Local governments struggle to pass millages

All right, let's get right into the topic. Chris Barnett, Supervisor, Orion Township. Good to see you. Great to see you, Charlie, as always. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thank you. We're talking about a police and fire millage. It's on the ballot, but it failed in August. Will you guys just look and bring it back up whenever you want? Yeah, so, well, I mean, first of all, it's the first time that we've ever failed operational millages for public safety in our community. And we've been funding public safety since 1960 this way. You know, look, we were certainly a bit surprised, but we're back at it. We're working hard. We're getting the information to our residents and answering a lot of questions. Let's get into some of the details in a minute, but it's not just Orion Township. To be fair, Brandon Township, Highland Township, Independence Township, Waterford Township, and then Sumter and Wayne County. Why are all these, and I don't know the political makeup, but isn't it a little unusual the Republican-leaning districts are essentially defunding the cops? I mean, that's a great point, and that's what we're trying to figure out. I mean, listen, I think the one thing that's clear, I don't know if you know this, it's the election season around here, and the number one word I think you hear on more commercials than others is affordability. We get it. People are tired of taxes. It's our job, though, if you live in a township in the state of Michigan, it's how we fund public safety through dedicated millages, how we always have. And your taxes are lower than if you were in a city, so there's an advantage there. And we just need to do a better job of educating people. Cities have to do the same thing. They've got to ask the voters for villages for their police and fire and first responders. But this is not a little defeat. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your police, you divide them into police and fire. Correct, yeah. But your police failed by 59% of the vote in August. Yeah, it was a little less than that because there's a precinct in our village that voted that got canceled out. But no, it was significant. It was over 1,000 votes. Why do you think that is? I mean, is it just too many? Is it, what do they say, millage fatigue? I think there's millage. I mean, listen, people, we all are paying at the pump. Groceries, we get it. But what people, I don't think, understand, they don't connect the dots. We're the safest community in our entire state with more than 25,000 people for four or five years in a row. And this is how we fund it. There used to be a time when politicians had to tell the truth. And when we didn't, people like you would hold us accountable. Those days are gone. As you see on your TV, people can say anything they want. The distrust, unfortunately, you know, I've been in doing this for 14 years. It's always been in D.C. and it's been recently in Lansing, but it's filtered down to the local level now. Do you think that the public in your township, Orion Township, they're so upset with the political rhetoric and the mean ads that they're taking it out on you? I mean, I think that's part of it. I think the public believes that we have money in other places. They have the couch cushions we haven't looked under yet. And we just need to figure out how to find that money and plug it into police and fire. And so what we've been doing since August, and we've had no less than a dozen informational meetings and going to people's kitchen tables, homeowners associations explaining, in fact, well, we do collect the taxes. And so obviously a lot of times people get mad at us because they're setting their check. to pay the taxes, but we disperse the majority of those funds to the county, to the zoo, to the schools. We are the smallest piece of the pie, but people think, hey, I've spent tens, you know, thousands of dollars in taxes. Figure out how to better allocate it. We're only responsible for this small piece of the pie. All right, so let me understand it. Does Orient Township have its own police department? No, we contract with the sheriff's office, one of 12 communities in Oakland County. So this money that the public is being asked to vote on, it's not really going to you. It's going to the sheriff. Yeah, it's paying for our contract. Is he charging too much? No, no. So we have done some comparable studies, looked at other communities that are like us, similar in size and makeup. There you go. And we pay about $9 million in rough numbers a year for police services. Similar communities, similar to our size and makeup and the amount of business in residential districts pay anywhere from $11 to $13 million. They have their own police department. So we still think we're getting a good value. And we love the services that the sheriff's office provide. In my opinion, the best in the state. A little nitty-gritty here, while we can. The millage in August does differ a little bit from the one today. So the one today, you're only asking for a renewal, as I understand it. Correct. 