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General Election Day |
IssuesCity Financial ManagementMeijer Economic Development Updating City Technology Roads and Infrastructure Quality of Life One of the most important responsibilities of the Mayor is to oversee close to $16 million in public money annually. These dollars span a wide array of sources. In our general fund alone, in the first 3 years I was Mayor the taxable value of land in Flat Rock dropped by over 20%. Most of us that are homeowners have watched our tax bills drop. I know that while it is certainly nice to pay less, it makes running the City much more difficult. While revenue drops, expenses keep going up. Gas for our ambulances and police cars keeps going up, road salt has increased and health insurance for our City workers continues to sky rocket. Working with City Council we have made very difficult choices, but have stabilized our finances. We have resolved two very difficult tax cases with Ford, and secured the immediate future of the plant along with 1200 new jobs from Ford and 250 new jobs at Meijer. Standard and Poors recognized the progress we have made by reiterating our good bond rating despite significant challenges facing Wayne County. However we are not out of the woods yet. The pending situation in Lansing with Personal Property Tax reform should be of great concern to every Flat Rock citizen. . We have resolved difficult labor contracts with our Patrol Officers, Firefighters, and Clerical Unions. We have made difficult choices here as well. We have come to agreements that recognize the great contribution and work that our employees do, while aligning current and future costs and benefits with those found in the other public and private sector areas and our budget. With deep knowledge and experience in municipal finance and labor agreements, I will continue to be an effective advocate for the interests of Flat Rock and our taxpayers. I was in favor of Meijer coming to Flat Rock We are receiving calls from other businesses who are now looking at Flat Rock because of Meijer, and yes that includes inquiries about the Kmart plaza. I know some of the residents around the site had concerns. Many were able to be addressed in the agreement we came to with Meijer, including the limitation of truck traffic hours to the store, the most landscaping and shielding that Meijer has ever put into a store plan, and improvements to the water systems on the west side of town. And despite some people's concerns over property values, a house in the subdivision across the street from the site just sold for $270,000! Meijer will certainly bring other businesses to Flat Rock. The rebound in the economy and credit markets will play a large part as well. We as a City have changed a lot in the last 6 years. We are now becoming known as a business friendly City. Our processes have been streamlined and are now consistent for all businesses. Through our DDA, we have started a facade grant program that assists businesses that invest in improving their appearance. We have an annual business forum that all of our businesses are invited to, This allows them to meet, exchange ideas, give feedback to the City, as well as hear from experts in marketing, banking, and other guest speakers. We launched the downtownflatrock.com website and Facebook program which gives our businesses increased visibility and marketing at no cost to them. Flat Rock was significantly behind in its use of technology. We have made great progress in changing that. Using my technology experience, we have updated our computer servers and infrastructure throughout the building. We have replaced our ancient phone system with a modern system without increasing cost. I replaced outdated copiers that were under multiple contracts with a single vendor which gives us new modern equipment at a savings to the City. We have revamped the City website. We are in the middle of a major upgrade to the key software system that runs our daily operations. Once complete this will save us significant staff time doing some of our routine tasks as well as open up a whole new world of online services to our citizens. You are now able to pay your water bill online, and as of September will be able request City services and report problems or issues online , which can then be tracked to resolution. We all know our roads need major work. This has been one of the most frustrating aspects of my 6 years as Mayor. Like many Flat Rock families, we have had to make diffcult choices with our limited budget and haven't been able to do as much as we would have liked. We were successful at securing over $2 million in grant money that could only be used on major roads. This is how we were able to repave Hall, Vreeland, and Arsenal. We were able to use the heavily restricted use Block Grant funds to begin the improvement and paving of Evergreen. We are also finally able to invest in a formal evaluation of all of our City's local roads. This report is the basis for our short and long term road maintenance and paving plan. This year alone our financial discipline and credit rating have allowed us to invest over $4 million in road improvements. We are also now able to invest in the replacement of some of our water and sewer system. Some of our water and sewer pipes date back to the 1920s. Other areas, even along Telegraph don't even have sewer service. The same level of study and planning that we are putting into our roads we are doing with our water system. We gave received a State grant to develop the same kind of plan for our Sewer System that we did for our roads. Flat Rock is known for its quality of life and City services. It was a guiding principle in my decisions relating to the budget and everything we do. We have been able to maintain our quality of life and city services as well as any city in our area, despite the dramatic drop in revenue. We have maintained all of our Senior Services, improved the financial performance of our beautiful Recreation Center, and have not been scared to try new things and think outside of the box. We have been able to reopen the Ice Rink and have now secured grant funds to replace the Fountain, that was both expensive and had no filtration system, with a new splashpad that will be ready for Summer 2016. We even had a little bit of fun as a Community. When I ran 4 years ago I stated I wanted to bring back Riverfest. Luckily 3 years ago Gary Borden asked me if he could lead the effort. Our one condition was that it had to be done in a financially responsible way. If you have been to one of our 5 Riverfests or our Summer Blast, you have seen what we have been able to do. These events are very important to our Community and bring many people to Flat Rock, some for the first time.. I am proud of our success! If you have an issue you would like to know about please feel free to give me a call at 734.379.9438 or send me an email at jonathan@jondrop.com.
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