Citizens for Independent and Cooperative Communities
is a grassroots group of citizens who are committed to encouraging and promoting the intergovernmental cooperation between our local governments. We believe that our communities should continue to have individual units of government that work together through the collaborative efforts that have made them a model of intergovernmental cooperation that is unrivaled in the State of Michigan. We already collaborate on almost all of the big ticket items like, Police, Fire, Library, Sewer & Water, Transit Authority & our newly formed Harbor Authority. Our city governments continually look for ways to cooperate to achieve a cost savings where they feel it makes sense. Cooperation rather than consolidation is what we believe will be most beneficial for our communities for generations to come.
What do the experts say?
"Michigan Citizens- Republicans and Democrats - and their state and local government leaders broadly agree that consolidating individual public services across neighboring jurisdictions is worth pursuing, to cut the cost of government."
"They also largely agree that consolidation should stop there, and not be pushed to the extreme in which complete jurisdictions are eliminated."
Tom Ivacko, Center for Local, State and Urban Policy at the University of Michigan, (September 2012)
We don't need to consolidate our governments to achieve a cost savings.
A cost savings can be accomplished by continuing to look for ways that we can work collaboratively. The very reputable and highly respected Citizens Research Council is being commissioned by both cities to conduct a study on the impact of a potential consolidation of our towns. This study could be a very useful tool to help us look at ways that we can potentially combine more services that make sense in order to achieve a cost savings and better plan for our future without having to do a full-on consolidation. Any potential cost savings from a consolidation, we believe would not be worth the enormous effort and cost that it would take to do a full-on consolidation.
The proponents who initiated the proposal to consolidate contracted Plante and Moran PLLC to do a "Business case for consolidation", not an analysis of the pros and cons of a potential merger. The initial proposal also included Saugatuck Township. Since that time Saugatuck Township has been eliminated from the proposal and the CGC has contracted Plante and Moran to do a more current study in which they used a zero based budget approach to reach their conclusions of a potential $500K annual savings. The zero based budget approach essentially reduced the size of government in the two cities by half, which is the basis for their projected savings. The problem with this approach is that not one single interview was conducted with any city staff to determine the scope of their job, or the workload that each position can handle. They simply reduced the size of the staff assuming that the workload can be handled with a staff half the size of the current staff that the two cities have to operate. We believe that this would result in a reduction in the level of service that we currently have and in order for us to maintain the level of service we are accustom to having, additional staff would need to be hired, thus reducing the projected cost savings dramatically.
Looking for ways to potentially reduce costs through more collaborative efforts, makes far more sense and would avoid all of the intangible effects that a consolidation would bring. Here is a list of just some of those concerns.
The risk of losing our individual identities is a serious factor.
We will have to change the names of our two cities to one new name for the new city.
Both city's signage like Saugatuck's artist palette entry sign would need to be changed to reflect the new name.
Current streets in both cities with the same name like "Main" & "Water" will need to be changed.
Every single property's parcel number will have to be changed
This according to the Allegan County Equalization Department
Some may need a new zip code as was the case in the cities of Iron River and Stambaugh.
This according to the Post Master in Iron River.
If consolidated you will have to have your driver's license changed to reflect the name of the new city
This according to a technician at the Secretary of State's Main Office
Your voter registration card would need to be changed and it would cost the new city to mail them to you.
Remember we would no longer be "Saugatuck" and "Doulgas". We would be a legally incorporated new city.
The city's name has yet to be determined, but even if it's as simple as "Douglas-Saugatuck", or vice versa the fact is it will be a new name. Signs, city stationary, legal documents, personal addresses and many other factors
will need to be changed to identify that it's indeed a newly created city of it's own.
The list of intangible issues goes on & on. Consolidation entails much more than a potential cost savings, there's a whole other intangible and more personal side effect to consider too.
A radio interview with NPR's WMUK, Gordon Evans asked the chairman of the CGC the following?
Question: Do you have any concern at all about the identity of these two cities?
Answer: "Certainly people often are resistant to change". "When it's all said and done, if you look at the police cars they say Saugatuck-Douglas. If you look at the Historical Society, it's the Saugatuck/Douglas Historical Society. It's already something in people's minds, it's already there."