3.37 mils compared to the one in August, which was 3.75. Correct. So you were going to get a little more for the cops in August. Yeah, so we were... Why'd you back down now? We took a... While we still have great services and a great price, we can provide police services for less than if we had our own police department, we took a 36% increase in our current contract for police services from the county. So we were asking for a 9% increase from our residents to help cover that, so we could continue to add deputies as we've done in previous years, so we can continue to be a safe community. Wait a minute, the sheriff increased your cost? The County Board of Commissioners did. That's a whole other story. Wait a minute here. You're telling me the county board is going to up your... It's been a story. I don't know. I mean, maybe we can talk about that. But that's... It's been a great story. It's been a great story. It was a good story. That's a 30% increase? 36. 30? Excuse me, 30. That's a lot of money, isn't it? It's a lot of money. However, again, I want to very clearly restate... We could not provide those services for less than what we're paying the county now. Now, at some point, if we continue to get these increases, we're going to have to make a decision, you know, if those lines cross. But for right now, we know Pittsfield Township next to Ann Arbor, similar to us, similar population. I think their annual police budget's about $12 million. I mean, we're still a couple million underneath that. Auburn Hills is about $12 million. They're smaller than us. Do you have a fund balance? We do. We do. And that's how we're actually able to... Fund it for a few months. Our fund balance... It actually ran out, right? No, it will run out. It will run out. Like, we don't have any money more coming in unless these... Proposals passed. Those monies will run out in May. You're looking at a plan B right now, aren't you? We have to. You have to. We have to. All right, this is police. Then there's a whole separate issue, a fire. Yes. That almost passed last time. Fire and EMS. 120 votes we lost. Oh! Yeah, I know. Oh! That's exactly what we said. That's what Haley Stevens is saying. A lot of people, it's close to the, but very, very close. Now, you still, you changed that a little bit. Now you've got two. Different things. You've got a renewal and an addition. Listen, I mean, in our role, we have, I say this all the time, we have 40,000 customers. We have to listen to them. So they delivered a message to us on August 4th, and so we did listen. We rolled back the slight increases in both to just renewals, and then we asked a separate question for fire for the additional staffing and apparatus. And that's a whole other issue. I'm leading in our country right now. We have 124 mayors of cities from Orlando to San Diego and everything in between that have signed on to this letter fighting the fire apparatus companies who have doubled the prices of our apparatus that we use in the last four years. So there's a lot going on there. Our residents expect this, though. When they call 911, we're going to show up, and we're going to show up quickly with the right equipment and the right staffing. And that's what this is about. You've got to get the vote out, right? Your voter turnout last time, 38.9%. Not the worst in Oakland County, but not the best. Do you think it'll be more this time? Absolutely. So listen, I just came from our early voting center. The early voting center is our recreation center for Oxford, Addison, and Orion townships on Saturday, just the first day. We had more people vote than all nine days combined in August. So we're encouraged. I just came from there. There's a lot of people voting. There's a lot of excitement. Obviously, that's being driven by the gubernatorial and the Senate races. But we're hopeful. I mean, listen, I truly believe that if every one of our residents weighed in on this, we would pass 80-20. Who shows up to vote? The people that say no always vote. Well, they're the vocal. They're very vocal. All right, Chris Barnett, hold that thought right here. We're going to talk about what it takes to bring a police and fire millage to pass it. How do you pass it? We'll talk about that after the break. So you want to zoom on Fox, too? We want you to zoom on Fox, too, but we want to make you look and sound really, really good. So four easy steps. First of all, take the phone and turn it on its side. We want you to fill up the entire screen. Then you've got to look around, and you've got to find the light. Remember, we want the light in front of you, not behind you. That's good. And then unmute the... Zoom mic. We want all of Detroit to hear you. And finally, turn down the television like I'm going to do right now. We want to hear you, not the TV. All right, let's review these easy steps. First, flip it, light it, unmute it, and turn down the TV. And then you are ready to Zoom on Fox 2. Remember, you can be a part of Fox 2's Detroit Talk