City of Davison, Michigan

Last week our City Council hosted our second annual Appreciation Dinner. This event is to show the volunteers and their spouses that the work they do on a daily, weekly or monthly basis does not go un-noticed.

Ralph, Bob, Jim,

and Keith enjoy

a few laughs.

There are over 50 people who volunteer to sit on committees, commission, authorities and boards that help keep the city moving forward. Mayor Rappuhn made a special effort to thank those spouses for the time that their significant other is away from the home, sometimes late into the night.

It is this type of service that keeps the city an open user friendly environment.

A special thanks to Davison State Bank for sponsoring the social hour for the second year in a row.

Don, Sue and Dave

share opinions prior

to the Dinner.

I took this opportunity of a long weekend to help my father in-law build a retaining wall. We moved about 8 yards of boulders and 5 yards of two inch stone. It was very good therapy in 88 degree heat.

The City of Davison’s
Memorial Day parade
ended at City Hall where
veterans and citizens
gathered for a tribute to those who went before us.

It also gave me time to reflect on the reason for the long weekend. As my muscles ached and I felt drained from physical exertion, someone half way around the world was in 115 degree heat in full battle gear being shot at in so that we may live in a free world.

For those families who have lost someone in order for us to do what we do, Thank you.

For those parents who raised children who are patriotic and was willing to volunteer to protect the rest of us, Thank you.

And a sincere thank you for those who have not returned, may we never forget the price you paid and honor the cost you bore with all we do.

Thank you Mayor for taking these pictures and sharing them with us.

A City Council Member asked about some public education we did in the past about informing the public that we have recently lowered the tax mills by 3 mills after we retired some debt. Where we did have the information out there, his point is well taken that we have to do a better job educating people about taxes, fees and other municipal cost.

I guess to kind of put things in perspective, some things that are normally taken for granted are not really all that common any more. I’ve recently come across a few articles on the lack of knowedge of the First Amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press and right of assembly).

There was a survey that basically stated that Americans know “The Simpsons” cartoon family better than they know the First Amendment. That’s the depressing finding of a study by Chicago’s McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum. The new museum is dedicated to building public understanding of the First Amendment.

Their survey shows :

• More than half of the people can name at least two members of the Simpson cartoon family. (Not me, the only Simpson I can name is O.J. )
• More than 1 in 5 of Americans could name all five Simpson family members — Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. But only 1 in 1,000 can name all five First Amendment freedoms.
• More people could name the three “American Idol” judges than could name 3 of the 5 First Amendment rights.

So I think we have got our work cut out for us, not only in the City of Davison, but also amongst our fellow Americans.

The third firm we looked at was FTC&H. They also gave us three options with different layouts. The preferred to keep the structure one story, and gave us a rendering of one of the layouts.

Again, this firmed worked very well with the public. It was obvious that they had met with stakeholders through this process.

An interesting thing that they did was break out users by color and size so that people could identify spaces. Some people were surprised at how little space the city requires for administration.

The layout that seemed to get the most response was a two parking area configuration.

And here is a rendering of the two parking lot layout as viewed from Flint Street and Main Street.

As you can see, over the last three blogs. Three different firms, three different ideas, same community. Stay tuned as city council continues the process. Again, any feedback is welcomed.

As I mentioned yesterday these blogs do not tell the entire story of the presentations that City Council and residents saw last week. Hopefully you can get the flavor for each firm, again I welcome your feedback.

Today we look at French Associates ideas. They actually presented three different options and worked the crowd for feedback on all three. They all brought in three wooden models that could give people some perspective on site plan and placement.

Concept 1

This concept is two 2 story buildings separating the Police and Courts from the Library, Museum, City Hall, and meeting space.

Concept 2

This concept is two stories in the front with one story spreading out towards a parking area.

Concept 3

The third concept is a three story from building with 2 two story wings. The middle section would be the museum connecting the wings.

An Ariel view of a possible site plan

on the existing site.

A view from Flint St.

A view from a possible plaza area.

A view with a plaza in the south west corner of our lot.

Redstone spent a lot of time explaining how this entire project would fit looking at the entire downtown. They brought up the idea of shifting the museum to the south side of downtown to be an anchor for that end of town (maybe on the Davison Oil And Gas Property).

Interesting ideas and comments.

We have the PowerPoint presentation at the office and paper copy of the same presentation. If anyone is interested in more on these concepts and ideas, please come on into city hall. We would love to hear what you think.

How many people have the opportunity to have great impact on their community that will set the future for generations? How many people really want to make those decisions and be second guessed while everything is worked on?

