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On Tax Caps and Council Members: Do Saginaw Voters Show a Split Personality?
By Mike Thompson Larry Coulouris had two goals in the Nov. 3 Saginaw City Council election. As a second term candidate he was asking citizens for their votes. He also was asking voters to lift Saginaw’s 30-year-old property tax cap limits, through support of Proposal 8. Coulouris achieved a dramatically split result, which today leaves him shaking his head and wondering what’s going on. His re-election was a breeze. Still spry at age 84, Coulouris outran the field of candidates with 3,876 votes. Other winners, all with less than 3,000, were Andrew Wendt, Dennis Browning and Greg Branch. Bill Scharffe barely missed out, and Armando Falcon trailed far in the rear with 1,800. The results cause Coulouris to feel humble honor that he is recognized for his years of civic involvement, but then he looks at his second concern, the Proposal 8 result. For the seventh time since 1979, the local civic establishment asked voters to remove the tax caps, with the usual theme that the future of the City of Saginaw was at stake. For the seventh time, voters shot down the proposal. This occasion was among the most severe landslides in the series, 1,349 “yes” to 4,018 “no.” Coulouris likes to do math problems and compile statistics. This election equation is fairly simple, but daunting at the same time: Count 3,876 votes for Coulouris, minus 1,349 votes for Proposal 8, and we see that at least 2,527 people who voted FOR Coulouris did NOT heed his advice to lift the tax cap limits. That’s roughly a two-thirds ratio. “Maybe I shouldn’t say this,” Larry Coulouris muses, “but maybe it’s like this: They trust me enough to vote for me, but they don’t trust me regarding the harm of the tax caps. I don’t know the answer to that.” He’s also concerned with another math problem. Budget figures indicate that with continuing declines in federal and state funds, and with shrinking local income tax revenue, council members must continue cutting to the tune of about $3 million per year.
Mixed-Up Saginaw Voters? Coulouris isn’t the only Saginaw civic leader shaking his head. More than 95 percent of council members serving since 1979 have aimed to remove the tax cap limits, but the people who elected them have refused. Mayor Joyce Seals also has pondered why voters support her so strongly as an individual, but then don’t follow her informed guidance regarding the city’s tax cap limits. “This time (in going to voters) was different than the previous times, because this time was the first time that there was a rational way of lifting the tax caps,” Seals says. “This would have been done by removing the trash millage, in favor of a uniform fee that would be fair to everyone. I just don’t think we had enough time to sell it. It’s really going to take two years of educating the public.” Which means, look for yet another tax limits referendum in 2011. Tax-cap adherents respond that the ones in need of “education” are Seals and Coulouris and the whole City Hall crowd, who just don’t seem to understand that the majority of citizens want the tax limits because they exist as a unique tool for the tax-paying public by forcing government to operate efficiently, while serving as the only true protection taxpayers have for fiscal accountability. Thus the majority of citizens will continue to say “no” to removing the tax limits, regardless of how many ballot proposals are put forth. But at the same time, candidates who endorse keeping the tax cap limits, and thus would seem to reflect public sentiment, have constantly been defeated when they themselves seek council seats. Even the late Allan Schmid, the actual author of the City Charter’s tax limit amendment, was beaten in his personal bid for election. So was his son, Greg Schmid. Dr. Walter C. Averill III and the elder Schmid once organized an anti-tax slate known as SUT, Saginaw United Taxpayers. Only Doc Averill succeeded in winning a council seat, on account of his name recognition via his father. All the other tax-cap candidates were defeated. Averill eventually retired to Florida, a prickly point with lift-the-caps advocates who have remained in dear ol’ Saginaw. Years later, when the Schmids orchestrated a proposal for a City Charter overhaul, voters crushed their 2007 plan even more severely than voters have smashed the city establishment’s various lift-the-caps referendums. This time around, Armando Falcon was the lone council candidate to advocate keeping the tax cap limits with a Proposal 8 “no” vote. Some 75 percent of voters fulfilled Falcon’s wishes on Prop 8, but Falcon himself received fewer than half as many votes as the pro-Prop 8 Coulouris. Sure, Falcon is a 19-year-old neophyte while Coulouris is a respected elder statesman. Still, the comparative numbers between the two candidates and the tax caps vote simply don’t make sense. So, what gives? Even though only a paltry 15 percent of residents vote in these elections, the city budget is more than just a paper budget. The city budget truly does affect our quality of life in terms of everything from police and fire crews, to streets and bridges, to parks and recreation, to the housing and living conditions in our very own neighborhoods. If we desire a conservative low-tax city budget, as seems reflected in all these keep-the-caps election results, then why don’t we produce and elect conservative keep-the-caps City Council members?
