The blame game.

          That’s what some folks in town played when a state financial review team visited here last week. The community was able to meet the team and offer comments about the city.

          Only a handful of residents were on hand, however, because notice of the meeting went out late. But nevertheless the comments we heard were telling.

          Some wanted to blame past city officials while others blamed present day city officials for causing the financial mess the city is facing.

          Curious thing though. What people didn’t seem to realize is that the financial review team was not created to assign blame to any one person or persons. It’s here to determine whether there is indeed a true financial crisis.

          If the team decides there is, it’s then up to the governor to take action.

          Pointing fingers here in Hamtramck is an obsession with some folks. What they fail to realize, though, is that the majority of Hamtramck’s spending is dictated by labor contracts or grant guidelines.

          There is very little discretionary spending for city officials.

          And what some people forget is that Hamtramck, like many communities, was hit with a perfect storm of financial setbacks: state revenue cuts and shrinking tax collections because of the collapsed housing markets and the loss of manufacturing taxes.

          In other words, Hamtramck is not alone in trying to balance its budget. In fact, it’s impossible and it’s not the fault of anyone.

          What we have to concentrate on going forward is how to make ends meet. That’s going to take a dramatic overhaul of how the city provides basic services.

          We can guarantee one thing: folks are not going to be happy with the changes that will come.

          Blaming city officials for the city’s financial struggle is nothing more than scapegoating for political reasons.

   Now that the annual Metro Times Hamtramck Blowout has come and gone, it’s time to take stock.

          Bar and hall owners say that this year’s Blowout was a fizzle, with about half the number of people attending, compared to previous years. They lay blame for this directly on The Metro Times for expanding the festival for another week in Ferndale.

          Splitting the festival with Hamtramck hosting the event one week and Ferndale the next appears to have diluted Hamtramck’s attendance.

          Having said that, The Metro Times has every right to do what it wants with this private festival.

          We take interest because this event is a huge promotion for the city, and we welcome the thousands of visitors who stop by here. The Blowout is also a much needed economic shot in the arm for some of our bars, which count on this event and the Labor Day Festival to make it through the year.

          The Metro Times has enjoyed a lot of goodwill from the city, so, yes, the community at large has a right to be concerned.

          It doesn’t help that MT Publisher Chris Sexson was quoted in the Oakland Press about his reason to expand the music festival into Ferndale, saying there are some who don’t want to venture down here because it’s “out of their comfort zone.”

          That quote has generated a lot of criticism.

          Sexson told Hamtramck City Councilmembers that the reason for the expansion is that the magazine needs to tap into new revenue streams.

          Considering the above quote, we have to wonder if the plan really is to leave Hamtramck behind.

          The Metro Times can do what it wants, but we think Hamtramck offers a unique spice to the festival that cannot be duplicated in the suburbs – even “Funky Ferndale.”

          What we take from all this is that bar owners, city leaders, The Metro Times and music lovers need to discuss the future of this festival. This year has shown that splitting the festival in half is not working for Hamtramck.

          Maybe we have beaten this issue to death, but it bears repeating once more, just in case any city official is reading this.

          At Tuesday’s meeting the city council, with the exception of Councilmember Cathie Gordon, approved the rezoning of St. Aubin St., from Holbrook to Denton, to allow light industrial and commercial businesses to set up shop as well as allow religious institutions to open.

          We have gone on record saying that we have far too many religious institutions in our commercial districts, and that city officials need to stop permitting them. Why? Because religious institutions don’t have to pay property taxes, and they also prevent businesses that sell or produce alcohol from operating within 500 feet of them.

          Hamtramck has 17 religious institutions crammed in this town of two-square miles. We are choking on churches, mosques and temples.

          We now have three mosques operating in the heart of the city’s business district at Jos. Campau and Caniff.

          How does any of this jibe with our city’s Master Plan for development? Why is it so hard for city officials to understand that commercial zones should be reserved solely for businesses?

          Where is our leadership?

          The rezoning of St. Aubin St. is such a waste of opportunity. The rezoning  will now allow a 52,000 square-foot former industrial building to be turned into a mosque.  

          Councilmember Anam Miah said that one of the reasons he voted to allow a religious institution to operate in this commercial zone is that it was ready to go and begin operation.

          Is that how we make decisions about economic development? Whoever shows up and makes a pitch is allowed to do whatever?

          City officials are failing miserably in marketing our city and attracting tax-paying businesses.

          Instead, we are turning this town into one church or mosque after another. Someone has to take charge and say enough is enough.

          He’s been around long enough to remember past city development projects that ended up as environmental disasters.

          The one freshest in memory was the medical waste incinerator in which its original developers promised smokestack emissions would be 99.9 percent clean. That turned out to be a lie, and it took activists here several years to get the attention of county and state officials to close it down.

          Before that the city had a horrible experience redeveloping a former paint plant site. Long story made short, it ended up costing taxpayers several million dollars to fix.

          Now that we have two recycling plants about to begin operations and now two more in the works, Zwolak wanted to put the brakes on one of the facilities, for just a few weeks, in order to take a closer look at the possible consequences of its operation, environmentally-speaking.

