BUCHANAN CITY MANAGER RECEIVES MID-YEAR REVIEW FROM COMMISSIONERS

By DEBRA HAIGHT
BCR Correspondent
BUCHANAN, MI – Last week’s Buchanan City Commission meeting featured a public hearing, reports, and action on a number of items. Commissioners also conducted a mid-year evaluation of City Manager Tony McGhee.
Mayor Mark Weedon reported on the evaluation results after a 20-minute closed session during the meeting. He said that commissioners gave McGhee an average score of 32.4 out of a possible 35. McGhee began work as the city manager in mid-January.
“For Tony to have scores he did is indicative of the dedication and effort he has put in to this job,” Weedon said, “We cannot thank you enough for what you have brought to the city and to this team.”
McGhee was evaluated in seven different categories with commissioners able to give him up to five points in each category.
The categories were communication and implementation of city policy, organizational management and staff development, fiscal management, policy and procedure development, community engagement, management of major projects and infrastructure, and leadership, judgment and problem solving.
Also last week, commissioners took the first step toward adopting a new short term rental ordinance after holding a public hearing at the start of the meeting. A second public hearing and possible ordinance adoption will be held at the commission’s Sept. 22 meeting.
The proposed ordinance was developed after putting a moratorium in place in March and looking at what other communities have done as well as what state law allows. In Buchanan, short term rentals will be allowed mainly in the downtown corridor and will not be allowed in single family residential districts.
McGhee said earlier that the 15 existing short term rental properties in the city will be grandfathered in and that another 15 short term rentals will be allowed in non single family residential neighborhoods.
Two people spoke out during the public hearing, taking issue with both the moratorium and how short term rentals have been characterized as detrimental to schools and the community.
Bud Holmes said the moratorium was imposed just as he was trying to sell a property that would have been used as a short term rental. “How can you restrict short term rentals arbitrarily?” he asked. “We had put a house on the market and had interest until people found out about the moratorium.”
Holmes called it a faulty assumption that each short term rental costs the school district $10,000. He noted that not all home owners have children and not all send their kids to the local schools. He pointed out that short term rentals actually benefit the city as owners have to pay non-homestead taxes and they bring visitors in who support local businesses.
Downtown business owner Rick Paniagua said the new ordinance will cut off a source of income for property owners and could actually result in more homes being vacant and falling into blight. He asked the commission to take more thoughtful look at the issue. Paniagua is also the chairman of the newly reformed Downtown Development Authority.
Commissioner Dan Vigansky said that the planning commission had discussed the issue at length before recommending the ordinance to the city commission. He said that while he doesn’t like government regulations, he believes the city needs to be pro-active and have something in place before short term rentals become more of a problem.
In other news, commissioners approved hiring Fleis & Vandenbrink for $17,500 to consult with the city about revitalizing the city’s existing three Brownfield Redevelopment Districts. The city has two brownfield districts connected with the old Clark Equipment properties and one with the former Electro-Voice property.
McGhee said the three brownfield authorities were formed in the early 2000s and have been inactive for several years. He noted that recent changes in state law allows municipalities to use the tax increment financing tool associated with brownfields for other development projects besides environmental clean-up.
With the downtown infrastructure project, McGhee said the work is progressing on schedule. He said he expects the city to save money in the long run just from having the pipes not leaking and putting more stormwater into the system. He said the wastewater treatment plant will now have more capacity to handle more development.
He told commissioners that he will be bringing a new sidewalk repair program to them later this fall. He said the city has set aside $60,000 this year to replace sidewalks with the city sharing the costs 50-50 with homeowners. He said the work will be done this fall and next spring.
McGhee commented after the meeting on two downtown issues that have come up recently. He said that snow fencing has been put up on Front Street to separate pedestrians from the work area as deeper trenches are dug and that a second ADA crossing will be put in to help people get across Front Street.
As for reports that silt from the downtown project had gotten into McCoy’s Creek, he said that a Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy inspection last week found that two of the tubes pumping stormwater did not have the required “silt sacks” to keep silt from getting into the creek. He said that situation has been fixed.