Wednesday, March 8, 2023

City Council Regular Meeting March 02, 2023: Taxes, Chippers, Meatballs, Pooches and Attorneys! 📝

Ok I have to admit this isn't as fun as watching the county's commissioner's meeting (Its supposed to be interesting from what I heard.). Other then the upheaval when they found out the jail redevelopment project had missing money, the city has been on a steady progressive growth pace and the news is less juicy but certainly good for investors. (The money theft story is that a granny mastermind hacker who used her advanced computer skills to send her west coast web spiders to various global locations to snatch city coffers through a simple {Pay Here} button. Unlikely I think. Still working on mastering the flip phone I think. 🤷 I'm still kind of curious if any of the money will be recovered.). 

Economic change starts small but then grows over time. It is the momentum that counts because that is where adjustments occur in terms of increased change. We had new Swedish investments in a couple of companies and those appear to be significant and focused in a couple of key industries. They also have potential as a sign of increased demand for their products. More to come on all of that I'm sure. For now we got big investments that will start making their mark this summer (Billerud + State MI Infrastructure Investment + ? = ?. I always throw question marks in because it helps me think of other possibilities). 

(Going off topic for a secondBefore Covid we used to have a Swedish restaurant on Ludington Street that has been there for years but I heard they didn't reopen after the lock down. I'm going to tell someone tomorrow that the Swedish are investing in the area because they had the best tasting Swedish meatballs ever anywhere on the planet at the Swedish restaurant on the main street while on vacation a few years ago. They loved the place and decided to move here for a while. They were attracted to the best tasting meat ball worldwide known locally as the "Pasty" {pronounced Past-E}Will this story still be around in a few years and what will it look like? History of Pasties. Sorry light hearted humor. Its late. zzzzz)

Sorry, I'm just blabbing away. Consider.....

March 2nd, 2023 Agenda

Notes (I try to be accurate so please post a comment if I was inaccurate.)

-Michigan Catholic Conference. Concerned about adaptation of an amendment.

-50K Chipper. 1989! Wow!

-Senate Bill 19. Tax tribunal act with county board of revision. Anything over $600K would have to go through court instead of State employees. Senate Bill 19. Pass

-Senate Bill 20. Amends property tax. Pass. 

-New stuff in library.

-I had restaurant food downtown. [Not bad]

-Gov. Whitmer announces Community Revitalization Projects across MI. $12 Million Hospital, 2 Million Handcock grocery store, need Redevelopment Ready Community.

I pulled some information about these programs so as to understand what the lady is talking about. Private investment, Michigan communities, strategy, fund, job growth, etc. all sound positive. Sometimes it is the way in which we view problems that limits our abilities to move resources to the right place at the time they are needed. That is what models do, they create a way of looking at things.

In this case, the model is focused on highlighting ways to create community revitalization. MCRP Program Outline.

"The Michigan Community Revitalization Program (MCRP) is an incentive program to promote private investment in Michigan communities. Administered by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) on behalf of the Michigan Strategic Fund (MSF), this tool provides Michigan communities with access to real estate development gap financing for innovative and/or impactful placemaking, historical redevelopment and/or job growth in targeted sectors."

We do need to have some goal with all of this government activity and trumpeting. What is the purpose? 

"The focus of the MCRP is to transform underutilized properties into vibrant areas by encouraging and promoting capital investment and the redevelopment of brownfield and historic properties located in or in support of traditional downtowns1 and high-impact corridors in every region of the state. Community revitalization will attract talent through innovative and/or impactful placemaking by accelerating private investment in areas of historical disinvestment, fostering redevelopment of functionally obsolete properties, reducing blight, and supporting the rehabilitation of historic resources."  

I think these are related. Michigan Strategic Funds Act 1984, MI Funds Act Cheat Sheet

-DDA restaurant week in Esky. I went out and had some delicious food. We have fish fries, buffets, Asian cuisine, Italian, Swedish, and even some excellent greasy bar food. Try the popcorn at  

-Officer Dag gets a certificate. My guess would be a drug bust.

-Closed discussion. Awesome job attorney for having them formalize the process for full disclosure. Keeps everything nice and clean; especially if there are things out of the ordinary.

(I wonder if they have a concession stand for intermission/half time. ) 

-They voted to allow the attorney to work with the city. Ok....I need more info on this please. 🤓 Maybe its just a formality. (My guess is that its tax season, so it probably has something to do with taxes. New stores coming in the area so I would think maybe related to bigger sort of questions on commercial and/or retail taxes. 67% I bet its commercial taxes. I might be wrong.)

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