City of Davison, Michigan

There is a lot that gets done in our city that is done by volunteers. I think that pride shows in how some things are taken care of. I recently receive a memo frm Colleen Hackney (the City’s Community Development Director).

A note of thanks needs to be extended to Dick Winters and Pat Bernethy for their
time, energy, and expertise in keeping the Davison Historical Museum in great
shape, from the Wooley building’s beautiful shake roof to the meandering brick
walk leading to the flagpole. They have volunteered many hours to ensure
visitors a pleasant and educational experience at the museum.

Along with Dick and Pat are a handful of volunteers that donate
hours to share Davison’s heritage with children, adults, visitors, and
citizens. We are so fortunate to have such a dedicated team willing to
preserve Davison’s history. Thanks to all of you for maintaining and
sharing one of Davison’s valued treasurerrers.

I agree with Colleen’s sediments, and if you haven’t visited our nice museum, it is worth the time.

We welcomed our newest city employee Katie Koepke (who was hired into our Police Department Clerical position) with a surprise pot luck lunch in honor of her 30th birthday.

Katie has been a good find and seems to be a good fit with our operations. This is her first appearance on “the blog”. If you are by the police station be sure to stop by and wish her a happy birthday.

These milestone birthdays are a great thing because staff sets them up in the conference room next to my office and I end up grazing all day.

Anyone remember that old TV sit-com “Night Court?”

Well the City of Davison hosted its rendition of night court last week. Judge John Conover has done this before and the local police departments love it.

What some people do not realize is that some people go through the court system and get adjudicated, then they don’t follow up and show up for sentencing or fill their community service hours. Then a warrant is issued for them to return to court.

These warrants sit in our files until they are pulled over for running a stop sign or speeding or some other police contact. When a police officer runs the name in the police computer the warrant comes up and then they go before a judge.

The problem with that is it takes a chance meeting between the police and the offender. What Night Courts allow is for police to go through their files and find addresses to where these people live. Then they go to their homes at night (when most people are at home) and scoop them up so they can speak with the judge.

As the Flint Journal reported, area police officers brought 42 people wanted on 61 outstanding warrants. This has been a productive way to keep our files cleared out and also allow people an opportunity to see the judge at a different time than during the day, because obviously day time hours is not good for these people to return to court as they were suppose to.

For you web surfers this maybe a blog to skip.

We are posting for a position on our city team. Those of you who follow this blog know that we tragically lost a key member of our team in a motorcycle accident.

No, this isn’t the only place we are advertising and I don’t know if anyone will apply that sees it here. But, like all new stuff you try you don’t know till you actually try it.

Here, in a nut shell is what we are looking for.

People in this area know about Abernathy Regional Park.

It has been said by many that we have the nicest and most used regional park in Genesee County. I have no reason to doubt that, a few years ago we put our traffic counter on Frank Boyce Parkway (the park road) and we had 1,100 cars drive into the park.

I was asked the other day, “What makes this park so nice that everyone wants to use it?”

I only had to pause a second before I started listing the reasons:

• Cleanliness; we try to keep trash containers empty and restrooms clean.
• Playscape; one of the nicest and best maintained play structures around (thanks Friends of the Playscape Committee and volunteers).
• Pavilions, picnic tables and and plenty of large shade trees.
• Police presence; you will see Davison’s finest patrol often for that police presence and comfort level.
• Worvie Field; some of the best softball fields around.
• DART; the 2 mile non motorize paved trail system that shows people animals, woods, streams and natural areas of our park.
• Clean and maintained playground equipment.
• Tennis, Basketball, and sand volleyball courts.

Geez…the list just kept going. Then I thought, maybe it is also the little things. Like the pick up after your dog bags placed throughout the park. Clean trash cans. Listening to residents request (like the map of DART). Fresh coat of paint on playground equipment.

Until you do both the big projects and taking care of the little things you don’t have the entire package. Thanks for all who take care of Abernathy Regional Park. That’s not only the organized groups or employees, but also those who use the park and clean up after themselves or bring us ideas on how to keep improving this gem.

Every year we try to have a safer school year than the year before.

This takes a lot of team work behind the scenes. Over this past summer the Davison Police Department has worked with the Department of Public Works and the Davison Area Schools to address one our busy school crossing areas.

Last year was the first year for the re-configured parking/drop off area behind Central Elementary. It is not uncommon to have some issues when we change how things work. After a school year under our belt we were able to see some things that might make one of the areas safer.

This area of the city actually has three schools (Central Elementary, Hahn Intermediate, and Davison Middle School). The school system has been a good public partner to work with and is always looking to find ways to improve what we do.

So, If you are dropping off children this year around one of the 3 above listed schools, please keep your eyes peeled for more cross walks and some changing traffic patterns.