City and the sports office. Just zoom in. Live. Hi, Detroit Talk City. I'm your host, Charlie Light. Tonight, can a marriage survive a political divide? We'll be getting into that in a little bit. But Chris Barnett is here, the supervisor of Warren Township, talking about a police and fire millage. Let's get right to the phone calls, all right? Let's do it. Lori from Ferndale. You're on Detroit Talk City. Hello, Lori. How you doing? You know what? I really appreciated what you just brought up about the millages. I do believe everybody's on millage overload at this point, you know? It's just so much. And as a matter of fact, you inspired me, both of you, to, I'm going to want to hang up, go through and see exactly what the percentage of all these millages to get tacked onto my taxes, you know? And I think that if we went back to what it should be, extras are great, but fire, police, protection, you know, the things that... Everybody is supposed to get by their taxes. These millages that you agreed right, Chris, would go through with no problem whatsoever. I think there is an overload. I think Lori's right. I mean, I think, listen, our ballot this time is three pages, the front and back on one and the whole other second one. And it's a lot of things we're asking people. So, I mean, that's what we're hearing, the millage fatigue. We'll see what happens. But what we're trying to impress on people is we want to always support the zoo and the museums, but we've got to have a safe community. I was going to say, you've got a zoo millage on there. That's a renewal, I guess. But you've got art museums on there. Yikes. Chris from Redford, you're on Detroit Talk City. Hello, Chris. I like him already. Hello, Charlie. I'm your favorite guy you want in Congress. But anyways. Hey, there's an easy solution, and I don't care if it gets mad, but if we took all the money that politicians are paid to run these little cities and townships, cut them in half, I'll tell you what, you can fix a lot of the budget. Also, there's a lot of little townships in that, nothing against police officers, we need them, but they get to where they get promoted from lieutenant to chief or whatever, They're there for maybe a year or two, then they retire, and then they get these outrageous pensions. And then somebody else gets to bump up and do the same thing. So you could end up with three, four retired chiefs that are getting a very, very nice pension. So like I say, people are getting taxed to death and they're getting tired of it. So if the cuts have got to You've got politicians on TV spending millions of dollars. Chris, you put their name out there to call somebody else something else. Chris, you bring up a good point. Let me ask this other Chris, though. The pay for cops, does that come out of that budget? Yeah, so let me talk about my pay first. How about your first? I hear you, Chris. I make the same amount of money I made when I took this job 14 years ago and I left the private sector. People, at least at the local level, no one's doing it for the money. You have to love your community, and I do. You want to say how much you make? I make $140,000. Listen, it's a $30 million organization. I'll just tell you that I don't think you want people that are unqualified in the lowest denominator running our communities, but it's a good point. How much do the trustees make? Trustees make $100 a meeting or so. They're volunteers. The bottom line is... You know, we can only cut so much, and it's a really good point. As far as Orion Township's concerned, in our contract with the Sheriff's Office, we pay no defined, there's no pensions anymore, those are gone. The same, it's a straight contract, which we, again, do cheaper than if we had our own police department, and we have no pension liability in our fire department. So we are, we already believe we're bare bones, but you touch on a really good point, Chris, that people don't trust us, and we hear that all the time, and that's why we're out here trying to, That's why we're talking about it at all levels. All right, let's take a text message here. Here it is. Are we even talking about millage for the fire and police department? That should be a no-brainer. Absolutely. They should have money for that. They're building over 500 new homes and condominiums. Way more than that. There's no land left. Should be a no-brainer for police. But they don't. Look, we just read six different pages. Well, I mean, we hear that. And I would direct people. I mean, even if you don't live in Orient Township, we put an amazing document together. Every question that's been asked, it's 96 pages now, right on our homepage, Safety Millages, OrionTownship.org. You can click on that link. And that question is asked and answered in great detail. We have a lot of growth. Why isn't that growth covering the increase in costs that we're seeing? Well, the answer is it is to some extent, but it's not covering enough. And the additional growth requires additional calls for service. Just this afternoon, we were at the