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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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To keep streetlights on, metro Detroit communities send the bill to residents
November 18, 2013 |
By Eric D. Lawrence
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer
Richard Kudrak said Lincoln Park residents should have had a say in the decision to charge property owners about $38 per parcel each year for five years in a special assessment for streetlights. 'Do we want better lighting at $38 a year? Then give us the right to vote on it,' he said.
Streetlights are important to Richard Kudrak, but the Lincoln Park resident is unhappy with the assessment he’ll pay for lighting in his winter tax bill.
Lincoln Park, like a growing number of Michigan communities struggling to balance finances and demands for service, is now turning to special-assessment districts to pay for streetlight installation, upgrades and operations.
Communities across metro Detroit, including Eastpointe, Ypsilanti, Flint, Hazel Park and Clinton Township, are paying for street-lighting or lighting infrastructure upgrades by charging residents based on the number or frontage size of their property parcels.
Lincoln Park’s City Council voted Tuesday to charge property owners about $38 per parcel each year for five years.
Kudrak, 67, said residents should have had a voice on whether they wanted to pay more for streetlights.
“The citizens should have a right to decide what kind of a city do we want to live in,” he said. “Do we want better lighting at $38 a year? Then give us the right to vote on it.”
■ Related: Why Detroit’s lights went out, and the plan to get them back on
Lincoln Park City Manager Joseph Merucci said the council held public hearings before approving the measure, which will bring in about $590,00 a year, just shy of the $620,000 the service costs the city. .
As part of the program, the city’s 2,130 streetlights will be upgraded to energy-efficient LED bulbs.
Merucci said Lincoln Park’s predicament — the city is undergoing a financial review by the state treasury and has seen its property tax valuations drop 44% in five years — requires drastic action.
“People are always upset when things are going up. ... There’s no other choice,” Merucci said.
Crime fears
Samantha Harkins, director of state affairs for the Michigan Municipal League, called streetlights an essential part of a community.
“If our streets are dark, you’re going to have more crime and the possibility of more crime,” Harkins said. “I can appreciate there’s criticism (about a special assessment), but I think it’s really just about these local leaders trying to provide these services that the residents expect and that are critical in providing safe and vibrant communities.”
It’s an issue Detroit has struggled with. A public lighting authority was recently formed in the city to find ways to restore lighting to areas that have struggled with outages for years.
Harkins said state law basically has prevented communities from raising taxes to offset the dramatic drops in revenue caused by the impact of the financial crisis on property tax values, the primary generator of municipal funding. Even if property values increase substantially, local units of government can only increase taxable value on property up to the rate of inflation or 5%, whichever is less.
For the state’s townships, a special-assessment district is the primary approach to financing street-lighting in those townships that provide it, according to Catherine Mullhaupt, director of member information services for the Michigan Townships Association.
“The only way a township can legally provide street-lighting in private subdivisions and on private roads is through a special assessment that recovers all the costs,” Mullhaupt noted.
Ed Henderson, manager of community lighting for DTE Energy, said he is aware of a number of communities that have created assessment districts to pay for lighting, but that DTE, which owns, maintains and operates the streetlights for most of Detroit’s suburbs, is primarily concerned that the bills are paid, not how the communities raise the funds to do so.
“We’re kind of indifferent” to the process, Henderson said. “We’re aware because we talk to them.”
No action for some
Not all communities that have considered special-assessment districts have followed through.
Harper Woods was considering such a move in 2010, but its City Council opted not to. Still, City Manager Randolph Skotarczyk said he might consider pursuing an assessment if the city can’t find enough savings from a planned conversion to more-energy-efficient LED lighting in its streetlights. Street-lighting costs the city more than $500,000 per year.
“We have to deal with our energy costs,” Skotarczyk said. “I’m going to try to do it without assessments if I can.”
But in Eastpointe, city officials opted this fall for the assessment.
“Due to significant reductions in property values, general revenues from property taxes are unable to pay for even existing street-lighting costs, forcing the City Council to turn to a special assessment as one measure to offset the nearly $2.8 million structural deficits in a fund that pays for all public safety and municipal community services,” City Manager Steve Duchane said in a news release. “As we looked at financing alternatives, this special assessment for street-lighting was the best short-term option.”
Beginning next month, Eastpointe will assess $31.18 per residential and commercial parcel for three years in hopes of raising $429,000 per year to cover electricity costs.
Hazel Park, which has faced plummeting property values, as well, began a street-lighting assessment in 2012. The assessments range from $49 to $59 a year, depending on the size of the property.
“Unfortunately, I think it’s going to become an all-too-common phenomenon in the inner-ring suburbs because of the drop in property values,” Hazel Park City Manager Edward Klobucher said of the assessments.
Residents on move?
Still, drops in revenue are not reason enough to ask residents to pay more, according to Lincoln Park City Council President Thomas Murphy, the lone council member to vote against the special assessment in Lincoln Park.
He said he is concerned that a rising tide of millages and fees will prompt some residents to leave.
“It’s just a succession of one fee after another after another, and you just wonder when it’s going to end,” Murphy said. “Just because we’re in trouble doesn’t mean we can turn our taxpayers upside down and shake every coin out of their pockets.”
But Merucci, the Lincoln Park city manager, said the costs of keeping streetlights operational through a special assessment are justified.
“I don’t think people want to live in a community where the streetlights don’t work,” he said.
Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com |
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Mon Nov 18, 2013 10:14 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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While the residents are dealing with huge reductions in their property taxes, the politicians are dealing with a shrinking tax base. But are al of these user fees the way to deal with the problems?
I meet more and more people who are having their hours reduced at work and their benefits cut. How can they afford ever increasing fees for services when their incomes are being cut, How can the businesses survive when the people who work for them cannot afford to purchase their products? How can communities survive when large numbers of residents can no longer afford to live there? |
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Mon Nov 18, 2013 10:22 am |
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