Tuesday, January 17, 2012

City, Village, Township

This was intended to be a short post but for reasons I do not fully understand, everything gets longer every time I try to edit.

The discussion has started again on why the Village of Clarkston should be a City.  There have been some very interesting comments.  Perhaps this is a good time to define what a City, Village, and Township are in Michigan. 
Main Street - City of the Village of Clarkston, Michigan
There are several good references for this and the language is similar in all of them.  The Citizens Research Council(CRC) of Michigan had a special report in July of 2010 discussing this in regards to the upcoming vote on constitutional convention and the issues of local government that might be addressed if such an event took place.  It didn't but the special report is informative and interesting reading. 

Wikipedia has a relatively short definition at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_divisions_of_Michigan

The Michigan Municipal league has several publications on Villages and Cities.  One from May of 2005 gives brief description of a city as follows:
City 
A city, being withdrawn from the township, must provide the basic, state-required duties as well as its own services.  In addition to being responsible for assessing property and collecting taxes for county and school purposes, the city is also solely responsible for registration of voters and conduct of all elections within its boundaries.
The greater independence of the city, in maintaining local regulations and functions and state imposed duties in one integrated unit, accounts for the creation of many small cities in Michigan during recent decades. The trend has also developed in villages to seek incorporation as cities whereby they achieve a separation of jurisdiction from the township.

In addition to detailed information on the history and structure of Cities, Villages and Townships in Michigan there is an interesting description of Michigan cities in a paper titled, Michigan Local Government Structures,Services and Practices.  Prepared in 2002 for the Michigan Civics Institute Local Government Curriculum, it states the following;
Cities were formed predominantly when the residents of a densely developed area of a township desired municipal services (water, sewer, police, fire, etc.). Prior to the Constitution of 1909 and the ensuing adoption of the Home Rule Cities Act, petitioners would submit a geographic district to the State and seek approval to become a city. Per the provisions of the Home Rule Cities Act, a geographic district is submitted to eligible voters within that district, and if a majority approves, the new city comes into being after official certification of the State Boundary Commission.

A similar description of the services provided by local government is in the CRC report cited earlier and is as follows:
Commonly provided local government services include police and fire protection, water and sewerage, parks and recreation, refuse collection, roads and sidewalks, libraries, streetscapes, and economic development.

The Village of Clarkston became a city 20 years ago in 1992 and currently does not provide its own police, fire protection, water, sewerage, parks and recreation, and libraries.  They are all contracted from, supplied, maintained and controlled by the voters and elected officials of the surrounding Township of Independence.  Refuse collection is contracted privately by each property owner and the city has no involvement.


Roads, sidewalks and streetscapes are maintained by the city but the success and adequacy of the work is questionable especially when one considers that there is not one intersection and crosswalk in the city that meets the current Americans with Disability Act standards and people have complained publicly to the City Council that is is unsafe to walk here.


There is no plan, committee or even a single designated person for economic development.


Assessing, which is something both cities and townships must do, is not done by the City of the Village of  Clarkston but by contract with the County.  Independence Township does assessing within their township and in my opinion provides better information at no additional cost.


There are no public schools located within the city boundaries.  They are all in the adjacent townships.

Twenty years ago, before the City of the Village of Clarkston became a city and was a Village in the Township of Independence, the police, fire, library and Township Hall were all in the Village.  All of these are now located outside of the City. The buildings in the city that once housed the police, library and Township government are empty.

Getting back to the Michigan Municipal League descriptions:
Village 
The basic difference between a city and a village is that whenever and wherever an area is incorporated as a village, it stays within the township. The villagers participate in township affairs and pay township taxes in addition to having their own village government. Incorporation as a city, however, removes an area from township government. City dwellers participate in county elections and pay county taxes, as do villagers, but are removed from township units.
Villages in Michigan are organized primarily to establish local regulatory ordinances and to provide local services such as fire and police protection, public works and utilities. Certain of the local duties required by the state are not demanded of the village but are performed by the embracing township including assessing property; collecting taxes for counties and school districts; and administering county, state and national elections.