station and we had almost 3,700 calls for fire EMS this year. And last year we responded to 22,000 calls for police services in our community. Do you think there's still a distrust though of police though and fire? I mean, listen, I think you can see that with every public safety millage, police that passed and or failed. passed or failed by a larger margin, and there's more disparity than fire and EMS. So I think in general, I mean, we hear a lot about what's going on with Flock and distrust and police, so I think that they are less supported. And I think the last thing I'd love to say... Hold on, you're not taking... Hold that the whole... You're not going to... You're not just sticking around a while. You're not going away, Chris Barnett. The Zoom room is open. We are going to take a quick break. Detroit Talks is back in just a moment. We're back at Detroit Talk City. We're talking a little bit later. Can a marriage survive a political divide? How about that? Chris Barnett is here, supervisor of Orion Township. Let's get right to the phone calls, all right? Let's do it. Jody from Orion Township. You are on Detroit Talk City. Hello, Jody. Hello. How are you, Charlie? How are you, Chris? Good. Good. Good. My question is, I hear about the millage, and I've lived in Lake Orion Township for 13 years now. It is growing tremendously. I mean, we've got over 500,000 homes. The property is just going crazy. Condominiums down Silverbell Court, Lapeer Road. They're asking $600,000, $700,000 for new condos. They're selling out. Everywhere you look, all the land is being stripped. Where growth is so much, but we can't even afford our fire and our police department. And I'm like, I'm questioning that. And I'm paying $14,000 a year myself. And I'm trying to figure out where all my neighbor behind me is paying $21,000 a year. Well, you're capped at property tax when you buy your house. Well, I mean, and I would, thanks, Jody. Thanks for the question and the call and for being one of my bosses and being nice about how you asked the question. And these are the questions we're getting, and they're great questions. So, first of all, I challenge you to look at your winter tax bill from last year and see how much of that $14,000 actually went to police and fire. Because I think what most people will find is that it is a small percentage. The taxes that we collect go mostly to other organizations outside of Orion Township. That said, we do have the growth. The one thing that we're proud of, we are Orion Township. We're living as a vacation. Had to get that in there. 30, over a third of our land mass is lakes and parks. So we are seeing development. We're the home of the Cadillac Escalade, GM Orion plants growing, residentials growing, you know, like wildfire. However, we are always going to be that. We're never going to be at a Warren or Sterling Heights like people compare us, like if we don't get things in check, because we do have so many great natural resources. Let's take another call here. Edwin from Brighton. You're on Detroit Talk City. Hello, Edwin. Hello, Charlie. Yeah, I just want to touch base real quick. I was Brighton Township Fire for 12 years. Got a degree in fire science, hazardous material. And we were basically not paid, all volunteer. And I worked with the county sheriff department as a fire and bomb investigator. That was volunteer under Fred Mueller. And our supervisor was Mike Rogers' dad, John Rogers and Mel Panovich. And we had the equipment we wanted, the training we wanted. And I don't know why, in these hard times, why these young people don't want to get active and be volunteers. You know, a volunteer can fight a fire. I would lay my hat alongside any full-time firefighter. I worked heavy construction, so I did a lot of high work. That's what I got to say. Appreciate the call and the insight. And thank you for your service, Edwin. I'll tell you this, in my time, in 14 years as township supervisor, we had 55 paid-on-call or volunteer, some people call them. In 2012, we're down to three in 2000. Let me see if I can get one more call in here. Mary from Lake Orion. You're on Detroit Talk City. Hello, Mary. Do we have Mary? Yeah. Hi, Charlie. Hi, Chris. How are you doing? 20 seconds. Go ahead. Yeah, so I'm from Orion Township and the village of Lake Orion, and I just want to make a comment in regards to the millages. I think one of the reasons that some voters are hesitant on the millages is because of the fact that we pay both township and village taxes. Yeah, let me cut you right there. The village doesn't pay, right? This is not for the village, right? The police is not. Fire is. But we can talk about that after the break. All right. Thank you, Chris Barnett. We're going to take a quick break to Detroit Talk City back in just a moment. Welcome back to Detroit Talk City. I'm your host, Charlie Light. Tonight, still to come this half hour, we're talking to Orion Township Supervisor Chris Barnett. He's going to stay with us. He's going to talk about all the problems that some of these communities