Voter ‘Education?’ Do voters truly need more education, as Seals and other local leaders perceive? Let’s look more closely. There were eight ballot proposals on November 3rd, and results indicate that those who took the time to vote also took the time to study the ballot in advance, regardless of whether any one of us agrees or disagrees with the decisions. The evidence is in varying results, with three proposals approved and five defeated. This point is hammered home in Proposals 5 and 6. Amid all the other “no” decisions, voters on Props 5 and 6 strongly said “yes” for requiring a council two-thirds “super majority” vote to hire or fire the city manager, rather than the previous simple majority. This seems to indicate that voters definitely have not forgotten the previous council’s 2004 midnight vote, by a 5-4 non-super majority, to fire Deborah Kimble as city manager. Why else would these two particular proposals win overwhelming “yes” votes, amid the overall sea of “no” votes? On the other hand, once more the will of the voters may cause confusion. The new super majority requirement won’t do Debby Kimble any good; it only would potentially aid current Manager Darnell Earley, arch-enemy of the tax caps, and future managers. Furthermore, most of the perpetrators of the Kimble ouster are gone. Mayor Seals was not in office at the time, and only Amos O’Neal remains from the purported “Gang of Five.” (And Mr. O’Neal was re-elected in 2007.) The new council is comprised of new members who say they are doing business in a new way. Voters wanted this change, but regarding the tax cap limits, voters on November 3rd seemed to say that they have no more trust in the new council than they had in the old council.
‘New’ Approach, Same Old Result During public forums, and in the Oct. 8 pages of Review Magazine’s election preview, Larry Coulouris joined Andy Wendt and Denny Browning, and Greg Branch and Bill Scharfee, in making the same old points. They declared that the 1979 tax cap limits are a hamstring for local government services and a barrier to progress (barely mentioning, as usual, various other increases in taxes and fees). They asserted that even when Saginaw somehow manages to attract business investment, the tax-limit law prevents City Hall from gaining a single nickel in added revenue as a reward. But this time around, as Mayor Seals noted, council members also tried a new approach. They actually promoted a property tax decrease via lifting tax limits, which may seem a contradiction, or even an oxymoron. Their stated plan was to remove the 3-mill trash tax in favor of a uniform fee and to simply maintain overall basic services, rather than aiming to restore past cutbacks. The overall tax rate would have dropped to 11.3 mills, down from 14.3 mills. This was a conservative plan, even Reagan-Bush trickle-down to the extent that owners of low-value homes would have paid more overall, and owners of high-value homes would have paid less. However, in the process, removing the tax cap limits would have unlocked the door for this council, and/or future councils, to gradually raise the tax rate, potentially to the state limit of 20 mills. Coulouris, upon post-election reflection, says the council possibly could have closed that door by proposing a revised local cap that would have fallen far lower than the state maximum. “Who knows?” Coulouris asks. “For all our good intents, was our proposal totally honest? If things got bad enough, if things got even worse than now, it would be tempting to increase that millage rate just a little bit here, a little bit there.” Proposal 8 supporters, when challenged by critics such as Greg Schmid, found themselves explaining that the public should trust them, or that “more budget flexibility” would result from removing the existing tax cap limits, or that the state’s obscure Headlee Amendment and Truth In Taxation laws would keep the council under control. “Probably because of its very wording, the proposal was too complex,” Coulouris says. As election day moved closer, Coulouris constantly tried to simplify and fine-tune the message. He eventually spelled it out this way: “You supported the library tax because you wanted a book. You supported the STARS (transit) tax because you wanted a bus. You should support (Proposal 8) if you want police and fire and other basic city services.” The pitch didn’t work, and again in retrospect, Coulouris concedes that this wasn’t the most inspirational possible message. He is unhappy that voters don’t seem to realize that the council already has made cutbacks, but at the same time, he says voters want the process to continue. Therefore, he pledges a renewed effort to pursue even more savings. When asked to be specific, Coulouris says he wants to explore farming out the operation of the city vehicle maintenance garage. He also believes there could be a way for firefighters to perform home building code inspections, during the times when they aren’t out fighting fires. Coulouris, at the same time, asserts that “finding savings” won’t come close to addressing the entire budget shortfall. Straight-out cutbacks are inevitable, each time more painful. For example, can the city continue to maintain four fire stations while facing $3 million in yearly cutbacks, while two-thirds of the budget already is for public safety?