I could not find a good concise description of a Township, although I am sure one exists.  I did find an interesting one from the January/February 2006 Michigan Township News.  Perhaps it is overly biased to townships but this is what the article states; 
All townships, regardless of how many people they serve or the amount of money in their budgets, share certain characteristics.  This is because townships, like counties, are statutory governmental entities.  Townships have only those powers expressly provided or fairly implied by state law.  Townships may act only when a state law authorizes them to act. However, township government powers have grown over the years so that it is now difficult to discern the differences between townships, cities and villages.

I would hold that townships like Independence, Waterford and no doubt many others, provide almost the exact same services and benefits as a city and that they offer far more services and expertise than a city like the Village of Clarkston is capable of.  A township provides all of this at a lower tax rate along with zoning regulations.  Townships can have a Historic District and Commission, just like a city.

The City of the Village of Clarkston is no longer the service and amenity leader or provider.  To put it another way, Independence Township would function and survive if the City of the Village of Clarkston ceased to exist.  The City on the other hand could not function or meet their legal requirements without the services provided, controlled and located in the surrounding Township.


At one time, Cities annexed township land when it became valuable thus depriving townships of potential revenue.  Laws were created for Charter Townships that made this more difficult.  Newspaper articles from when the Village of Clarkston became a city report that some of the justification was a fear of increased taxes and losing the "village" atmosphere.  Cityhood was proposed as protection against the township.


The traditional and historical character and responsibilities of City and Township has now been turned upside down and the City of the Village of Clarkston pays higher taxes for a less capable government providing fewer services all because of fear and a perceived need for protection from our friends and neighbors.  An example is South Main Street.  The east side is in the Township, the west side is in the City.  The services provided to both are exactly the same other than where people vote.  The city side pays higher taxes which they cannot vote on.  I defy anyone to show me what the city residents get for their extra tax money versus their friends and neighbors across the street. What protection are they receiving?  It doesn't make any sense.

Is it worth it for City residents to pay in excess of $200,000 more in taxes than the same property in the Township just to be a city?  How is all that tax money benefiting them?  Do a majority of the current 882 residents of the City want this?  Only 228 people voted for becoming a city 22 years ago.  Is that vote still valid when we receive all of our services from the Township that less than ¼ of the former 1100 city population voted to be separated from?  Why does the population of the city continue to decline while it increases in the township?


Streets are cleared of snow in the winter in both the city and township although it is possible that the City is done quicker.  However, you cannot get into or out of the City without driving through the Township so does it really matter?  Just like in the city, the grass is mowed in the township, sidewalks are maintained and we all shop, drive, walk, bicycle and have friends in each other’s municipality.


The residents of Independence Township pay a lower tax rate for the exact same services, have all the benefits attributed to the Village of Clarkston and they can vote on the cost of their services.  The City residents can't.


If the Village of Clarkston zoning and historical district are so valuable that they must be protected, why wouldn't they be just as valuable to a majority of the people in the Township who benefit from them just like we do?


There is obviously a problem in how cities, villages and townships are financially structured.  Perhaps this is because they are based on laws written over 100 years ago and complicated by all the laws that have been written since, most notably the Headlee amendment in 1978, before the Village of Clarkston became a city, and Proposal A which came afterwards in 1994.  A summary of the effects caused by these two actions was done by Plante Moran in 2004, sponsored by the Michigan Municipal League, and is titled System Failure: Michigan's Broken Municipal Finance Model and this was before our most recent economic meltdown.

Fear is not a good reason for what we now have.  Financial fairness and a democratic right to vote should prevail.  Let’s continue the discussion, find a better way, and hopefully put the question up for a vote by a better educated public.  You can learn a lot in 20 years.

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