While we agree that we are one community in spirit who share many similarities and work well together, we are also distinctly different and each city truly has it's own personality. The ability to independently govern our towns plays a major role in helping us maintain our identities and our unique character. What's best for one community is not always what's best for the other, but that's what makes us different from each other. We're more than merely lines on a map, or line items in a budget. We're living, breathing and functioning communities with our own personalities and our individual governments are a big part of that equation. People chose to live in either Saugatuck or Douglas for these very reasons. They made a conscious decision to pick where they wanted to live because of the differences that make us unique. There may very well be a potential cost savings to some degree if consolidated, but is it worth the risk of possibly changing the very essence of who our communities are?
According to the Consolidated Government Committee's (CGC) study if all the monies that they believe could be saved through consolidation were given back to the taxpayer, they would save $250.00 per year and that's IF the monies weren't spent on other items. Is all of this risk and change worth a price tag of $250.00 per year? What if we find out the potential savings is even less... We believe this will be the case and in our opinion, it's simply not worth the risk and intangible side effects of consolidation. Once it's done, there's no turning back, there are no do overs...We'll never get back the time, money and resources that it took to consolidate and it would only take more time and money and effort to try to disincorporate. We will not get a do over, nothing is free.
*To Incorporate or not to Incorporate...
Saugatuck & Douglas are both already incorporated as Home Rule cities. If consolidated they would be incorporated into a newly created Home Rule City. For this to happen the CGC circulated a petition (which at the time included Saugatuck Township too) which needed signatures of only 5% of the effected electorate. The petition then went to the State Boundary Commission for their review and eventual approval. For a referendum to take place so we could vote before having to write a new City Charter, another petition needed to be circulated within 45 days of the State's approval. That petition also needed 5% of the effected electorate to sign the petition in order to even have a referendum vote.
If the consolidation referendum is approved by a simple majority of the voters in both communities, then a new City Charter will be written and the individual cities will then vote again on the Charter. If passed we'll be a newly incorporated city. If it fails the Charter Commission gets to rewrite the Charter and bring it back to the registered voters yet again to seek approval. If it passes, we're a newly incorporated city, if it fails a second time, then consolidation fails.
If the Charter were to pass at either stage and we were a newly incorporated city and then at sometime decided that it was a mistake to consolidate and wanted to DISINCORPORATE, it would take a petition of 25% of the total electorate, NOT 5%. It would then go to the Allegan County Board of Commissioners for their review and approval. Then it would take a 2/3 vote of the people to pass NOT a simple majority.
The 25% signatures needed for a disincorporation is approximately 452 signatures, which is more signatures than the CGC collected for the initial petition to consolidate and they were able to get names from all of the Township residents as well as the residents of both cities. This presents a far more daunting task and costly one too.
Side note: At the current time the paid Campaign Manager/Adviser for the CGC is James Storey, who is an Allegan County Commissioner. The same County Commission that would review and approve or deny a disincorporation if desired.
*Source: Handbook for Municipal Officials - Local Government. Michigan Municipal League
More from the experts...
Municipal Research and Services Center
"The voters seem to know instinctively what the political scientists and economists are telling us about the benefits of smaller and more flexible governments. The record in Washington and around the country shows that they usually side with keeping decentralized, fragmented systems, while rejecting proposals for major consolidations."
Byron Katsuyama Policy Consultant
State and Local Government Review
"As more local governments consider consolidation of government functions, officials are concerned about the expected impact on expenditures."
"The statistical analysis shows that per capita expenditures in consolidated communities are not statistically different from those that considered and rejected consolidation. These results suggest that consolidation is not likely to decrease expenditures in the typical consolidated local government."
Dagney Faulk and George Grassmueck, December 2012
Check out our "Additional Resources" page for even more from the experts
MLive reports
University of Michigan survey: Local governments worry about ability to maintain services in the future.
One might argue that this is another reason why a potential cost savings from consolidation matters.
On the other hand it also points out that any potential cost savings from consolidation are less likely to result in our taxes being lowered, or that those savings would be utilized to help save our harbor, as those potential savings may be needed to continue delivering our basic services at the same level we’re accustom to having, or helping to pay for consolidation. This is a point that we've been stating since this proposal was initiated. Even if there's a potential savings there's no guarantee how much it would be, where those monies would be spent, or if there's enough of a savings to be worth while.
The bigger question is even if there is a potential cost savings, is the amount enough to make consolidation worth doing? Is it feasibly worth doing a full-on consolidation when we can achieve a cost savings by merely doing more collaborative efforts, without going through the enormity and risk of a consolidation? In some areas it may make perfect sense to share a staff person between the two communities, in other instances it may not. Looking to share the few areas that make sense to work together to achieve a savings is totally doable and would not take a consolidation to realize. Our city governments have been and continue to look for these types of collaborative efforts to help save money, without our communities having to risk losing our individuality and distinctive personalities.
