Well, the trend of calm County Commission meetings has come to an end. Today we took up an issue that has created the most controversy among county commissioners over the last few years. But…I will get to that in a minute.
First, welcome Mary Lannoye! She is the new Ingham County Controller. We approved her appointment today, and she starts in about two weeks. I served on the Controller Search Committee (for the second time in about 5 years) and we interviewed several very qualified candidates. Mary, though, started in Ingham County and had the most knowledge about how we work. Also, for those that don’t recognize the name, she was the State Budget Director for Governor John Engler and for Governor Jennifer Granholm. She also served as Chief of Staff for Governor Granholm. We are all very excited about having her running Ingham County government!
We also passed a resolution directing our Health Department to enforce the statewide smoking ban. The legislation has the Department of Community Health (DCH) enforcing the ban, and DCH will have local public health agencies enforcing it. This usually means counties. Other counties (Kent and Oakland) have said that they will not enforce the smoking ban because it is an unfunded mandate. Ingham County, on the other hand, is vigorous in protecting the health of its citizens. We already have restaurant inspections to ensure public health safety, and this will be included in those inspections. Yes it will cost a bit more, but we are willing to pay that to enforce this important law. Ingham County was the first county to prohibit smoking in public outdoor spaces, but we could not pass a ban on smoking in restaurants (due to state law). We did, though, pass a resolution about two years ago to ensure that non-smoking sections are smoke-free. Now, we have directed our staff to enforce the smoking ban. If other counties don’t want to enforce this ban and their citizens want to come to Ingham, then we will take them! Our Board passed this unanimously.
Finally, the controversial item. I haven’t blogged about it much yet, but it dominated my county life last year. The issue is road patrol police service for the rural townships. In a nutshell, the cities and urban townships (Lansing, East Lansing, Lansing Twp, Meridian Twp, Delhi Twp) provide police and charge their citizens for it. Those citizens, though, also pay taxes to the county. Citizens who live in the rural areas (the 13 rural townships outside of the communities already mentioned) receive police road patrol services from the county, but do not provide their own police. So urban residents (my constituents in Lansing) pay for their own police and someone else’s police, whereas rural residents don’t. And, to make matters worse, road patrol only covers the rural areas. Yes, the road patrol officers sometimes come into the urban areas to make arrests, and yes the road patrol officers are sometimes leaned on for things like prisoner transit… but in the end road patrol is still a service paid for by all county taxpayers solely for 20% of the residents in the rural areas. The rural 20% will say that they only get this service and that the jails and other county services are dominated by Lansing, but the fact remains that road patrol is the only county service that is solely for the rural area. Rural residents get married (county clerk), buy land (register of deeds), have meth labs (sheriff and jail), etc. Those services may be used more by the urban population of the county (80%), but are still available to the rural (20%).
Why did I just tell you that? Well, the townships officials and residents understand that the county has budget problems and is slowly reducing financial resources for road patrol. The townships are forming an authority and asking their citizens for funding for appropriate policing. I applaud them for this. Today, the Ingham County Board of Commissioners passed a budget priority resolution where we included language saying that we will eliminate funding for road patrol and will work with the townships to create an authority to fund this with township resident millage dollars. This passed 11-3, and was bipartisan (10 Democrats and 1 Republican supported, with 1 Democrat and 2 Republicans opposing) . I spoke in support of the resolution as it will provide the appropriate service to the township residents who want better service, and road patrol will no longer get picked apart at our budget time. Commissioner Randy Schafer, who is a tremendous supporter of road patrol, supported this because he agreed with township residents who said that they need the county to make a decision before their voters do. After hours and hours of testimony and consideration last year, we have now taken the first step towards tax fairness and properly funding the road patrol police services for the rural residents and their safety.
That’s it. We also did a bunch more, and you can see our agenda online at www.ingham.org.
Until next week (or the week after)…
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Anti-Sprawl, Lake Lansig Band Shell, Alternative Sentencing, and Road Patrol...
For this week’s blog, I will hit on a few issues that have been big in the past and came up this week.
If you have been in Ingham County for a few years, you know that we have a dedicated millage (passed a few years ago) for the purchase of development rights (PDR) for farmland and open space. Recently, the Agriculture and Open Space Preservation Board created new rules and selection criteria. Unfortunately, when they did that, they made it almost completely specific to farmland. At the time, I complained to the Board members and our consultant that they ignored the fact that the PDR program is good for urban areas because it ensures that development and redevelopment happens in places with infrastructure instead of in sprawling areas and greenfields. So, this week we rectified that. The Farmland and Open Space Board brought us new language on this which added in criteria including urban areas, and we passed it. I was very happy to see this done. We also passed an updated policy with selection criteria. After a healthy discussion to ensure that there are propert safeguards against fraud, we passed that as well.
On the Parks front, we passed a resolution that deals with improvements for the Lake Lansing band shell. We are taking money from the Friends of Lake Lansing group and combining it with a few remaining dollars in the Parks Department equipment fund in order to fix the light fixtures. If you haven’t been there, the Lake Lansing Band Shell is awesome. It draws excellent performers, and lots of residents who sit on the lawn and watch. It also attracts families with young children (mine included) where the parents listen to the music and the kids play at the park or on the donated inflatable rides (moon bounce, maze). This money will add to the important quality of life component that Ingham County residents expect and deserve.