Before I go on let me put something in perspective. The people who help set this nation on its historic journey would mostly be considered young by today’s standards (Thomas Jefferson, 33; George Washington, 43 when he took over the Continental army;Benjamin Rush, 30). These guys were normal humans with many personal faults, flaws and imperfections. These men and their families laid not only their property, any wealth they had , but their life on the line to create a better community. These founders did not all agree with one another on many topics and they were not unanimously supported by the people living in the colony’s. But they knew what was right for their new community.

Pretty heavy stuff for a city weblog.

How does that relate to the City of Davison?

Davison is at a cross roads. And we, as a community get to decide what fork in the road we want. And this makes some people nervous. No one can blame them for being nervous. I understand it is always easier not try to change things and make them better ala “status Quo”. It is even easier to stand on the sidelines and pick apart things, it hardly takes any effort. But the real leaders lead us into the future and look at the big picture.

They do the work behind the seems and anguish over tough decisions when they know some people in the community will criticize the path we take.

We’ve done it with our Skellenger Water Treatment Plant and water transportation infrastructure. And the people of Davison have stepped up and pay more than they did for water in the “old days”. But now they have the best arsenic free soft water in Genesee County. AND we can now handle growth for new business’ with the new system when we go out and recruit more jobs to Davison.

We are working on it with our Inflow and Infiltration project. So big of project that City Council knows we can’t do the entire project at once. But we need to stop sending rain water to the water treatment plant at the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

We are working on concepts of a new municipal center that will feature its own blog or three next week. What an exciting time to be in Davison!

And we will continue to look forward with every aspect of our community. When I came to Davison the then ten year Mayor Adair told me something (and in my conversation recently with her she either inadvertently, or maybe on purpose reminded me of this). She said something like “Pete some people here don’t see the need to change. I come back from driving through some communities and they’ve done so much to make themselves welcoming. They’ve done street scape items, they have hanging plant baskets from light poles. (she even named some of the communities, some larger than us but some the same size or smaller). But when I come back here to tell people about these great things they say, but we are not Northville, we are not Rochester, we are not Frankenmuth, We are not…”

Funny, I here those same clashes every time someone brings up an idea (thanks for reminding me Kay). But that brings me to my point in this long Blog.

All those communities where we are now at some point in time. They chose to be successful and continue to work towards thriving communities. They don’t wait for things to happen to them, they go out and do something.

That is what we have to decide now. What do we want and lets go do it.

Or, do we want to just take what comes our way?

Someone asked me the other day. “Pete how come the city is so bent on making downtown so attractive, why is it important? ” It is because we want to go out and recruit some business’ to come to Davison. Not only unique shops that people travel too but Research and Design (R&D) firms, technology firms, and other professional business that can bring 20 to 200 jobs with them. We want there to be a waiting list for people who want to lease space downtown. We want people to live above the stores downtown.

No, we don’t want to wait for them, to see if they will come. We want to go get them and bring them here. We can sell them on our school system, we can sell them on our neighborhoods, we can sell them on our location, we can sell them on our police and fire services, we can sell them on our infrastructure, but we can’t sell them on our downtown.

We asked. People said they want a quaint downtown…oh wait we already heard that.

Only if Jefferson, Rush, and Washington had it so hard.

Have you ever thought about what it would be like if one person, or even a small group of people were the only ones to tell you what is happening and why?

Now add to the mix that this person or people have an agenda and want to steer the story to a preconceived notion. Sound like a plot for a juicy conspiracy novel?

Naw, it happens everyday. That is one of the reasons for this blog spot. After several years as Davison’s City Manager one of the biggest complaints we had about city hall was communication. People were not aware of what was going on at city hall. People were unaware of the future planning that was taking place to ensure that Davison not only survived but begins to thrive.

We did all the normal stuff municipalities do to tell the story.

• Updates on plans and talk about progress at our two monthly meetings
• Press releases
• Public notices in the weekly advertising circular
• Public input meetings
• Private meetings with business owners and property owners
• Open door policy and spoke with many citizens one on one
• Open door policy with media and had many one on one meetings
• Speaking engagements to local civic groups when requested

But sometimes doing what we always do isn’t enough. One of our Department Heads came up with a great idea to make sure everyone stays in the loop and hence the creation of the “DREAM TEAM”. The Dream Team is basically a member from each active board or commission that the city has including city council and includes a staff member. This has helped in many ways. Each member can go back to their board, authority, commission and report what is going on in other arms of the city; great for open communication. This can also work the other way, if a board member thinks something is being missed or needs more focus they can communicate with their dream team member and the information can flow back to the working board. Communication is two way street.

An additional benefit of the dream team is the leadership role they have taken in long term community plan development, design standards and re-looking at our outdated zoning.

Still this isn’t enough.

