The Dexter Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Study group green lights cityhood plan
By Sandi Kasha, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: March 29, 2007
The Village Council received the Dexter City Study Committee's report containing its recommendation to pursue cityhood and is determining its next step.
Advertisement
Village Manager Donna Dettling said the council's next step would be to draft a resolution on pursuing cityhood, which she plans to have ready at the April 9 council meeting.
"The entire process was about research and fleshing out what it meant to become a city," said Dexter City Study Committee Chairman John Coy of the group's 11 meetings over a seven-month period.
Appointed by Village President Jim Seta June 26, 2006, the committee had 180 days to research the advantages and disadvantages of becoming a home-rule city.
The group explored the benefits and disadvantages of becoming a city by researching transition costs, tax implications and inviting guest speakers to provide further information on conversion.
"The biggest challenge is to educate the citizens regarding cityhood and why we're pursuing cityhood," Coy said. "It's going to be a step-by-step process."
Coy said cityhood is a 14-step process, and could take three to five years.
Coy added that when the committee had its first meeting in August, many members were skeptical about cityhood conversation.
"It took time, but as the research and meetings progressed, they realized that cityhood isn't such a bad idea," Coy said. "If you spend enough time researching info, cityhood makes sense."
Converting into a city didn't make any sense to committee member Gary Gochanour, who wasn't in favor of the resolution and voted against it.
Gochanour explained to the council that he felt cityhood is motivated by the annexation of the Sloan Farm and Kingsley property, and that the committee's report omits advantages of remaining a village.
The village officials had considered annexing 320 acres of the Sloan Farm and Kingsley property for residential development.
The development proved too dense for Scio Township officials, who had said that the number of homes didn't mesh with their master plan.
Village and township officials are currently in talks to try and hash out an Act 425 agreement, which would allow two municipalities to share tax revenue from new or expanding development in the defined areas of jurisdiction.
Gochanour said he thinks village voters should have access to the information about the disadvantages and advantages the committee discovered during its research. The information wasn't included in the document.
"Voters aren't going to be educated fairly by the present document," he said. "It's not a really educational document, it's a position document,"
Gochanour shared with the council some of the disadvantages to converting into a city. He said residents would lose their rights to vote in township elections and ability to run for elected office in the townships.
Seta said pursuing cityhood is beneficial and he said the timing is right.
But he refutes that the pursuit of cityhood is motivated by the Sloan Farm and Kingsley property.
"It's clear that there's going to be some emotional response on becoming a city," he said. "Unfortunately, people vote based on an emotional response and don't vote on facts."
The ultimate boundaries of the future city won't be up to the Village Council, the big decision will rest on the vote of the people, said Christine Holmes, manager for the State Boundary Commission.
"The village determines their boundaries if they want to keep the boundaries as they are or if they want to include additional territory," she said. "They petition the boundary commission and it's up to the boundary commission to approve it or deny it."
Holmes said she couldn't explain why a petition would be denied.
"It's hard to pinpoint because every petition has its unique set of circumstances," she said. "The boundary commission has an 18-point criteria the commission has to follow and take into consideration."
Holmes said the boundary commission approves petitions only to allow the process to move forward to go to the vote of the people.
Not all stories are guaranteed to appear
online. The Web edition contains a reasonable
sampling of the print edition stories.
For the most complete news coverage, we invite you to
subscribe
to the print edition of the paper.
Expanded
Web
Coverage
TOP JOBS
