Essay: Starving Local Services - 9.20.10

The mid-Michigan city of Pontiac soon will have only a third as many policemen as it did five years ago. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry thinks that we all may be facing similar issues soon.

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Pontiac was an industrial town, but also a pretty, leafy small city a few decades ago, with stately homes, some of which are still magnificent, on streets close to the once-tidy little downtown.

The city had fierce high school rivalries, a good newspaper and, while it wasn’t really a Detroit suburb, was close enough that you could commute to the city.

Pontiac had reliable commuter rail service, was close to freeways, and was where both Woodward Avenue and Telegraph roads began. That was then, however. Now, times are hard.

Commuter rail service ended almost thirty years ago. The General Motors factories that were the main source of the economy downsized and closed. The Detroit Lions, who had played there since the 1970s, took football back to Detroit eight years ago, leaving an empty stadium and less tax revenue.

The city finally got to a point where its leaders were unable or unwilling to make the hard decisions. Nineteen months ago today, the state appointed an Emergency Financial Manager to run Pontiac.

Nobody has any idea when, or if, Pontiac will be able to run as a normal city again. What Pontiac desperately needs is money. Tax revenue. Working, middle class families to move into town.

But attracting them is hard, and is about to get a lot harder. The state keeps slashing revenue sharing money it sends to Michigan’s cities. Five years ago, Pontiac’s sixty-six thousand people were protected by 175 police officers.

Then the layoffs began. After the next round of cuts in November, Pontiac will be down to sixty-one police officers. A third of what it had. Less than one cop per thousand residents.

People are not going to voluntarily move somewhere they don’t feel safe. Pontiac is worse off than some places. But across Michigan, people are about to feel what it means to have fewer services. For years, the state has had to scrape together a balanced budget at the last moment. Most of the time, they’ve balanced the books partly by cutting the money local governments had been told they could count on. We are all going to begin feeling the results.

Some of the effects will be invisible at first, but may be deadly in the long run. Cities are canceling or delaying things like restaurant inspections and safety inspections for vehicles.

Forget well-maintained parks and recreation facilities. Some cities are losing library services. Some of these cutbacks are unavoidable. Some may even make sense.

But the fact is that we ought to be willing to pay more for others. We should be willing to tax ourselves to maintain our quality of life. Our state lawmakers don’t see it that way, however.

They refuse to raise any new revenue, either for ideological reasons or because they fear voter reaction.

Well, guess what. The job of a leader is to lead, even when the right path isn’t popular. Taxes are the price we pay for civilization. Most of us are rather partial to civilization, clean water, and want a fireman to come when we need one. If that takes more taxes, we who are still working ought to be willing to pay them. We all need to grow up, and realize that there really ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.

Comments

[Todd Scott]

You didn't mention on of the biggest blows to Pontiac: The county government abandoned downtown Pontiac. This is quite ironic given that Oakland County loves to tout it's Main Street program.