People still are not hearing our story. I read an article about blogs where it mention blog coach Griff Wiggley. I contacted Griff less than a year ago and the rest is history. This blog at least.

But this blog is the same reason the internet has taken off so rapidly and why alternative news service are flourishing. The lack of information that it being presented.

In Wednesday’s weekly advertising circular they printed a letter to the editor that makes my point. It was from some Township resident complaining about a pay raise for the City Manager. He makes my point by stating;

“the hot topic of the day seems to be canopies downtown, something the
average person doesn’t care about. Has Mr. Auger has lost touch?”

I can see how a person could believe this to be true if the only place the received information was the Davison Index. It seems for the past six months the Davison Index is a one trick pony. And the writer is correct, the Index thinks the only thing in town is the “canopies”. The Index has shifted gears and started heavily slanted stories against me. Part of these stories are based on half reported items. Here is an example:

Fact and reported: I did ask for a good size raise.

Editor’s view: A half page editorial against the increase or even half of the rate. But then contradicts itself in the last paragraph by stating:

“As many in Davison know from experience in small business, the only thing which
justifies a significant raise is performance.”

Facts and not reported: The raise presented in the 2006-2007 budget was brought up by City Council on the Personnel Committee as a plan to reduce my retirement benefits (which is very good). To quote the Council Member it was to “Show leadership” on my part because now that the city council understands the retirement benefits that they offered the city can not afford.

The presented budget is approximately $170,000 higher than when I first came to Davison 5 years ago. City Staff working with City Council has saved City taxpayers over 4 million dollars by changing how we operate in that same time period. During that same time period we have expanded services and increased office hours by 260 hours a year.

This is just a tip of the iceberg. We could go on about crime rates and how visible and user friendly our Police Department is. Maybe the accomplishments of our DPW in completing the largest infrastructure project in City history and doing it under the construction budget. Or maybe the largest private investment projects in the City’s history happening in the last few years. Maybe highlight the joint ventures between Davison Schools, Davison Township and the City of Davison that save all tax payers money…

That is just one of many examples of how people can be mislead by partial or slanted reporting. To the first mentioned editorial; We have a heck of a lot going on in the City of Davison, much more than what everyone agrees are old, ugly, outdated and in disrepair canopies.

To the Index’s editorial; I agree with his last paragraph about the private sector comparison. My question is wouldn’t be nice to have a savings clause like in some private sector operations where the employees can share 10% of what they save the company? I’m sure all city employees would enjoy that after their hard and dedicated service of the last 5 years.

We are all replaceable.

This is one reason why I believe in the team concept. Yes there has to be a leader or boss. Then there has to be mid level management, and then the essentials, the people who actually get the work done.

Well we got to see how these things play out over the past month.

With the birth of our fourth daughter, I took some time off. I am still not on a good sleep pattern (but wouldn’t change it for the world). Knowing this was coming I delegated more of this year’s budget process out more than in the past. Things still got done and I think we have grown as a staff because of it. We will learn from this in many different areas.

Then the kicker hits, Monday evening my wife and I both get hit with some sort of bug that basically stops you in your tracks. We were both out of action. Thanks for our oldest daughter and my mom who came and got the youngest two in the morning we limped through the day.

Well last night was the first of our three architectural presentations for the new municipal center concepts. This is a great project that is in its infancy. I was not able to be there to participate. It hurts not to be there, but I know the city staff and city council will be able to ask relevant questions and get the information we need to take the next steps.

It is good to have capable people in the positions where one person out of the picture doesn’t stop operations.

I spent the day Friday at the Michigan Municipal League’s (MML) headquarters looking at State legislation. Not fun, but part of the responsibility of sitting on the MML’s Transportation, Infrastructure & Environmental Affairs Committee.

Of the legislation of interest we talked about House Bill 5895 and Senate Bill 1157. These deal with the Cable Franchise laws. National phone companies want special rules to compete with the cable companies, but the MML’s position is that the phone companies can compete now, they just have to follow the same rules and laws the cable companies do. We all would benefit from competition, but we want everyone on the same playing field.

If you need more information on this e-mail me and I’ll try to explain in more detail.

Another piece of legislation we looked at was Senate Bill 1182. This deals with Public Act 51 of 1951. This would help municipalities shift money from Major Streets to Local Streets if an Asset Management Plan is in Place. It takes what was done with Act 9 of 2004 and would remove the sunset provision. Cities have long argued that funding should not be allocated to local or major street classifications, that a city is responsible to improve what roads in deems a priority.

This committee also had good discussion on several other topics, such as:

• State Revenue Sharing
• November Ballot Initiatives
• CORE Community Legislation
• Reviewed MML’s Legislative Policies.

Overall it was a good day and it is important that the city of Davison residents be represented during the making of these laws.