In this, the 150th year since the incorporation of the city, Port Huron finds itself in a difficult but far from hopeless position. The list of our difficulties is familiar to all of us.
Our local economy is relatively stagnant with unemployment uncomfortably high, a fact underscored by the fact that municipal income tax revenues have declined 10% since 1999.
Residents continue to migrate away from the city and the population is falling, now estimated to be below 32,000 people.
The retail sector has been almost entirely wiped out by a similar migration of merchants.
In too many areas of the city property values are in a state of arrest or even decline.
We find ourselves paying for a major infrastructure upgrade, the sewer separation, that, due to our own procrastination, has saddled the city with a gigantic debt, and will lead eventually to a doubling of water and sewer rates.
The city is under assault from a state agency, the Michigan Department of Transporation, that has more or less written the community off as simply a stumbling block to its own misguided and malevolent plans for a 50 acre truck "plaza", a nine-lane bridge and highway expansion, and a limitless increase to the already intolerable levels of traffic being jammed through our town.
There is, in short, enough work before us to keep us busy for the next 150 years. We can't help but wonder what the people of 2157 will say about this generation. That we failed this test? Or that this was Port Huron's finest hour?
Port Huron continues to husband enought potential to overcome all these problems and become what it has every right to be -- one of the garden spots not just of Michigan and the Midwest, but of America.
The solutions to these difficulties must be strutural, not piecemeal. They will require a complete re-orientation of our community, and in some cases our lifestyles. Port Huron has an interesting past, and it is against the background of that past that we can see more clearly where we made our mistakes, where we made the right decisions, and how to go about rectifying our present position. Let's take these issues alphabetically.
AMALGAMATION
Port Huron began life as a collection of four villages spread along the St. Clair and Black Rivers. Over time, these four were pulled together into the single community. The last piece of today's city was obtained in 1893 when the village of Fort Gratiot was annexed. Since then, no further expansion has taken place. Until now.
The growth of the townships to the north and west of Port Huron is being driven largely by the availabilty of our municipal water and sewer services as well as by automobile-induced sprawl and supportive public safety agreements. In 1940, the director of Port Huron's public works department, Malcolm Patrick, warned his fellow city commissioners that furnishing utility services outside the municipal city limits would simply encourage people and industry to build outside of town to avoid city taxes. No more accurate prediction could have been made, but unfortunately his warning was ignored. Instead of systematically annexing areas that wished to obtain utilities, Port Huron simply ran the lines, under the smug assumption that we would be money ahead by charging higher fees to our township neighbors. As the city became more thoroughly built up and as America's car addiction worsened the tide began to turn.
As everyone knows, during the last thirty years much of Port Huron's retail district has been torn up by the roots and moved outside of the city onto Pine Grove and 24th Avenues, which, through the lack of proper planning, regulation and simple foresight, have been transformed into the ugliest, most chaotic, traffic-choked stretch of territory in the entire county, a wasteland of parking lots surrounding ill-assorted islands of stores. A similar indictment could be drawn up against 24th Street and Lapeer Road. The story of this retail exodus is told most vividly in the tax rolls. Today, Port Huron with a population of 32 thousand people has a taxable value on its property of $820 million; Fort Gratiot Township with a third of the population, has a taxable value of almost $444 million. Port Huron Township is not quite as bad yet, with a taxable value of $290 million and a population of 11,600.
Similarly, residential construction has tilted almost entirely the townships way, luring away many of Port Huron's middle and upper income families. In part this is due to a lack of space in Port Huron for new home construction, in part due to America's mania for oversized houses and compulsion to drive everywhere. In any case, Port Huron as a city is currently expected to furnish the means for growth outside our boundaries without enjoying the full tax revnues, or the oversight of that development. The upshot of all this is we have three local governments operating on the same lifelines, but without any common purpose or direction or tax structure. It's a situation that can't be permitted to continue.
The time has come to face the inevitable, and to forestall any further sprawl from tearing the region apart. Port Huron's city council should immediately announce its intention to ultimately annex both Fort Gratiot and Port Huron townships in their entirety. The city should also announce its intention to withdraw water and sewer service from all areas outside Port Huron's city limits, and should go to court if necessary to break the current contracts, which were drawn up in an invidious and entirely one-sided fashion amounting almost to civic slavery. If those parts of Kimball and Clyde Townships currently receiving Port Huron utility service wish to petition for annexation, well and good. The city should also terminate any police or fire support agreements with the townships. Here again, by continuing these agreemenets we are just subsidizing Port Huron's own destruction; encouraging township residents to think that they can get city services outside a municipal environment.
The New Port Huron will be territorially about the size of Flint, with a population of roughly 55,000 people, and with a State Equalized Value on taxable property of approximately $1.8 billion, almost equal to Flint. The advantages are too numerous to detail here, but among them is the fact that the New Port Huron will instantly become a more influential community with other levels of government, and less susceptible to manipulation by federal or state officials.