are going through with all these taxes and, of course, a failed millage for police and fire. Can they get that back on track? But we do want to focus here on our poll question one more time. Can a marriage... Survive a major political divide. Okay, scan that QR code right there at the bottom of your screen, and we'll show you the results a little bit later on in the show. And to recap, this show is all about hearing from you, the viewer. We're gonna have a conversation and we do want to know what you think. Text us, call us, 313-765-8844. Also, jump in the Zoom room. Our meeting ID number, 892-4909-0290. Social media, hashtag us at Detroit Talk City. All right, the supervisor of Orion Township, Chris Barnett. You want this millage passed for both your police and your fire. It failed in August. Police, 59% said, no way, you're not going to do it. Now you're on a kind of a campaign to make it, to get this thing passed. We're going to take your calls. We do want to hear from you. All right. All right. I don't know. I understand that you put out on your website here what you're, the cops, you've got increasing calls, right? Yeah. Pretty substantially. Substantial, yeah. And you've got 26% increase in detective cases. That's correct. But we're also still the safest community in Michigan. I was gonna say, are you guys getting more dangerous in Orion Township? It's the difference between proactive and reactive policing, and a lot of communities are only reactive. We're able to be out in the businesses, in the schools, educating people. So we're able to be, we call it proactive policing. I see a 53% in traffic citations. Are you guys giving tickets out, Noreen? We have a landfill, and we've got a lot of overweight vehicles that tear up our infrastructure, and we remind them with tickets that they need to follow the weight restrictions, protecting our infrastructure. Oh, so a lot of these tickets are these trucks? A lot of them are. You guys have a landfill? We do, we do. Is that a moneymaker for you? No, not really. I mean, it makes some money, but it's not, I mean, you don't choose to have them. Would you have a lot of land? Is that an eyesore? You don't like that? I mean, it looks like a big ski hill, but it's got garbage on it. I don't know. It's been there for a long time. It's the only active landfill in northern Oakland County, so it's busy. Really? Yeah. How come you can't make money on that? I mean, we do make a small amount of money, but it's not enough to... We've done some park improvements. There's a host agreement. Thank you very much. In terms of the size of landfills, other communities that have them, Van Buren Township. There's one in Macomb, Lenox. They get a lot of revenue, but they're three or four times the size of ours. We are talking in other stories here, like data centers, for example. Oh, yeah. Is that something that you would consider? We have a moratorium right now. I mean, we are drafting an ordinance that would, we can't. You can't outright make them illegal in your community, but you can zone for them. So right now, our planning commission is in the process of that, along with a lot of other communities. You don't think a data center is good for Orient Township? Wow, you're trying to get me in a lot of trouble today. Listen, I think they have to go. We're going to work out as much, I don't think I don't think a data center is good for Orient Township right now. I don't think we have the property for them, for one. But they have to go someplace. Thank you very much. You need them, but not in your backyard. Well, I mean, look, what am I going to say? We would prefer if they were... Can you make money? Those definitely you can make money, yeah. I mean, it looks like, I mean, just listen. You may pass this millage. I hope, I mean, you were hoping people would vote a yes. But you still need a revenue source, though, for cities, right? Yeah, I mean, listen, we, I give a state of the community address every year. And my favorite slide every year is the frugal index. We provide government services. Cheaper per capita than anyone around us. And that's my favorite slide. You can go on our website and see it. So we think we do a good job. We provide great services for great value for our residents. But, yeah, I mean, the questions you're asking are the things that we all have to grapple with. Does anybody want a landfill? No. But they have to go somewhere. Does anyone want a data center? No. We're all connected to the phones and ChatGPT and all these great tools that are available to us. So that's what local elected officials have to deal with. We want the revenue, but at what expense? Right now, on the data center front, we don't want it. Do you think that there's a place in Oakland County that would be prime for a data center? Any community other than Orion Township. I mean, listen, they need to be near, obviously, enough power and then... Water, and I think the big concern right now is, you know, we had some water issues in May. Oh, my God. I was there every day. Yeah, you were. We