Following a lengthy discussion, the Chelsea Downtown Development Authority (DDA) agreed to allocate up to 50 percent of its designated discretionary funds, or about $47,000, to fight the proposed McCoig gravel pit at a special meeting Thursday morning
With the company’s haul route planned to go through downtown Chelsea and the potential negative fallout from these large gravel trucks to the downtown, the DDA reiterated a previous stance to fight the sand pit proposal and stand united with the Chelsea City Council to thwart it.
DDA Chairman Pete Flintoft told the board members that he attended a work session of the City Council on its 2014-15 operating budget on Monday, April 28, and said, “It’s quite clear that the sentiment on the City Council is the same as the sentiment on this board that (both) are in opposition to this mining operation.”
Flintoft offered a resolution to the board to demonstrate this. “We want to stand behind them and make available to them these discretionary funds to oppose this project.”
The money was needed to defray costs from the city for things such as on legal fees, engineering fees and consulting fees. The DDA has an about $450,000 budget and approximately $88,000 is considered discretionary.
So, here’s how the budget process works. The DDA approves its budget and sends it to the City Council, for approval. But, the City Council has the power to amend it as well. By adopting the resolution and in consultation with them, the board also give the city the authority to pay (or not pay) any bills submitted for reimbursement from the designated discretionary funds.
City Manager John Hanifan went through the DDA budget line item by line item Thursday, May 1, to remind the DDA members which were statutory and which were discretionary.
He also reminded the DDA board, “I’m not telling you what you can and can’t spend.”
Items such as parking enforcement, funding for the sculpture walk, Sounds and Sights, the Chelsea First marking campaign and website, videotaping of meetings, are all considered discretionary, while items such as bond principal and debt service payments are not.
Although Pat Cleary said, “There’s not a reason for any of us not to fight this gravel pit,” he strongly advocated for the $25,000 (discretionary) line item in the DDA budget that is earmarked for the ChelseaMich marketing, billboard and website campaign, saying the City of Chelsea has already invested $200,000 in this branding project over the last five years. Plus, the Chelsea First group had raised over $130,000 in the last four years and about 150,000 man hours had been spent on this project that benefits the city.
Among the many projects of the marketing group has been the purchase of 10 billboards on the highways a year at $37,000 and the $24,000 was paid by businesses to get the city’s brand out to as many people as possible.
He said the Chelsea First group has spent about $400,000 in money and time to this point.
Mark Heydlauff and other DDA members said that they agreed that fighting this sand mine project was a priority, but they had concerns about amending the 2014-15 budget and taking money from events such as the Sculpture Walk and Sounds and Sights that bring people into Chelsea. Especially at a point in this fight when its unknown how much it will cost.
“I don’t want to kill downtown Chelsea before the first trucks ever get here,” he said.
During the discussion, several DDA members had concerns about the fairness and ethics of taking fundng from entities that were expecting to get it and had planned accordingly based on funding from the DDA. All acknowledged, however, that is was no secret that funding for projects by the DDA were discretionary.
Jason Lindauer assured the DDA that there was a solid history of the DDA and the City Council working together and that he did not think that the City Council would “choke the DDA budget until it’s gasping for air.”
However, he added, its widely believed that fighting this potential sand mine would be a long-term project, which he felt would go on for several budget cycles to come.
Thank you to Jim Myles, former DDA member and current City Councilman, for suggesting that use of DDA funds to fight the sand mine was appropriate and should be a high priority.