We are proud to say that we have no paid staff or advisers, we are truly a made up of volunteers.
We intentionally accepted donations ONLY from individuals NOT corporations
or special interest groups.
97% of our less than $4,000.00 in contributions came from registered voters of Saugatuck, Douglas and our neighbors in Saugatuck Township.
In contrast the CGC has raised over $113,000.00 for their push for consolidation. 92% of their contributions came from committee members or corporate donations.
You can view a compilation of their contributions, as well as both of our recorded filings, by going to our "New & Nuggets" page
We vow to keep the conversation of consolidation about the issues.
We will present what we believe are the facts as well as our opinion of how it could effect our communities.
While we may disagree with some about a particular item regarding the proposal, we will not be disrespectful of their point of view. We will merely state why we believe our position is correct, whether through facts or our opinion.
Comments by State Boundary Commissioner Priebe on the consolidation of our two towns
Commissioner Priebe stated that to him, all involved areas appear to be one community. However, he said he’s a strong believer in representative government and the elected representatives of these communities suggest consolidation doesn’t makes sense for their communities, and the residents of the communities seem to agree. They see it as two separate communities and they like the fact that it’s two separate communities. He doesn’t see any great savings with regard to the consolidation. The two communities are working and sharing better than most. He doesn’t see that consolidation in this case as the best answer. Being the unique place that it is, makes it a tourist mecca. He said the people that they’ve talked to seem to favor separate communities and the elected representatives agree and for that reason he is personally opposed to the idea of consolidation.
Commissioner Priebe indicated that he believes in representative government. That the elected officials are entrusted to make decisions on behalf of their constituents, and that 80% of all expenditures go to providing public services. These have already been consolidated for the most part and there is not much left for improvement. Lansing should not be dictating to communities that already work. These communities are not in financial trouble and they are balancing their books. They “are not broke and do not need to be fixed”.
We're Already Together!
SHARE OUR SIMILARITIES , CELEBRATE OUR DIFFERENCES...
M. Scott Peck
is a grassroots group of citizens who are committed to encouraging and promoting the intergovernmental cooperation between our local governments. We believe that our communities should continue to have individual units of government that work together through the collaborative efforts that have made them a model of intergovernmental cooperation that is unrivaled in the State of Michigan. We already collaborate on almost all of the big ticket items like, Police, Fire, Library, Sewer & Water, Transit Authority & our newly formed Harbor Authority. Our city governments continually look for ways to cooperate to achieve a cost savings where they feel it makes sense. Cooperation rather than consolidation is what we believe will be most beneficial for our communities for generations to come.
What do the experts say?
"Michigan Citizens- Republicans and Democrats - and their state and local government leaders broadly agree that consolidating individual public services across neighboring jurisdictions is worth pursuing, to cut the cost of government."
"They also largely agree that consolidation should stop there, and not be pushed to the extreme in which complete jurisdictions are eliminated."
Tom Ivacko, Center for Local, State and Urban Policy at the University of Michigan, (September 2012)
We don't need to consolidate our governments to achieve a cost savings.
A cost savings can be accomplished by continuing to look for ways that we can work collaboratively. The very reputable and highly respected Citizens Research Council is being commissioned by both cities to conduct a study on the impact of a potential consolidation of our towns. This study could be a very useful tool to help us look at ways that we can potentially combine more services that make sense in order to achieve a cost savings and better plan for our future without having to do a full-on consolidation. Any potential cost savings from a consolidation, we believe would not be worth the enormous effort and cost that it would take to do a full-on consolidation.
The proponents who initiated the proposal to consolidate contracted Plante and Moran PLLC to do a "Business case for consolidation", not an analysis of the pros and cons of a potential merger. The initial proposal also included Saugatuck Township. Since that time Saugatuck Township has been eliminated from the proposal and the CGC has contracted Plante and Moran to do a more current study in which they used a zero based budget approach to reach their conclusions of a potential $500K annual savings. The zero based budget approach essentially reduced the size of government in the two cities by half, which is the basis for their projected savings. The problem with this approach is that not one single interview was conducted with any city staff to determine the scope of their job, or the workload that each position can handle. They simply reduced the size of the staff assuming that the workload can be handled with a staff half the size of the current staff that the two cities have to operate. We believe that this would result in a reduction in the level of service that we currently have and in order for us to maintain the level of service we are accustom to having, additional staff would need to be hired, thus reducing the projected cost savings dramatically.