became buddies. But, you know, you have to make sure. Which is all done now. You've got water. We have water, but we only have one source of water. We still are in that same situation where we have one line in. We're the last customer on the line. So, if something happens to that line, which happened on Mother's Day, we're cut off. We're working, we're working with our great federal partners to try to find some funding to make sure we have a second source. But in the meantime, I think those types of things lend other communities better spots for data centers than us right now. And you're developing more residential or commercial? We have a decent amount of residential that's approved, that's under construction, as one of our callers mentioned. We're a growing community. I mean, some of that is the GM plant, the investment. Bring the big trucks here, the Cadillac Escalade. Is your largest source of income from General Motors? Yes. By a lot? They're our largest taxpayer, largest employer. If GM moved out of Orient Township? Catastrophic. Catastrophic. Yeah, and that's what we were facing three years ago, and we're thrilled that they chose to make the largest plant in America is in Orient Township building their big trucks. We're excited. We want to hear from you. Call us, text us, 313-765-8844. Detroit Talk City back after the break. Senator. Detroit Talk City, I'm your host, Charlie Light. Tonight, Chris Barnett is with us. He's the supervisor for Orient Township, and we're focusing now on a police and fire millage that is on your ballot in November. Early voting, is that good or bad for you, you think? I mean, I think early voting is great. I mean, we want people to vote. Obviously, in our world, we would love to have 100% of the registered voters vote. Never has happened, not even close. But I think giving people opportunities to make sure that their voice is heard is important. Do you think this millage, for example, the people understand the subtleties of this? I don't think they do. I mean, look, it's not just in Orient Township. If you live in a community and you're watching this, that is... Funding public safety, and those questions are on your ballot, you need to research them. Obviously, hold your local electeds accountable if you think they're not spending your money wisely. But this is how we fund police and fire. As you mentioned at the top of the show, five other communities in Oakland County had failed public safety millages, and they're all generally safe communities, communities that you'd be surprised to say, we don't want to fund police and fire. And I think that's some of the confusion that came from August was people thought we were asking for... Didn't realize that this is 100% how we fund public safety. Which is unusual, because looking at this, I mean, police and fire is an essential service. So you'd think that, not that the voters shouldn't have a say, but other people would have a say. Because it's technical, whether it's renewal, whether it's an addition, whether you're, the Oakland County sheriffs use, you contract with them. So there's some subtleties in there. Not that the public can't understand it, but it should be the elected people. Well, it's our job to tell a story, but also. You know, and we've been accused of fear-mongering and things, but think about if we don't have public safety, just if you're able to get insurance on your home, what those costs will be. So, you know, we're trying to tell people this is an investment into your community, your livelihood, and the number one thing you can do for, in our opinion, one of my top priorities is protecting and growing people's property values. Public safety is top of that list. Well, you are a safe community anyway, right? We are, yeah. But you still need this $9 million. We want to continue to be. You want to continue to be. But it is a problem. General Motors, that's your biggest tax payer. Correct. Though, they're safe. They're not moving anywhere. They are not. They have invested. It depends on who you ask, anywhere between $4 and $7 billion in our plant. We were building the small cars, the Bolt and the Cruze, the tiny ones, historically the Grand Am Grand Prix. Now we are building the big ones, Escalade, Silverado, Sierra pickup trucks. And that's good for Oregon. That's good for Michigan. That's good for Oakland County. Coming up, we'll answer more of your texts and your calls. You're watching Detroit Talk City on Fox 2. Back in a moment. All right, time to answer some questions, some text for Chris Barnett, supervisor of Orion Township. Let's get right to them. Here's a text. I would just like to say, as a resident of Orion Township in Lake Orion, Michigan, where is our money going? Are we building so much here, our growth? Something's not right. We should be able to have the fire and police. No problem. Millage passed. We need to audit, and we need an audit in the city. How do you answer that? I love this question. This question is answered directly on our website, but I'll give you the brief answer. We