Repaving Bloomfield Township Subdivision Roads

Hi All,
I'm still not comfortable about what is happening in Bloomfield Township as it relates to subdivision roads and repaving.

There are two Public Hearings on Monday, April 22, 2013 @ 7 PM. 
Please read the Board Packet for more details.
I encourage those homeowners in the affected subdivisions to attend the Public Hearing.



It's been difficult to determine what exactly bothers me the most. 
Here are my thoughts and opinions:

• Oakland County has a fair process in place to repave subdivision roads.  Only the Township has suggested a new procedure.  Why does the Township feel a need to "take over" the process?
• The Township has offered a new procedure where they offer better bond rates, longer period of time to pay and important to some, equal payments regardless of the size of your property road frontage,  to entice the neighborhood into using the Township S.A.D. program to repave roads vs the County program.
• Other communities (and Bl. Twp. could be one) using the County program, are assessed costs for how much of their property fronts the road. Often properties with a lot of lineal frontage are the ones thus controlling whether or not the road they live on gets repaved....as they would pay substantially more for the repaving.  51 % homeowner and 51 %  lineal footage is required to begin the S.A.D. process by the County to repave individual roads.
• The Township basically said...let's share the debt equally.  HOWEVER... the entire subdivision must be redone at the same time.  This is NOT on an individual road basis.  Oh really? Why?
• This Township program....forces an entire subdivision population versus individuals on separate roads within the subdivision to make a collective decision on whether or not to repave the ENTIRE subdivision.  Only 51 % approval from the entire subdivision is needed for the project to proceed plus  51% of the total subdivision lineal footage.
• Are there roads within those subdivision that do NOT need repaving?  Under the Oakland County program for repaving, only those roads that get 51 % of the people and 51 % lineal footage on THAT street requesting repaving are considered for a S.A.D. agreement.   Under the Township program, regardless of the condition of the streets.... all subdivision streets will be repaved and "supposedly" all homeowners in that subdivision would share the cost equally.
• EXCEPT, I have learned that not 100% of the subdivision properties are going to be assessed for the project.  So here is my question:  WHY?  Well, the answer seems to be that most or all  of their property frontage/driveway is on a major road that is not being considered to be repaved and therefore, they do not use the interior roads connecting THEIR subdivision...house to house.
• So, the question becomes: Did any of the "non-payers"  sign the petition?  Were those "non-paying"  residents counted in the total for what was needed for the 51% approval on the petitions?  Did their "lineal footage" of their property count toward the 51 % needed?  Do the other subdivision "members" know some are excluded from the mandatory payments for 15 years?
• If your property is legally within the defined subdivision boundary ... should you share the costs for this S.A.D. ?   Are properties removed from other S.A.D. projects such as sewer/water/lakes ???   Should ALL subdivision members be told who is NOT paying from their membership group for the S.A.D. ?
• These S.A.D.'s (Special Assessment Districts) force people (as a group) to take action on a perceived specific community problem.  Not all want the expenses nor not all feel there is a problem needing fixing.  Not all in Bloomfield Township have the same ability to pay these costs. There is also nothing that said all 100 % needed to be notified about the project.  Once the 51% signed the petition...and 51% of the lineal footage is met....there can be project approval.
• I think that more than 51% petition approval should be required by the Township for their program for subdivision repaving. 
• I also believe that the signed petitions, the complete list of subdivision members and the lineal road footage for each property be part of the Township Board Packet at the Public Hearings.  Open and Transparent information for S.A.D. projects. 
• Are your subdivision roads asphalt or concrete?  There is a difference in cost.
• How old is your subdivision road?  Can "repairs" be made? Look at the Township "road" budget that you are already paying.
• The Township has collected a special road department  tax from the Township residents for decades.  Today's road budget is over $4 MILLION.  How was the money spent over all those years?  The county and the state have also collected taxes from you over the many years for roads! It appears that the state is currently looking at ways to collect even more in taxes and fees for the repair of roads.  That said, some subdivisions just forced their neighbors into a multi-thousand dollar expense....for roads....with no vote.
• At the Monday, April 22, 2013 Board of Trustees meeting @ 7 PM  there are more PUBLIC HEARINGS  on subdivision road repaving projects as S.A.D. 's.   If approved to proceed, the township board will initially finance the project until Bonds are purchased.   I certainly expect that those bond payments are the responsibility of the households that are named in the S.A.D. documents and that the rest of the township taxpayers are not liable for any of those costs in case someone or many default on those payments.
• Last thought.....  what is the life expectancy of this new subdivision road?  Hopefully longer than the 15 years of payments.

