City prioritizing goals for ’05

Published 1:56 am Monday, November 1, 2004

By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
CASSOPOLIS - Dowagiac residents will be asked on utility bills for their opinions on everything from whether citywide trash collection should be instituted to whether trick-or-treating should be continued or replaced with a Halloween parade downtown.
Mayor Donald Lyons, City Manager Bill Nelson and council members gathered at the Edward Lowe Foundation's Billieville conference center for three hours Saturday morning to begin prioritizing a goals agenda for 2005 from five ideas each brought.
It recalled an exercise six years ago at the outset of the Lyons administration.
Brainstorming about how best to improve the quality of life in the Grand Old City was followed with annual February retreats with department heads, who have pretty much accomplished that 10-year work plan.
When they broke at noon for lunch, the mayor commented, "I was surprised at the preponderance of near-term things we came up with" when they began divvying up ideas between attainable in 12 months or demanding a longer timeline.
The wide-ranging dialogue also touched on the pit bull problem, the need for broadband, whether Central Middle School can be redeveloped for residential housing, cleaning up the creek for a scenic walkway, a citywide business leaders meeting, creating a business incubator in the industrial park, coordinating the publicizing of various youth activities to dispel the myth that there is "nothing for kids to do," putting up an informational kiosk downtown to list upcoming events, painting a mural on the wall of the post office parking lot along Pennsylvania Avenue, eliminating semi parking on streets, putting up consistent signs so visitors can find their way around town easier, remodeling the district library, making the bank/library block a "public service block" and providing public restrooms downtown given the influx of visitors for special events.
The mayor saw examples of public restrooms while traveling in England recently.
Joining council members Wayne Comstock, Bob Schuur, Leon Laylin, Darron Murray and Donna O'Konski (Chuck Burling sent his idea list with Nelson) were City Clerk Jim Snow and Jim Kladis, owner of Daylight Donuts.
Nelson led off the discussion with broadband and "hot spots," the usually public places in a community where wireless connections are available for laptop computers. It figures in the governor's Cool Cities initiative and in economic development as an infrastructure issue on par with water, sewer, streets and electricity.
Nelson said he hears from major industries, the hospital and the college how it puts Dowagiac at a competitive disadvantage.
Snow suggested expanding the city's Web site to provide everything from forms to codes for contractors and ordinances.
Murray recommended a business development center like SMC used to have and which Lake Michigan College maintains. The First Ward councilman also pointed out the dearth of four-year engineering degrees or an extension offering a master's degree in business administration and urged the addition of shelters at school bus stops.
Laylin said the city "needs to keep in the forefront" the issue of revitalizing Central Middle School, which will be retired in June with occupancy of the new middle school on Riverside Drive.
Central made most lists, whether as a community performing arts center in partnership with the school district and the college, senior housing or arts and crafts and recreation, which is available at Lincoln Community Center, shared by the Police Athletic League (PAL), Encore dance and the Cass County Council on Aging, which starts there today.
SMC brings in tutors to Lincoln, there are computers, the basketball court, a kitchen and table games. The after-school program serves 40 to 60 youngsters a day.
Nelson said developers have looked at the feasibility of apartments on the second and third floors, with ground-level offices housing "support services," such as hairdressers and barbers along with the gymnasium, auditorium, art classes and wood shop.
Comstock suggested a community ice rink, given the growing popularity of youth hockey. St. Joseph is not the only community which has one. Nelson said South Haven last year created one at much less cost with a parking lot.
Burling wants to partner with the Dogwood Fine Arts Festival and Beckwith Theater for an open-air amphitheater with a water view.
Schuur lobbied for a cleaned-up creek for a walking path from Heddon Park, though conceded that's a long-range undertaking that would take years to accomplish with one of Dowagiac's most underutilized assets. When his grandmother lived on Cass Avenue, he tried to blaze such a route and found it "impossible to get there."
Comprehensive signs which send a message about the community seemed to have consensus among participants - particularly with a new middle school off the beaten path, the high school in a new athletic conference, plus such landmarks as the Chamber in the depot, Riverside Cemetery, parks, the airport, the district library, the Beckwith, the industrial park and hundreds of trucks which wander off onto Indiana or Michigan avenues looking for Ameriwood.
Schuur continues to press for a movie theater and he added a community swimming pool to his wish list because it would be valuable to seniors as well as youth.
Nelson's prior communities have pools and he said there are ways to fund them, such as creating a recreational authority with surrounding townships.
Nelson said an issue for the state as well as local level to grapple with is options for funding government operations with revenue sharing declining.
Property taxes fund most of what Dowagiac does, but in Michigan, without fundamental change from the rollback restrictions imposed by Headlee and Proposal A, growth is not captured. One solution might be dedicating five of the city's 15 mills to public safety so it would not be subject to rollbacks on an annual basis.
Snow noted that even the .75-mill voters approved for the district library on the first levy will be collected at .747.
Laylin espoused some sort of youth director to coordinate activities between wards, since there is such a variety of programs offered through schools, churches, the skatepark, Scouts, 4-H, PAL, Fitch Camp and even such "backyard sports" as golf, croquet and horseshoes.
It might bolster Neighborhood Watch and reinforce awareness of inappropriate activities going on in the neighborhoods.
Nelson said times have changed since they were children and they played sandlot ball and rode their bikes because there were so few organized activities. What kids want today may not be sports, art and theater, but an Internet cafe for video games.
O'Konski suggested moving the utility payment drive-by box from the parking lot kitty-corner from City Hall to Zarry's Alley between Huntington Bank and the library when the mailboxes are moved from the alley being shut between W. Division and Commercial streets.
Comstock said given the number of parents who trick-or-treat with babies in arms, teen-agers begging candy who are too old and those who don't even bother wearing costumes, he would be in favor of discontinuing trick-or-treating in favor of a children's parade downtown, like the Optimist Club used to organize.
The notion of citywide trash collection, studied when Jim Palenick was city manager in 1996, was resurrected. Such a contract would be one way to establish a recycling program, which is not commercially viable otherwise.
Eight years ago 55 percent were paying for trash collection and 45 percent were not. A contract would reduce the cost for those who have been supporting collection.
With lots of different unregulated trucks using the streets, city officials have no way of knowing, for example, if any of those trucks are leaking.
Council members also discussed the problem with vicious dogs and with dogs in general. One council member's neighbor has 20 dogs, even though residents are limited to two per household. Murray suggested making owners of pitbulls and Rottweilers purchase insurance, but Comstock, of Wolverine Mutual Insurance Co., said singling out certain breeds would not be the way to go.
Lyons said there are so many dogs in his neighborhood it's difficult to unwind with a quiet dinner because of the barking.
The proposed medical arts facility remains stalled. The city is prepared to move, but lacks partners except for the health department. Borgess-Memorial Hospital's parent organization is in the process of changing CEOs.
Council members enthusiastically borrowed one idea from Eau Claire, a noise ordinance with signs warning of a $100 fine for loud music.
Nelson and Lyons checked out a mural in LaGrange, Ind. "They can be extremely attractive and transform a blase wall," Lyons said.