have a great... Financial system in Orion Township, we are audited every year. And the answer was sort of in the question. We need the millages passed because it's the only source of funding for police and fire. So we collect $600,000 from General Motors for police and fire. That's their portion of those millages. If these millages don't pass, we collect zero from General Motors. That's our largest taxpayer. Now, you can extrapolate that for each person. On our website, there's a tax calculator you can see. Put in your address. It'll tell you how much you paid last year, how much you will pay next year if these millages pass. But we're asking for renewals. And this is how we funded public safety since 1960 in Orion Township. And in that question, you can see there's confusion. Like, this is how we fund public safety in cities and townships in Michigan. And people... We are tired of taxes, we appreciate that, we're empathetic toward that, but this isn't anything new. So there's renewals, and then there would be, what's the opposite of renewal? An extra? A new? A new. It's called new. It's called new. We have two renewals, and then one new for 0.4, or zero- 0.4. 0.4, thank you. Yeah. For fire. 0.4, that's for fire. All right, so we're going to – and by the way, For fire. if you're paying the tax, a renewal is going to be – you'll pay the same amount of tax, right? Well, actually, it's a little less because Headley rolls back. Oh, it rolls back. So it was 3.41. It's going to go to 3.38, I think. So it's actually a little lower. That's on our website. But if you look at the frequently asked questions, there's 96 pages of them. Oh. Uh... Every question – and that question is answered. We want people to ask the questions. We wanna make sure people have the right information and All right, let's take another text. This is an interesting one here. All right. Yeah. All right, they want $13 million to expand the library. They spend $9 million on a health club. They're buying the Pine Tree School to make a park. We don't need this to save this money. Finally. Well, you've got a number of bills. We just talked about it. We're responsible for this much of the pie of taxes. And we do have a separate parks millage. Our residents voted widely in favor of that, and they expected us to do certain things with those parks dollars. One of the things we hear about all the time is, why can't you take money from the parks, the rec center that we have, that was an athletic club that's now an early voting place, it's a community center. We use parks millage dedicated dollars for that. I can't take from that parks bucket of money and put it into a general fund or vice versa. Residents, a large majority of residents voted in favor of those parks projects. In my time, we've added six parks in our community. And what's interesting, we had a call earlier saying we're building on every square inch. That's the challenge we have as local elected officials. And like I said, and I'll say again, we have 40,000 bosses. We can't make them all happy, but we do, we try to do what's best for most. Let's go to John from Pontiac. You're on Detroit Talk City. Hello, John. Hey, thanks for taking my call. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks for all the work Money out of politics, and free everything for everybody. And what I gotta say is, let's just get back to putting hate out of politics, love into politics, and start working again. And I wanna say one, we got a great city in Pontiac, we got great people in Pontiac. And just put the love back into politics, please. Quit hating each other, we gotta get the hate out of making everybody hate each other. Amen. Yeah, I know. friend and he's doing great things for the team. I agree. I mean, I think what people sometimes forget is they mix us locals up with people in Lansing and D.C. And I'm not saying they're bad in Lansing or D.C., but certainly the trust level has eroded. And we're the same people. Like I said, we've had avoiding all Michigan football teams with free cider and donuts and we had that show up. We get the information out, we understand people are busy, and we understand they don't trust us. So our goal is to try to be as transparent as possible. That word's so overused in government, but that's what we're gunning for in Orient Township. Let's take another text here. I live in Orient, Michigan, Orient Township. Our 14,000. What are they doing with the money? I paid for my own garbage, also the garbage pickup. Yeah. So, again, sound like a broken record. The majority of the taxes we collect go right out of our office. The second we collect them, go to schools. They go to the museums. We are responsible for less than a third. It's about a quarter of the taxes. And we talk about funding in buckets. On our website, in my office, I put these jars of pennies represented. General fund and that's the those are the only and so we agree people's taxes have gone up and they're paying for lots of things on the ballot as we've been talking. People are going to be voting on the