Archived blogs are found in the right hand column of this blog site.   For related blogs:
See Feb. 26, 2012 
See Jan. 12, 2013
See Jan. 20, 2012   

Bl. Twp. and City of Sylvan Lake - Who gets the DEAL?

Hi All,
Board of Trustees meeting:  Monday, April 22, 2013 @ 7 PM.  View the Board Packet for details.

I'm all for outsourcing government work....hopefully to lower costs and to end extremely high benefits and pensions that the taxpayer is forever responsible to pay.  Also, I believe in giving employment opportunities to the private sector.  Any private sector company bidding for some government jobs (that can be outsourced) is then responsible for wages, benefits and pensions.  The company either "makes it" ...or goes out of business. The taxpayer/government is just responsible to pay the agreed upon contract amount.  The work gets accomplished and there are no long term financial responsibilities to the workers by the taxpayers.

PROBLEM:  Bloomfield Township government is NOT a private sector company.  What if the JOB costs more than bid/awarded?  In the following case, Bloomfield Township government collects ONLY the contract amount from the City of Sylvan Lake, but the Township taxpayer could become the loser as the Township must absorb any costs they spend over the contract amount...often unknown to the taxpayer.  Did you know there was an existing contract with Sylvan Lake?  Has it been mentioned in the budget? Is it mentioned in the Annual Report?  Has there been any cost analysis and record keeping as to who/when/how many hours/ etc. was expended on this contract in 2011 and 2012?

Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees agenda item # 6 on Monday, April 22, 2013 @ 7 PM proposes the township signs an intergovernmental agreement (which is legal) to do the City of Sylvan Lake's annual property tax assessment until the end of 2016 tax year.   This service contract amount:  $21,000 annually paid by the City of Sylvan Lake to the Charter Township of Bloomfield.  Other fees could be paid to the Township, according to the agreement.  Total amount unknown. According to the 2010 Census, there are 809 households (the number of commercial properties was not mentioned).  Bloomfield Township household number from 2010 Census is 16,466 (commercial properties not mentioned) with an assessing budget per year at $840,310.

This AGENDA item is a proposed continuation of an existing agreement with the City of Sylvan Lake that I argued against years ago...and do oppose the agreement again this year.  Click here for my blog from Sept. 21, 2011 and another blog from Sept. 23, 2011. 

This new agreement has the City of Sylvan Lake residents paying approx. $26 a household...excluding any commercial properties.
Bloomfield Township residents are paying approx. $51 a household...excluding any commercial properties.
Twice as much.  Maybe the contract amount should be around $42,000/year with the City of Sylvan Lake... if there is no other option.
Another point to make here is that Oakland County has the personnel able to perform property tax assessment services for the City of Sylvan Lake (as well as for Bl. Twp.).  Both communities could contract with Oakland County for property tax assessments.  Wonder what they would charge per household?  Can a private company with certified/qualified assessors do the job? At what cost?

Below is the Township budget page for Assessing. The Township argues that the existing township personnel can absorb the assessing work for the City of Sylvan Lake WITHOUT adding any more personnel or costs.  I argue that many of the costs of doing business are not fully covered by the $13,000 (for the non personnel costs) in the Twp. assessing budget such as building costs, utilities, materials ie: computers, systems, and vehicles to travel to another community and associated insurance and liability costs, etc.

The 2011/2012 Assessing budget was actually $765,766.30.   The 2012/2013 estimated final numbers for the assessing department is $831,000.  Costs are going UP...to $840,000 for Township residents.  The contract amount has been adjusted by $2000 for the City of Sylvan Lake....from $19,000/year  (2011/2012) to $21,000/year until the end of 2016.  One entry level assessor's pay for a year is more than the Township is collecting from Sylvan Lake.

From what I understand, the Township Assessor's office does NOT get to every Township property every year.  What percentage of the City of Sylvan Lake is evaluated each year?  How often IS YOUR property evaluated?  How many properties get evaluated on that $840,000 yearly budget? Somehow, the assessed value seems to change EVERY year.  How do they know how to change the numbers if they did not visit the property? 
My opinion:  Bloomfield Township taxpayers are SUBSIDIZING the property tax assessment costs for the citizens of the City of Sylvan Lake.
My Question:  WHY? 

I haven't even mentioned the OTHER contracts with the City of Sylvan Lake.  Those contracts will be coming up later this year.  Those are also "deals" ... but not for us. My opinion.

Other AGENDA ITEMS found at the end of this blog.

Assessing Budget for 2013/2014