Mayor warns of stiff challenges ahead

Mayor Dayne Walling was the featured speaker at the Potter Longway Neighborhood Association meeting Jan.17. He spoke about positive and negative issues facing the city, including budget and public safety concerns, and fielded questions from the crowd of about 75 people.

"Since year 2000 we've lost one out of two manufacturing jobs and two out of three automotive jobs," Walling said.

"In the last two years we've had lawsuits like the Genesee Towers from previous administrations to deal with with declining revenues. Even if the city were to go into bankruptcy these lawsuits won't go away," he warned.

On the positive side Walling cited Kettering University's partnership with a Swedish biofuel firm where a dozen new jobs will be realized from their alternative energy collaboration.

Other signs of improvement include the Hurley and McLaren hospitals expansions; getting the Diplomat Pharmacy headquarters; the Flint-built Chevrolet Silverado HD being named the 2011 Motor Trend truck of the year; and the new production line that will build engines for the new Chevrolet Volt at General Motors' Engine South plant.

But these changes aren't enough for the city to cope with a reduction in revenue by about half from 10 years ago, he said.

Walling said the city faces a stiff challenge in continuing to provide 120 police officers and 100 firefighters.

He is presenting a proposal to the Flint City Council for two separate millages — one to continue a previous millage funding 16 police officers and a second to reopen the city jail. Both proposals are for two mills.

Walling explained the need to reopen the jail to house non-violent offenders who are currently issued a ticket for a court appearance but fail to appear and continue their criminal activities without penalty.

"These offenders continue to commit the crimes because we don't have room to house them," Walling said.

Asked why the offenders couldn't be housed in other nearby municipal jails that have the room, like Midland County, Walling said that option was explored but was too expensive because the city was required to pay the entire sentencing cost of the offender — not just the pre-trial part.

Walling also conceded that there has not been a real community policing effort because of the high number of priority one calls.

"You've been paying for community policing," Walling said. "But for the most part Police Chief Alvern Lock and I haven't been successful in that effort."

Asked why not add another two mills to his proposal for community policing, Walling said, "I'm not going to ask you to pay for community policing because I'm not sure we can deliver."

In response to questions about reductions in firefighters and the possibility of closing more fire stations, Walling said he hopes that all the unions, not just the city's largest employee union, AFSCME Local 1600, would vote to accept a contract that included double-digit concessions.

"I started the reductions by taking a five percent salary cut and I'm paying 15 percent of my healthcare costs," Walling said. "I'm continuing to work with police and firefighters to get concessions. Everybody's being asked to make the same concessions."

A call for a balanced budget brought a quick response from the mayor who said the current city budget is a consensus budget between his administration and city council.

"Our real challenge is to be able to forecast revenue because of rapidly declining property values," the mayor explained.

Because the city is paying for lawsuits brought before his administration with severely reduced revenue, the city will ask the state for a fiscal stabilization bond, he said.

"This will allow us to pay off old deficits and then pay off the bond using our capital improvement funds while protecting our public safety people," Walling said.

"It's a question of where do you want to hurt," Walling continued. "We can reduce the public safety or we can reduce our capital improvements."

"We don't have any lawsuits under my administration," the mayor added.

A member asked about the status of the Cease Fire Intervention the mayor announced last year.

Walling said the city has partnered with FACT (Flint Area Congregations Together), Michigan State University and the U.S. Department of Justice to target an area of the city where the group is focused on deterrence.

"We're cleaning up drugs and getting violent offenders into jail, but also identifying nonviolent offenders who the committee believes can turn their lives around with support and become productive members of society over the long term," said Walling.

"If you want a safer community you have to change the mindset of the people breaking the laws," Walling added.

Asked by an attendee if he supported Red Alert initiative (a neighborhood crime alert notification system), the mayor said he believed it holds promise but warned that technology never replaces an officer.

The next Longway Potter Neighborhood Association meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Feb. 21 at Eastwood United Methodist Church, 3312 Whittier St.

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