Category Archive

We depend on cooperation from the region.

Senior Center
We need to provide for our seniors.  The senior center currently suffers from limited space and old facilities.  The city provides the largest source of funding, but 75% of the people who use the senior center are not city residents.  Some townships contribute, but there really is no allocation of a fair share to each local government based on population or number of members.  As it stands, there is barely enough money to operate the senior center, and almost no money to upgrade or improve it.  Two county commissioners recently proposed that the Grand Traverse County Commission on Aging take over operation of the senior center.  The Commission on Aging would put a small millage on the ballot, and if successful the senior center would be operated as what it truly is – a regional asset.  To ensure that the property stayed public forever, the city would lease the land to the Commission on Aging.
This is an excellent idea.  It needs to be planned carefully, and then it needs to be supported.

Collective bargaining of solid waste services
Currently in Traverse City and surrounding areas, each individual resident contracts with a solid waste hauler, who picks up their household trash and recyclables.  The city picks up leaves in the fall and spring, and does a round of spring clean-up in May.  The system is expensive, and the services are less than ideal.  Other communities have found that if they negotiate on a collective basis with the haulers, they can get more services for less money.  If the expanded services could include leaves and large items, this could provide relief to the city budget as well.  The city has been working with surrounding townships to hire an expert to guide us through this process.  The county is paying for the expert’s services.  We may end up with a trash authority, or simply a set of franchise agreements between the various local governments and haulers.  Either way, facilitating a new system for solid waste services where residents get better service for less money is exactly the kind of thing city government should be doing.

Metro Fire
Traverse City has the most skilled, highly trained firefighters in the region.  Surrounding Traverse City are the townships of Garfield, East Bay, and Acme, whose fire services are provided by Metro Fire.  Traditionally, Metro was a rural model, based largely on volunteer firefighters, and the city was the professional department.  Therefore, it made no sense to consider combining the two departments in order to promote efficiencies and save taxpayer dollars.  Now Metro is upgrading its training, facilities and equipment.  While the city department is still the best, the differences are diminishing.  The two departments are even training together some of the time, and have a mutual aid agreement to assist each other in emergencies.  Now that Metro is moving to a level closer to the city, the question must be asked:  Does it make sense to have one set of fire stations and fire fighters protecting the city, and a completely separate set of fire stations and fire fighters protecting a half-moon shaped area that wraps around the city from Incochee Woods to Yuba?  Local governments around the state have been consolidating their fire departments for one reason:  it makes sense.  If we can join Metro Fire, and do it in a way that saves tax dollars and maintains the high level of training and skill we expect in the city, we need to look at this.  A more near-term project would be contracting with Metro Fire to provide some services in the city, or services in some portions of the city, perhaps in return for the city providing some services in surrounding townships.