          Last week the council was asked to sign on to a host agreement with a new company called Vincent Christopher LCC. The company is proposing to recycle construction and demolition debris from housing and commercial buildings.

          The plant would be located at a vacant site on Vincent St. – next door to a residential neighborhood.

          Considering that the city has dragged its feet for over two months in deciding on whether to rezone a former industrial site on St. Aubin and was asked last week to decide on the spot about the recycling proposal, well, waiting another two weeks didn’t seem unreasonable.

          But his colleagues on council decided to agree to the host proposal. That’s OK, but we had the same impulse Zwolak had.

          These types of development proposals all seem to have the same boasts of being environmentally friendly and a boost to the local economy. How perfect can that be?

          Well, it’s worth taking a closer look at these proposals because what we learned from the medical waste incinerator fiasco is that it takes much longer to undo mistakes than it does to make them.

City employees dodged a bullet last week, but we don’t blame them if they remain skeptical.

          It was announced last week that it was likely that employees would not receive their pay this week because there simply wasn’t enough money to cover payroll.

          When we went to press last Thursday, the city had a little over $34,000. It needed to cover a $300,000 payroll.

          Well, city officials were able to scramble and come up with the money to cover the cost. The city’s district court’s $190,000 monthly payment was unexpectedly bigger than usual.

          The Income Tax Department came up with more money now that taxes are due.

          Detroit officials agreed to an early payment of about $500,000 from a shared tax fund for the GM Poletown plant.

          Those were one-of-a-kind payments the city didn’t expect to receive.

Some employees we talked to last week said that they have heard city officials warn of pending payless paydays so many times, only to find out that enough money was found to make good on the payment.

          To them, it’s an ongoing occurrence of the proverbial boy crying wolf.

          But make no mistake, Hamtramck’s financial crisis is very real. Sooner or later, city officials will run out of revenue streams to take money from. Heck, all municipalities are now struggling to make ends meet ever since Gov. Snyder cut state revenue sharing.

          On top of that, the value of housing went way down, meaning Hamtramck and hundreds of other communities collect less in property taxes.

          While city employees can rejoice in being able to pay their own bills this week, everyone needs to save up for the inevitable.

The city’s Plan Commission, whose members include Mayor Karen Majewski and Councilmember Tom Jankowski, has previously recommended the council to adopt the new zoning designation.

The proposal would allow light industrial, commercial businesses and even religious institutions.

The rezoning came about as a way to allow a mosque to open inside a 52,000 square foot building once owned by American Axle. The building is now called Abu Bakr Al-Siddique Islamic Center, and its organizers are waiting for the rezoning to begin operating.

We urge the council to reject this plan.

Our business and commercial centers need to remain just that. Allowing a mosque or church or temple to locate in these zones means a loss of property taxes. That’s not what our business zones are created for.

Also, allowing a religious institution to operate in these zones means businesses like a bar or a micro-brewery have to keep at least 500 feet away.

Hamtramck cannot afford to start limiting what businesses can set up operation. The city desperately needs more revenue, and property taxes are a major source.

While we wish the folks at Abu Bakr Al-Siddique Islamic Center no ill will, they should have first found out if they needed to be rezoned before they bought the building.

There are plenty of other areas in the city to set up a religious institution. Commercial zones are not a good fit.

City Council should reject the Plan Commission’s ill-conceived proposal and rezone the area, from Holbrook to Denton, as strictly light industrial and commercial only.

For 51 pensioners, they get at least $45,000 a year, which is twice as much as what the average working Hamtramckan earns.

We didn’t publish this information to badmouth retirees or even suggest that the city find a way to end its pension obligation. We brought this to light to simply show the city cannot afford the $3.5 million a year it spends to support pensions.

Or as Acting City Manager Kyle Tertzag said: It’s unsustainable. In other words, Hamtramck is spending more money than it is taking in.

In fact most of the city’s $18 million budget is spent on supporting employees. How did we get to this?

In the past, city officials agreed to some financially destructive labor contracts, especially with the police and fire unions.

And once those lucrative terms were agreed on, there was no way to undo them without approval of the unions. Hamtramck’s tax dollars goes primarily to employees, leaving very little to invest into maintaining roads and sewers and parks.

Let’s face it, when the average earnings for a firefighter reach $80,000 a year, you know something is out of whack.

It’s disheartening to think what we could have done with the millions of dollars paid out to employees over the years. Instead of worrying about sewers backing up into basements, we could have had ongoing repairs.

Streets could have been repaved in a timely manner. Heck, the city could have even afforded to replace sidewalks slabs for free.

Or, we could have lowered our tax rate.

But no, city officials kept awarding bigger and better salaries and benefits over the years.

It doesn’t matter now, though. It’s a foregone conclusion that the state will send in an emergency manager in the coming weeks, and you can bet there is going to be a major shake-up.

While we certainly don’t suggest that firefighters and police officers should be earning poverty wages, there needs to be a re-alignment.

Yes, that might mean our public safety officers will have to live a more modest lifestyle. It may even mean they will have to leave their suburban homes and move into town where their salaries will carry a bigger bang.

