be able to take advantage of distance learning opportunities and increased understanding of computers, the Internet and other technical skills necessary to compete for good paying jobs.

Enhance public services and reduce costs. Wireless Genesee will leverage public structures to create a privately owned wireless network that will enhance municipal services and without using public funds.

Wireless Genesee will transform Genesee County into a leader in the wireless revolution sweeping America and the world.

Can this happen? Yes.

Why is it important to Davison?

We have researched doing something on a smaller scale for either our DDA, LDFA, or Citywide and found we could not afford or muster the private sector support to even get this project off the ground. This could put us in the market for other types and forms of business when we are trying to grow our economic base. It would also help us retrain and grow our own local businesses and their technology desires.

This is an exciting time that could help us and offer an opportunity for people to gain access to the outside world.

Tuesday was another busy day at the Davison/Richfield Area Senior Center. A lot of action. A lots of dancing. A lot of smiling.

From the reports I received, all had a great time at this years Sr. Olympics.

Here are a few of the photos that were snapped during this event.

“We are not Rochester.” This is a line from one of the city’s biggest detractors. He also says “we are not ________ (fill in the blank) for any program, project, or upgrade that is not his idea.

Well I had the opportunity to travel to Rochester, Michigan to visit the OPC. The Older Person Commission has done an outstanding job of creating their vision by tapping into the passion and commitment of their community.

The OPC serves the communities of Rochester, Rochester Hills, and Oakland Township. Like Davison, they have figured out that they can do more collectively than they could if each community was on their own.

Connie Elkins talks
with Marye Miller of OPC
in an indoor court yard that
was paid for by donations.

The reason for the visit was to hear their story. How they were able to evolve from a small operation in an old school to the first class operation in a 12 million dollar building that services 500 to 700 people a day.

What we found is that it the same story as many other instant succeasy stories. There is no instant in the story. We had a great conversation with the OPC Executive Director, Marye Miller. Marye tells a very inspirational history of the OPC, but doesn’t take any of the credit for the evolution that occurred (some how I think she had a bigger role than she led us to believe).

I took some pictures to show where they are at today, but it wasn’t always this way. They had nay sayers all along the way.

• It can’t be done.
• We’re not ____.
• We can’t afford it.

The OPC also has to deal with 3 municipalities and even when you agree to get along it can be a challenge to satisfy 3 communities.

A picture of one

of the two pools.

A few of the things I took away from our meeting are:

1. Good programming is an easier sell than good ideas.
2. Don’t ever stop telling your story.
3. Raising the bar on expectations is not easy.
4. Don’t be afraid to ask people to help.

This was a well designed center that is well programmed. There is definitely local support for this project and the OPC should be proud of their accomplishments.