The Chelsea Standard
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
On the ground
PUBLISHED: January 31, 2008
Saline Township Clerk Lois Baldus said having Washtenaw County run local elections would be one way to save cash.
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"The waste of money and resources is just unheard of," Baldus said. "Our staff gets paid on an hourly basis, but I think with this election in particular, most of the ballots and all of the cost should have been covered by the state with help from the county clerk."
Baldus singled out the recent presidential primary because it was a statewide election with no local proposals or candidates on the ballot.
"We don't have a Qualified Voter System in place and have to rely on the county already for that, and they're very good at it," Baldus said. "It seems logical to me to just give them that responsibility. (Saline Township in particular) has all of the territories that people have to vote in for school elections, so we're kind of the odd duck."
She speculated that Bridgewater and Freedom townships would make the easiest transition to county administered elections, due to their small size. Baldus thinks that larger townships such as Lodi and Webster would be more difficult, and the affects would be more obvious with the larger population of registered voters residing in those townships.
Saline Township has 1,300 registered voters to Lodi's almost 6,000, Baldus mentioned as an illustration.
"I think most townships have so much work to do that I don't think the elections would hurt anyone's feelings," she said.
Freedom Township's new supervisor, Dale Weidmayer, said that the consolidation act has been an ongoing topic of discussion at his board meetings, and the consensus is that townships are the most efficient form of government.
He also said that some things, such as building permits, are already handled regionally through the Western Washtenaw Construction Authority.
"Right now, we have a permit through Western Washtenaw ... Through the county it takes longer, so I think we would be losing a lot of efficiency if that came about in that case," he said.
Weidmayer said that the county does a good job with its assessment duties, but that there are disadvantages in a broad sense.
"What we've noticed is if you don't do it yourself, you have to give the money out, but to get the money back is a problem," Weidmayer said. "With Western Washtenaw permits, we can do it at a little bit cheaper rate than the county, and the one thing about it is if you do things locally, you have a tendency to have quicker service for the people. Sometimes they want a permit in the morning and they can call in and by the afternoon they have it."
Scio Township Trustee David Nacht, who is not seeking re-election this year, took the discussion much further than other local officials and said that he sees consolidation and regional efforts, not primarily as a cost saving measure, but as a means to reduce inefficiencies in public policy.
"We have gone overboard in this state with local control," Nacht said. "We have terrible regional planning. It's terribly difficult for the Ann Arbor region to plan land-use issues, and why? Because every local zoning board or planning commission or township board can make decisions about developments in their community, and that means that a developer that can bring in a large development that will have a significant impact on a region has to persuade all of these bodies and the neighbors of the development's merit."
He said that township's being steered by neighborhoods is natural "by definition," and that resistance depends on the perspective of residents.
"If you want affordable housing, you would be OK with a block of housing being built," he said. "But if you live in a larger house or are an existing homeowner, you don't want the traffic or anything reducing your home's value."
Nacht said urban sprawl is becoming more of an issue in Washtenaw County. "The notion that we can't plan at a regional level in a meaningful way is damaging the economic health of our entire community.
"(The township) boards are under significant pressure to reject or block or slow down (certain developments) and taxes, particularly in Scio Township, are slim already at just 1.5 mills.
"In a time of economic tightness, where we've lost half a million jobs and people are leaving the state in droves, we cannot afford to have layers of government soaking up taxes and getting in the way of the private sector generating economic growth."
He added that Scio Township had roughly 8,000 residents 10 years ago and now has 20,000 residents — growth that he credited to "the economic vitality of Ann Arbor," while at the same time "all of the action is at the local level."
"I'm all for strong neighborhoods, but if the region suffers because of a number of decisions that are of benefit to particular neighborhoods, then ultimately the neighborhoods suffer in the end," Nacht said.
Sean Dalton is a reporter for Heritage Newspapers. He can be reached at 1-734-475-1371 or sdalton@heritage.com.
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