Imagine how much stronger that will make this community.

In his State of the County Address, Ficano railed against the Headlee Amendment and Proposal A. Both legislative acts limit how much the county and communities can collect in property taxes.

The Acts may have made sense back when they were adopted  – when the economy was prosperous — but in today’s economy they hinder the ability of communities to deliver basic services.

Many communities and school districts are on the verge of bankruptcy.

While some folks will scoff at the notion of allowing property taxes to increase, the brutal truth is tax revenue has shrunk considerably while costs continue to rise.

Ficano says the county lost $100 million in tax collection since 2009. Hamtramck has lost about $1 million in the same period.

One remedy to this loss in tax revenue has been for local communities to share services, such as police, fire and sanitation. To a degree, it doesn’t make sense for cities like Ferndale, Pleasant Ridge and Royal Oak to each have a separate police department.

Hamtramck officials have debated whether it is feasible to team up with Highland Park or Detroit and the consensus is it wouldn’t work because those cities are struggling financially as well.

We have a feeling that it’s inevitable that the state will step in and appoint an emergency manager, and it could very well result in one of those cities taking over our fire service.

Or, it could turn out that our Fire Department will be restructured in some other fashion. That, of course, is totally in the hands of the firefighters’ union, which must agree to a drastic restructuring.

From what we have heard, that’s not going to happen, and it’s too late for state legislators or the voters to overturn Headlee and Proposal A.

Change, whether we like it or not, is coming.

Acting City Manager

Hello Hamtramck!  I wanted to write today to set the record straight on a few issues that are floating around our town lately.  The firefighters union has recently been passing out flyers that are unfortunately factually inaccurate.  I’d like to address some of these inaccuracies here. For instance:

1. The Ambulance service that our department provides is BASIC life support (BLS), while DMCare provides ADVANCED life support (ALS). ALS paramedics can administer medications that will save lives. BLS cannot administer any medicine. In a BLS situation the first time medications may be administered is when the patient arrives at the hospital.  With ALS, the paramedics can administer life-saving medications at the scene and on the ride to the hospital.  This saves lives that would otherwise be lost!  Anyone that tells you that BLS is superior to ALS is lying.

1. The grant writer (that the union likes to take credit for bringing to us) along with the rep from FEMA, told us that the grant does NOT have to be paid back.  As a matter of fact it is what is known as a reimburseable grant.  They did not send us a check for a blanket amount, they reimburse the city the cost of some of the firefighters.  This will amount to about $1.2 million per year for two years.  NOT $3.5 million!

1. I have not heard of any plan that includes outsourcing to Detroit. PERIOD!

1. If there was a move to outsource to Highland Park, they would staff OUR station with firefighters.  They would not have to drive all the way from Highland Park. The fire trucks and ambulances would be stationed at the Hamtramck Fire Station.

1. There’s talk about our insurance rates going up, but those are based on fire ratings and Hamtramck and Highland Park currently have an IDENTICAL fire rating (PPC 5) and this is what insurance companies use in setting rates.

These are facts, not opinions.  We are in a tough situation and everyone knows that.  Scare tactics won’t change the math problem that we face. Neither will flyers or lawn signs.  The fact is the City has to live within our means just as you and I do.

Now onto a better note, the Hamtramck Fraternal Order of Police have stepped up to the plate and offered to work on even more concessions than they gave the city just this past June.  As was stated by FOP President David Cornwell, “We’re willing to do whatever it takes to insure the survival of our community and our members while continuing to provide excellent services to the residents.”  We are working with the FOP to increase the efficiency of the Police Department.

I’m Acting City Manager Kyle Tertzag and that’s my Two Cents!

At least that’s the word from State Treasurer Andy Dillon, who told city officials they have 60 days to get contract concessions from the department or face having Detroit take over the service.

The City Council has been meeting recently to find ways to cut expenses from the general budget but mostly it’s been an exercise in futility. That’s because in order to shave off $2 million to balance the budget, there is only one place to turn to: the Fire Department.

It’s come to light that up to 90 percent of the department’s runs are for ambulance service. Now that the two department’s ambulances are not running because they are old and worn out, the city has contracted with Detroit Medical Center to provide ambulance service.

The service is free of charge to the city, and an ambulance is parked inside the city limits to respond to calls within minutes.

If the city can successfully contract out that service, it begs the question: Just how many firefighters do we need?

That’s a question city officials are currently tackling. The Fire Department costs the city $5 million a year. If the city doesn’t need firefighters acting as paramedics, it makes sense that there could be a huge cut to the department.

Firefighters dispute this notion, saying the city must have a full-time professional Fire Department. And yes, in an ideal world, it would be better to maintain what we have. But the simple truth is that the city can’t afford the department as it is today.

Any change to the department is going to require the firefighters to agree to a change in their labor contract. Firefighters can keep saying no to any significant changes, but the reality is that if change doesn’t come now, sooner or later the state will appoint an emergency manager and that person will rip up their contract.

It’s a brutal world we live in these days. Hamtramck’s finances are not what they used to be. Something has to give.