zoo and museums and things like that. But at the local level, we tax. I mean, the practical matter tells you they've got police. They've got two fires. They've got a library. Parts two. Not this time, no. Okay. It's not expired. But now we do a county way. You've got a zoo and a museum. So how many is that? Five, six? Yeah. Any more? Did I miss any? Schools. Oh, my gosh. Schools are in there. Don't you? I mean, and everyone's going to see all that. Three. But that's tough. Again, government, don't take my word for it. Are you recommending voting yes on all of them? I'm recommending voting yes on public safety. People need to make the decisions, yes, on our schools. I'm going to support our library because I think those are the things that make your community unique, that draw people to the community. Those are decisions each person is going to have to make. And I have good friends that are on the other side of most, on some of those issues. Hopefully everybody understands that public safety, our general fund millage is less than one mil. 0.8. So we cannot fund 7 mils of activities, police, fire, and general fund stuff with 0.8 mils. Let's go to the phone calls. Adela from Lake Orion. You're on Detroit Talk City. Hello, Adela. Hi, how are you? Good. Good. I just had a comment. The Orion Center has bought, was it Lifetime Fitness? And they are doing great things for the seniors. I mean, the seniors here are 50 and over. And I go to all these free things that they do. They have a ton of stuff for kids, for families. And I just think that they really made the right decision in buying this rec center. Yeah, thanks for saying that, Adela. And as you've already heard on this last segment, not everyone's excited about the new rec center. That rec center was going out of business. The Great Lakes Athletic Club, it wasn't Lifetime Fitness, it was Great Lakes Athletic Club. They were in receivership. So we made a strategic decision to purchase that a few years ago. And it's been a great success. It's the busiest building in our community. And most people enjoy it. Again, that's where early voting is happening right now. And, again, our residents were asked a few years ago if they wanted to pay a separate parks millage This is how we fund things in townships. We ask people if they want to pay. This is what we'll give you. And we've delivered on, at our last Parks and Rec, this is a point of pride, our last master plan we delivered on over 90% of the things that we dreamed that we would do. So that's a great accomplishment. Let's get one more call. Brandon from Lake Orion. You're on Detroit Talk City. Hello, Brandon. Hey, how you doing there, Charlie? Good. Hey, I'm just calling in. I'm just seeing all this big hoo-blah going on with these Flock cameras. I haven't seen any in and around Lake Orion Township, but I'm wondering, is Lake Orion one of those places that's going to be following and influencing this whole flat camera nonsense going on? What are you doing about that? Flock cameras, we have seven. Our contract is not up for renewal. We have been watching all the discussion, all the communities I've had very specific and direct Conversations with our sheriff, Sheriff Bouchard, with the people that protect us. And we are monitoring that situation. They are still active in our community. Seven of them. There are communities around us that have over 50. 50. We're hopeful that people understand that we still need to fund police. Whether you like the cameras or not, we have to have public safety in our community. And that's the question we're asking our residents here. And next Tuesday, actually right now, you can go home. It's Tuesday, it's only a couple days away. How much time do I have left here? I'm going to give you about 20 seconds left to make your best case that you want to support the villagers. I think everybody should support their public safety, whatever community you live in. But more importantly, the The men and women that keep us safe, how do you think they're feeling right now? No one does this job, does this career to get rich, to make a name for themselves. They're going to be in the stations on Thanksgiving and Christmas away from their families, keeping us safe. And so think about the people that are keeping us safe. Thank them for their service. Chris Barnett, Orientalco Supervisors, thanks so much. We appreciate it. We'll have the results of our poll when we come back. But Ruth, first... Hey there, Charlie. We have a lot coming up tonight at five. A 15-year-old boy was hit and killed by a car while trying to cross the street in Farmington last night. Fox News' Dave Spencer has the latest details coming up on the news at five. That's coming up in four minutes. Content of this ad. Welcome back, Detroit Talk City. Just a program note, Haley Stevens was supposed to be here. She could not get here, so we will reschedule. All right, now, time for the results of our question of the day. Our poll, can a marriage survive a major political divide? And it looks like the majority, Z, say yes, 64.