Another important resolution passed allowed those who have not paid child-support to serve their sentence doing community service at our parks. We need parks improtvement projects done, and new boardwalks at Hawk Island and Lake Lansing, as well as parks and zoo maintenance are a good way to appropriately punish these offenders without putting them behind bars. Jailing people who don’t provide child support only clogs jails and ensures that the children will continue to not receive the child support because the parent isn’t working to make the money that they owe. This is an excellent jail alternative sentencing program.
Finally, in an interesting twist, the County Board received a letter from the 11 out-county rural townships. Anyone paying attention to Ingham County over the last few years knows that the County Board considered road patrol funding. I first led the effort to have the out-county townships pay some portion of the road patrol costs because road patrol is a service that only the out-county receives. Urban areas (Lansing, East Lansing, Lansing Twp, Meridian Twp, and Delhi) all pay for their own police and don’t receive road patrol assistance. The out-county receive road patrol but don’t hve to pay any more. So I led the effort to have them either 1) pay more to receive the safety that they want and believe they deserve or 2) receive less service. I will get into this more in future blogs, I’m sure. Anyway, that was defeated. Next the County Board considered a millage increase (.65) dedicated to the Sheriff’s office for patrols and other specific services (Metro Squad, investigations, dive team, etc). That also was soundly defeated by the Board. At the time, I said that if we do nothing, Road Patrol would be reduced to nothing in a few years anyway. Well, that seems to be coming to pass.
The out-county 11 townships are looking to form a police authority which will create police protection for their residents. I think that is a great idea. The letter they sent us, though, asks for $2.4 million in start-up funding. I am very curious about this request and look forward to the discussions that will be had around this request. I have many questions. If the county has a $5 million deficit for next year, where will this money come from? Will there be an equivalent reduction in road patrol to pay for this? There are lots of questions that need to be explored by our staff and in consultation with the Sheriff before we can commit to anything like this. I am not on the Law Enforcement Committee this year, though, so my part in this issue will come when it gets to the Finance Committee.
That’s it for this week. After taking an initial peek at the County Services and Finance agendas, next week should be another exciting week of Ingham County issues!
Andy
If you have been in Ingham County for a few years, you know that we have a dedicated millage (passed a few years ago) for the purchase of development rights (PDR) for farmland and open space. Recently, the Agriculture and Open Space Preservation Board created new rules and selection criteria. Unfortunately, when they did that, they made it almost completely specific to farmland. At the time, I complained to the Board members and our consultant that they ignored the fact that the PDR program is good for urban areas because it ensures that development and redevelopment happens in places with infrastructure instead of in sprawling areas and greenfields. So, this week we rectified that. The Farmland and Open Space Board brought us new language on this which added in criteria including urban areas, and we passed it. I was very happy to see this done. We also passed an updated policy with selection criteria. After a healthy discussion to ensure that there are propert safeguards against fraud, we passed that as well.
On the Parks front, we passed a resolution that deals with improvements for the Lake Lansing band shell. We are taking money from the Friends of Lake Lansing group and combining it with a few remaining dollars in the Parks Department equipment fund in order to fix the light fixtures. If you haven’t been there, the Lake Lansing Band Shell is awesome. It draws excellent performers, and lots of residents who sit on the lawn and watch. It also attracts families with young children (mine included) where the parents listen to the music and the kids play at the park or on the donated inflatable rides (moon bounce, maze). This money will add to the important quality of life component that Ingham County residents expect and deserve.
Another important resolution passed allowed those who have not paid child-support to serve their sentence doing community service at our parks. We need parks improtvement projects done, and new boardwalks at Hawk Island and Lake Lansing, as well as parks and zoo maintenance are a good way to appropriately punish these offenders without putting them behind bars. Jailing people who don’t provide child support only clogs jails and ensures that the children will continue to not receive the child support because the parent isn’t working to make the money that they owe. This is an excellent jail alternative sentencing program.
Finally, in an interesting twist, the County Board received a letter from the 11 out-county rural townships. Anyone paying attention to Ingham County over the last few years knows that the County Board considered road patrol funding. I first led the effort to have the out-county townships pay some portion of the road patrol costs because road patrol is a service that only the out-county receives. Urban areas (Lansing, East Lansing, Lansing Twp, Meridian Twp, and Delhi) all pay for their own police and don’t receive road patrol assistance. The out-county receive road patrol but don’t hve to pay any more. So I led the effort to have them either 1) pay more to receive the safety that they want and believe they deserve or 2) receive less service. I will get into this more in future blogs, I’m sure. Anyway, that was defeated. Next the County Board considered a millage increase (.65) dedicated to the Sheriff’s office for patrols and other specific services (Metro Squad, investigations, dive team, etc). That also was soundly defeated by the Board. At the time, I said that if we do nothing, Road Patrol would be reduced to nothing in a few years anyway. Well, that seems to be coming to pass.
The out-county 11 townships are looking to form a police authority which will create police protection for their residents. I think that is a great idea. The letter they sent us, though, asks for $2.4 million in start-up funding. I am very curious about this request and look forward to the discussions that will be had around this request. I have many questions. If the county has a $5 million deficit for next year, where will this money come from? Will there be an equivalent reduction in road patrol to pay for this? There are lots of questions that need to be explored by our staff and in consultation with the Sheriff before we can commit to anything like this. I am not on the Law Enforcement Committee this year, though, so my part in this issue will come when it gets to the Finance Committee.
That’s it for this week. After taking an initial peek at the County Services and Finance agendas, next week should be another exciting week of Ingham County issues!
Andy
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