We received a request you don’t get everyday.

“Hey, can we borrow 200,000 gallons of water a day?”

Its a little more complicated than that. We were approached because a six foot water line that feeds the city of Flint (which then feeds a lot of Genesee County) runs close to the City of Davison. They found this line spung a leak. Genesee County Water Department has been setting up a system to see that all of their water users still have water during this repair (1 to 3 days).

The problem is they didn’t have a way to get a section of Richfield Township water. This is where we got asked to use our water system.

In Davison we have our own water system. According to our ordinance we can not give it away, so they will have to purchase the water, but there was never a question of if we should help.

Of course we would help, that’s what neighbors do.

We just had to make sure we have the extra capacity (which we do) and make sure our system will maintain pressure and stay safe to drink (which it will). The rest is just logistics.

Even when you think you have all the bases covered…

We had gone through and changed about 52 Ordinances in the past four years to attempt to bring them up to speed with current law changes and our Court rulings. Over all I think the city has done a good job of attempting to make things clear and then…

Mr. Murphy raises his head.

We have an up coming election coming up and only had two people fill out the required paperwork. So on the last day we had a petition filled out with the appropriate signatures to give us a full slate 3 people for 3 positions. Great!

But, the third position is the wife of a sitting council member. We quickly looked and thought everything to be okay. Staff knew about our City’s Nepotism policy and we thought everything was still okay. Although we had a couple of staff say they weren’t so sure that it pass all muster.

Here is the section from our Ordinance on Nepotism:

Unless Council determines, by a four-fifths vote of its elected members, which
vote shall be recorded as part of the official proceedings, that the best
interests of the City will be served by their employment or appointment, the
following relatives of any elected or appointed officer or City employee are
disqualified from holding any office or position of City employment during the
term for which the elected or appointed officer was elected or appointed, or
while such employee is in the employment of the City: spouse, child, parent,
grandchild, grandparent, brother, sister, half-brother, half-sister or the
spouse of any of them. All relationships shall include those arising from
adoption. This section shall in no way disqualify such relatives or their
spouses who are bona fide appointed officers or employees of the City at the
time of the election or the appointment of such official or who are presently
employed by the City at the time of the adoption of this section.

So we contact our legal team an low and behold we have a word that is problematic. OFFICE. The small section that says holding any office puts elected officials into the fray.

Of course it is not even that easy. Our Ordinance was written not prohibit relatives from doing anything as long as City Council approves it by 4/5 vote. well with a board of 7, and the spouse can’t vote, we would need 6 votes.

This issue like most has passion on both sides and we will work it out, but with people on both side of weather a husband wife can sit on a council at the same time I do not see us getting 6 out of 6 votes.

Also, the person can not remove their name from the ballot after 72 hours past the turn in deadline. She did write to us and say she didn’t want the controversy and ask to be removed.

There are passionate citizens who cane to our last meeting to voice their opinions on the issue, so I guess someone could also have a write in campaign. Can it work? History says yes.

Stay tuned, this one could get interesting…

At Monday nights City Council Meeting the City Council passed two resolutions (2006-16 & 2006-17). The reader’s digest version of both resolutions is that there will be two items on the ballot in November’s election.

Both items are tied together and deal with a change in the City of Davison Charter.

In a nut shell the City Council is asking the voters if they would like to change the terms of Council members from current 2 year terms to what it use to be, 4 year terms.

The City Charter is the rule book that tells hoe we are to run our local government. It is voted on by the electorate, therefore the only way to change it is to ask the public if we should change it.

The last time our Charter was revisited and voted on in total was 1999.

I was not in Davison at that time, but from what I understand, the reason the charter was changed from 4 years to 2 years was that maybe more people would run for local government offices with a shorter time commitment.

We have had a few elections that have had 4 people running for 3 positions but a lot more that are 3 people running for 3 positions.

The tough part on ballot initiatives is explaining them or getting the word out to the public what is play. If anyone has any ideas how to educate the public in these regards I’d be very interested in the information.

One thing people in my line of work have to deal with is not being able to please everyone. It is not that those who work in the public sector don’t want everyone to be happy with us, it is just different people want or need different results.

An example would be a current situation with a slow water main break under one of our streets. Our very conscientious DPW attempts to plan on when to do the repair.

It is not a major break where we lose pressure in our system or there is a possibility of road wash out so the DPW looks at who is fed by this water main. This one happens to feed two restaurants, a hair salon and a mix of other businesses. The DPW is opening up the road today and coming in early tomorrow to fix the water main.

We think we have contacted everyone that will be affected, but sometime there is someone we miss. I am just glad our team takes in the big picture and attemps to accommodate those we serve. It is all a part of being a successful city team.