Plymouth Taxpayers Circulate Petitions to Put Bond Proposal to a vote

Last week the Plymouth Township Board of Trustees, were confronted by an unexpected 1.9 million dollar bond proposal presented to them by Supervisor Richard Reaume and Treasurer Ron Edwards. Without even time to review, and discuss this spending, the proposal was quickly passed, with dissenting voices coming from Trustees Chuck Curmi, and Bob Doroshewitz.This reminds me of Congressmen, and Women passing 1000 page bills in the middle of the night without even reading what is contained in them. In a time when our economy is unstable, and recovery could be as much as a decade away, the leadership continues its reckless spending spree.

Just over a year ago drastic cuts were made dismantling our Advanced life support trained fire department, with the lay-offs of half our firefighters, leaving just 2(TWO) firefighters to man each station, in a community of 28,000 residents. Our ambulance services were also farmed out to a private carrier. A strategically placed firestation was closed as well, leaving residents and businesses located in the North East Quadrant of the Township at great risk. These cuts were made under the pretense of budget constraints...

Plymouth Township laid off employees, and even had furlough days. Yet that same Board of Trustees approved the purchase of a $650,000. piece of land, originally valued at 16 million dollars as an investment, which we all know half of which has to be returned to Detroit. The board with how many attorneys on it obviously forgot to employ a title company to assure the title was clear, and recorded properly. Detroit wants its land back, and State law allows Detroit to sue Plymouth Township for damages double the value of the property, which equals 16 million dollars if they decide to pursue it. Detroit is guaranteed the Judgement, the error was ours. Thats a big blunder caused by a certain level of incompetence. I ask, would you purchase any property without a title company involved.

The spending continued... Last year nearly $500,000 was dumped into Hilltop golf course with the purchase of new golf carts. Hilltop is managed by a private company, for profit, yet our taxpayer dollars are subsidizing everything. That not right! I personally think the township should not be in the golf course business, and that it should be sold, and developed into another residential nieghborhood. That would broaden our tax base greatly, and in itself bring us completely out of debt.

We have other properties that need to be sold to. The former Township hall property should be liquidated, half off, and developed, to generate tax revenue. The same applies to the Port Street property. Liquidate it. These funds can go towards first ESSENTIAL projects, and general maintenence throughout the township.

Now your leadership wants to borrow more money at taxpayer expense($31,000 Interest) It gets even better when this new proposed 1.9 million dollar bond was approved last week with all sorts of NON-ESSENTIAL spending contained within it, such as a luxurious $650,000. Pavillion/Outhouse, for McClumpha Park which was originally approved at $350,000. and now its double. Now they want to build a $250,000. Ampitheatre, which will cost far more than the Pavillion/Outhouse. An ampitheater costs more than $250,000. How far will that cost be over run? And they think the park needs a $130,000. Foot Bridge to span across the creek. You just can't make these things up. Hey lets put a pool in out there to... Perhaps Bronze statues along the ridge out there of each boardmember. Oh they forgot were broke! I almost left out they are planning on dumping another $100,000. into the soccor park. We don't need it. Sell it off. Oh and they just approved another million dollars for streetscaping for less than a mile on ann arbor rd. Thats really a high priority.

So here again our community finds our Leadership attempting to push through further spending, RECKLESS SPENDING! As a former Trustee Candidate, I have to speak out against this. I encourage the residents to support our petition drive to allow the taxpayers to decide on any further spending. Putting this to a vote allows our taxpayers the input of how our tax dollars are to be spent. I understand that there are many things throughout the township that require maintenence, and that does not require putting the township further into debt.

On a list of priorities where should are tax dollars first be spent? Its always been Police, Fire, Water, Sewage, and Waste. Those are ESSENTIAL, and they come first. Our community is also in need of a new Ladder firetruck. In an emergency, if we need one, we must rely upon our surrounding communities for mutual aid. And recently those communities have sent us a clear message, they have to provide fire services to there tax payers first. Its time to get our board back in line. As a community we can nolonger afford to trust the competence of any board member, who blindly supports this proposal.

Over the next month dozens of voluteers from each nieghborhood are going door to door to collect the roughly 2300 signatures required to allow the proposed bond to be put on the ballot. Its almost hard to believe that they would be so brazen to even consider spending any further tax dollars on some of the items contained within this bond proposal. Please support that this bond proposal be put to a vote, by we the people of Plymouth Township.

Sincerely,

Paul Schulz