Looking for ways to potentially reduce costs through more collaborative efforts, makes far more sense and would avoid all of the intangible effects that a consolidation would bring. Here is a list of just some of those concerns.
The risk of losing our individual identities is a serious factor.
We will have to change the names of our two cities to one new name for the new city.
Both city's signage like Saugatuck's artist palette entry sign would need to be changed to reflect the new name.
Current streets in both cities with the same name like "Main" & "Water" will need to be changed.
Every single property's parcel number will have to be changed
This according to the Allegan County Equalization Department
Some may need a new zip code as was the case in the cities of Iron River and Stambaugh.
This according to the Post Master in Iron River.
If consolidated you will have to have your driver's license changed to reflect the name of the new city
This according to a technician at the Secretary of State's Main Office
Your voter registration card would need to be changed and it would cost the new city to mail them to you.
Remember we would no longer be "Saugatuck" and "Doulgas". We would be a legally incorporated new city.
The city's name has yet to be determined, but even if it's as simple as "Douglas-Saugatuck", or vice versa the fact is it will be a new name. Signs, city stationary, legal documents, personal addresses and many other factors
will need to be changed to identify that it's indeed a newly created city of it's own.
The list of intangible issues goes on & on. Consolidation entails much more than a potential cost savings, there's a whole other intangible and more personal side effect to consider too.
A radio interview with NPR's WMUK, Gordon Evans asked the chairman of the CGC the following?
Question: Do you have any concern at all about the identity of these two cities?
Answer: "Certainly people often are resistant to change". "When it's all said and done, if you look at the police cars they say Saugatuck-Douglas. If you look at the Historical Society, it's the Saugatuck/Douglas Historical Society. It's already something in people's minds, it's already there."
While we agree that we are one community in spirit who share many similarities and work well together, we are also distinctly different and each city truly has it's own personality. The ability to independently govern our towns plays a major role in helping us maintain our identities and our unique character. What's best for one community is not always what's best for the other, but that's what makes us different from each other. We're more than merely lines on a map, or line items in a budget. We're living, breathing and functioning communities with our own personalities and our individual governments are a big part of that equation. People chose to live in either Saugatuck or Douglas for these very reasons. They made a conscious decision to pick where they wanted to live because of the differences that make us unique. There may very well be a potential cost savings to some degree if consolidated, but is it worth the risk of possibly changing the very essence of who our communities are?
According to the Consolidated Government Committee's (CGC) study if all the monies that they believe could be saved through consolidation were given back to the taxpayer, they would save $250.00 per year and that's IF the monies weren't spent on other items. Is all of this risk and change worth a price tag of $250.00 per year? What if we find out the potential savings is even less... We believe this will be the case and in our opinion, it's simply not worth the risk and intangible side effects of consolidation. Once it's done, there's no turning back, there are no do overs...We'll never get back the time, money and resources that it took to consolidate and it would only take more time and money and effort to try to disincorporate. We will not get a do over, nothing is free.
*To Incorporate or not to Incorporate...
Saugatuck & Douglas are both already incorporated as Home Rule cities. If consolidated they would be incorporated into a newly created Home Rule City. For this to happen the CGC circulated a petition (which at the time included Saugatuck Township too) which needed signatures of only 5% of the effected electorate. The petition then went to the State Boundary Commission for their review and eventual approval. For a referendum to take place so we could vote before having to write a new City Charter, another petition needed to be circulated within 45 days of the State's approval. That petition also needed 5% of the effected electorate to sign the petition in order to even have a referendum vote.
If the consolidation referendum is approved by a simple majority of the voters in both communities, then a new City Charter will be written and the individual cities will then vote again on the Charter. If passed we'll be a newly incorporated city. If it fails the Charter Commission gets to rewrite the Charter and bring it back to the registered voters yet again to seek approval. If it passes, we're a newly incorporated city, if it fails a second time, then consolidation fails.
If the Charter were to pass at either stage and we were a newly incorporated city and then at sometime decided that it was a mistake to consolidate and wanted to DISINCORPORATE, it would take a petition of 25% of the total electorate, NOT 5%. It would then go to the Allegan County Board of Commissioners for their review and approval. Then it would take a 2/3 vote of the people to pass NOT a simple majority.