What Does the Future Hold? Even if the first two ideas from Larry Coulouris don’t pan out, at least he is stepping away from the same old adage that “we’ve already cut down to the bone.” Other council members also may realize that without a more aggressive approach, the next tax caps referendum again will yield the same old result. When new council members such as Coulouris and Branch and Wendt took the helm in 2005, a point of pride was to end the “public bickering” that they perceived was prevalent during the era of Wilmer Ham and Willie Haynes, Roma Thurin and Dan Soza. The “new” council isn’t so new anymore. In fact, Denny Browning from past service brings more experience than the member he replaces, Bill Scharffe. With experience comes knowledge. With knowledge may come questions, such as the examples from Coulouris: What about the bus garage? What about firefighters doing home inspections? And so on. Next question: How might Manager Earley respond to a more active council, one that makes more inquiries and offers more proposals? All involved say they remain committed to unity of purpose, but unity need not equate to uniformity. A signal of things to come, in fact, possibly transpired a week prior to the election. There was a sort of hush-hush episode when Earley proposed, in advance of the Oct. 26 council meeting, to hire an assistant to Development Director Odail Thorns at an estimated $70,000 base salary, plus benefits. Before the meeting started, several council members objected not so much to the proposal, but to the timing. First, a tax election was eight days away, and how would THIS look to voters. Second, the council had just committed $47,500 to Earley’s proposal for outside consultants (Plante & Moran) to study possible trims among rank-and-file workers, which isn’t exactly popular with the municipal unions. As a result of private council objections, Earley pulled the proposal on Oct. 26 and postponed discussion for a future meeting, which likely was transpiring on Nov. 9 while Review Magazine was going to press. Coulouris says that although Earley had no ill will, he should have waited to make the proposal until the consultants have finished examining the overall city workforce. Seals in turn gives ardent support to the manager, saying that City Hall has no choice. Federal HUD officials, says Seals, are demanding another City Hall development staffer for oversight of federal funds. Regardless, questions are being asked. Questions will continue, as Earley and the council consider cutbacks as a consequence of Proposal 8's defeat and the continuation of tax cap limits. If the discussions are more open, possibly the now not-so-new City Council can build upon the meager 25 percent support that was offered on November 3rd. This could be the first form of “education” that Mayor Seals, Councilman Coulouris & Company say is so important.
The Morning After • Interpreting the Tax Cap Vote By Robert E. Martin As a lifelong resident, 30-year business owner, journalist and former elected Charter member within the City of Saginaw, similar to the re-elected Council members I have been digesting the aftermath & ramifications of this recent election and tax-cap referendum. But rather than viewing the actions of the electorate as schizophrenic, I believe that politics is the art of balancing two diametrically opposed truths at the same time – much like life, a budget requires an understanding of the yin-and-yang in order to achieve balance. If anything I believe what this latest election tells us is that no room exists for fences to built upon ideology when the reality is that it’s a lean & mean world out there. With the middle class going broke, there is no room for exorbitant salaries, golden Cadillac retirement packages, and premium health care plans when common people can barely afford to maintain these things for themselves, let alone the bloated bureaucracy of the public sector. In short, much like the citizenry that is struggling with recessionary realities, government and education needs to devise efficient ways to do more with less. Much of this is not rocket science, but setting basic standards of accountability in terms of how well government performs its job. When asked to do more with less, the tendency is to simply cut services instead of pensions, health care benefits, and salaries, while topics such as forming a Municipal Public Safety Department - or even a regional one - are simply 'off the table' before they even begin. This is where you begin - breaking the old molds that are habitual & institutionalized and start over based upon the fiscal & physical realities of the time. That the city has paid $47,500 for yet another study to advance trimming the budget is symptomatic of what has habitually occurred in Saginaw – studies that advance notions are useless unless implemented. Back when I was a Charter Commissioner and we explored merging Police & Fire Departments, as many communities within Michigan already do, Council had spent $12,000 on a similar study that showed how the average fire department in the city spends about 30-40 minutes per week actually fighting fires, and suggested that fire personnel be utilized to expedite the processing of police reports. As usual, nothing ever came from this because messing with police & fire unions was ‘off the table’. Council and the City Manager should make no mistake, because the electorate has spoken clearly. What this election says is that now, more than ever, accountability is critical. Rather than spend $90,000 on an assistant planning commissioner, it is imperative that those currently holding positions actually do their jobs properly. This is another good place for the Council and City Manger to begin. A good case in point is with something as simple and basic as leaf pick-up. Apart from the nonsense of only scheduling one sweep per season due to 'budget restraints' - why not take that $500,000 the city was paying MMWA for recycling that it eliminated and re-funneled and delegate it to two sweeps and an attractive streetscape? But even apart from that, if you are only going to do one sweep, why not schedule it for November after all the leaves have actually fallen? Again, this is only common sense. Many of the city’s best and most valuable neighborhoods were scheduled for leaf sweeps in October, long before half the leaves even dropped. Now they are in the streets and if the city intends to leave them – as part of retribution for defeating the tax cap – they will undoubtedly witness a huge mess and backed-up sewers, which of course citizens are already paying for the maintenance and cleaning of with their added & increased sewer fees. Is this any way to run a city? And what could such a Streets Supervisor be thinking – to schedule one sweep long before the leaves even drop. Duh. This is a fundamental service and responsibility of city government and highly illustrative of the incompetence and lack of accountability that plagues us. In this light it is quite easy to understand voter reaction. Prove you can handle and manage the basics first before holding your hand out and asking for more. |
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