The 25% signatures needed for a disincorporation is approximately 452 signatures, which is more signatures than the CGC collected for the initial petition to consolidate and they were able to get names from all of the Township residents as well as the residents of both cities. This presents a far more daunting task and costly one too.
Side note: At the current time the paid Campaign Manager/Adviser for the CGC is James Storey, who is an Allegan County Commissioner. The same County Commission that would review and approve or deny a disincorporation if desired.
*Source: Handbook for Municipal Officials - Local Government. Michigan Municipal League
More from the experts...
Municipal Research and Services Center
"The voters seem to know instinctively what the political scientists and economists are telling us about the benefits of smaller and more flexible governments. The record in Washington and around the country shows that they usually side with keeping decentralized, fragmented systems, while rejecting proposals for major consolidations."
Byron Katsuyama Policy Consultant
State and Local Government Review
"As more local governments consider consolidation of government functions, officials are concerned about the expected impact on expenditures."
"The statistical analysis shows that per capita expenditures in consolidated communities are not statistically different from those that considered and rejected consolidation. These results suggest that consolidation is not likely to decrease expenditures in the typical consolidated local government."
Dagney Faulk and George Grassmueck, December 2012
Check out our "Additional Resources" page for even more from the experts
MLive reports
University of Michigan survey: Local governments worry about ability to maintain services in the future.
One might argue that this is another reason why a potential cost savings from consolidation matters.
On the other hand it also points out that any potential cost savings from consolidation are less likely to result in our taxes being lowered, or that those savings would be utilized to help save our harbor, as those potential savings may be needed to continue delivering our basic services at the same level we’re accustom to having, or helping to pay for consolidation. This is a point that we've been stating since this proposal was initiated. Even if there's a potential savings there's no guarantee how much it would be, where those monies would be spent, or if there's enough of a savings to be worth while.
The bigger question is even if there is a potential cost savings, is the amount enough to make consolidation worth doing? Is it feasibly worth doing a full-on consolidation when we can achieve a cost savings by merely doing more collaborative efforts, without going through the enormity and risk of a consolidation? In some areas it may make perfect sense to share a staff person between the two communities, in other instances it may not. Looking to share the few areas that make sense to work together to achieve a savings is totally doable and would not take a consolidation to realize. Our city governments have been and continue to look for these types of collaborative efforts to help save money, without our communities having to risk losing our individuality and distinctive personalities.
We are proud to say that we have no paid staff or advisers, we are truly a made up of volunteers.
We intentionally accepted donations ONLY from individuals NOT corporations
or special interest groups.
97% of our less than $4,000.00 in contributions came from registered voters of Saugatuck, Douglas and our neighbors in Saugatuck Township.
In contrast the CGC has raised over $113,000.00 for their push for consolidation. 92% of their contributions came from committee members or corporate donations.
You can view a compilation of their contributions, as well as both of our recorded filings, by going to our "New & Nuggets" page
We vow to keep the conversation of consolidation about the issues.
We will present what we believe are the facts as well as our opinion of how it could effect our communities.
While we may disagree with some about a particular item regarding the proposal, we will not be disrespectful of their point of view. We will merely state why we believe our position is correct, whether through facts or our opinion.
Comments by State Boundary Commissioner Priebe on the consolidation of our two towns
Commissioner Priebe stated that to him, all involved areas appear to be one community. However, he said he’s a strong believer in representative government and the elected representatives of these communities suggest consolidation doesn’t makes sense for their communities, and the residents of the communities seem to agree. They see it as two separate communities and they like the fact that it’s two separate communities. He doesn’t see any great savings with regard to the consolidation. The two communities are working and sharing better than most. He doesn’t see that consolidation in this case as the best answer. Being the unique place that it is, makes it a tourist mecca. He said the people that they’ve talked to seem to favor separate communities and the elected representatives agree and for that reason he is personally opposed to the idea of consolidation.
Commissioner Priebe indicated that he believes in representative government. That the elected officials are entrusted to make decisions on behalf of their constituents, and that 80% of all expenditures go to providing public services. These have already been consolidated for the most part and there is not much left for improvement. Lansing should not be dictating to communities that already work. These communities are not in financial trouble and they are balancing their books. They “are not broke and do not need to be fixed”.
We're Already Together!
SHARE OUR SIMILARITIES , CELEBRATE OUR DIFFERENCES...
M. Scott Peck