BRIDGE PLAZA
Port Huronites today breathe some of the dirtiest air in Southeastern Michigan, which is to say some of the worst in America. It's so bad that the state Department of Environmental Quality doesn't want to know about it and refuses to install an air quality monitor at the intersection of Pine Grove Avenue and the present Blue Water Bridge plaza, which is ground zero of our pollution problem. The American Lung Association estimates that a typical diesel truck emits more than 200 times as much air pollution as a single car, and the car is bad enough. On the bridge alone 4000-6000 trucks are crossing our city daily, along with an equal number of cars. A similar automotive tide pours through the city from north to south day and night. We endure a continuous roar of traffic that can be heard much of the day in many of our neighborhoods. This cloud of airborne filth and racket comes to us courtesy of the state trunkline and interstate highway systems, and our involvement with them goes back to the year 1913. That was when the Michigan Highway Commission took over the rule of Military/Huron/Pine Grove and Lapeer Avenues. At the time it was hailed as the march of progress. It's a march that is threatening to trample Port Huron out of existence entirely.
Some Port Huron residents were already complaining about the danger and noise and pollution of Port Huron's traffic problem when the Blue Water Bridge plan was revived in 1935. The idea of a bridge had first been floated during the 1920's but there was no financial backing for it. It was proposed again during the Depression as a public works project of the New Deal. The grim irony about the Blue Water Bridge is that it was never necessary at all. The ferry system was capable of handling more auto traffic than crosses the border today, and freight was moving across the border far more efficiently by the railroads and shipping companies than it is today by trucks. In those days Port Huron was known as the Tunnel City because of the railroad tunnel under the river, and the Blue Water Bridge itself almost was built as a tunnel. However a bridge was selected beacuse it would be built faster, employ more men, and would be a visible monument to the WPA. The resulting structure was ugly, noisy, and resulted in the elimnation of tens of acres of homes and businesses. Before it was even finished the neighbors were complaining that it was driving down property values.
The bridge nuisance was compounded dramatically when I-69 was opened and long-haul truck traffic skyrocketed during the 1990's. Although it was cloaked in more public relations claptrap about "reducing congestion", the second bridge span was constructed during the 90's solely to accomodate the trucking industry, which virtually took over the bridge in the process. Long haul trucking is so wasteful of fuel and manpower that it must have massive public subsidies like the Blue Water Bridge in order to remain cost competitive with railroads and ships. More homes and buinsesses vanished and the noise and exhaust and vibration became almost intolerable for families living nearby. Today, the Michigan Deparmtment of Transporation is back again asking to demolish another 50 acres of the city and establlish in our midst what has been accurately described by Councilman James Fisher as a concentration camp for trucks. In addition, a nine-lane bridge is supposed to be built across the Black River and a significant chunk of Port Huron Township wiped out to make way for more highway, or "corridor" as the MDOT chooses to misname it, all at the cost of half a billion dollars.
It's important to realize that the MDOT is essentially today what it was organized to be in 1905 - a lobby within the state government to represent the automobile, trucking, and roadbuilding industries. The MDOT has one mission: the continuous limitless increase of automobile and truck traffic into every corner of the state regardless of the consequences. Let somebody else handle the consequences, is how they look at it. Fortunately events appear to be working against this deluded agency and in the favor of Port Huron. The rapid and inevitable increase in fuel prices, the growing concern about greenhouse gas emissions and possible global warning, the tightened security along the U.S. border all point to diminishing, not increasing, single motor vehicle traffic with Canada. Furthermore, conscientous investigation by State Representatives Espinoza and Pavlov and the Port Huron Times Herald indicate that any congestion on the bridge today is the result of understaffing of the customs agencies.
(1) It is absolutely imperative that Port Huron's City Council take a stand in total opposition to both the expanded Bridge Plaza and Corridor projects. A communication should be addressed to the governor to the effect, that under no circumstances will the city accede to this, and we will terminate any support arrangement we have with the Bridge Authority unless all work on this development is stopped and all properties acquired by the state for it are re-sold back to the public. Again, we must be prepared to go into court over the matter if necessary. (2) The city should also demand that the MDOT establish a numerical limit on the number of vehicles permitted to cross the bridge during any 24-hour period, and close the bridge for the balance of the day when the limit is reached. We should also insist that the state erect sight and sound barriers along I-94 and the bridge from the Black River eastward to the Canadian border, to spare persons living in the vicinity from the atrocious noise levels. The city should also demand that the bridge be re-opened to pedestrians and bicyclists. This was part of the bridge's original charter. The city should also explore competing with the bridge through the re-establishment of pedestrian ferry service and the re-opening of the original railroad tunnel for inter-city mass transit. (3) The city should begin agitating at both the state and federal levels that the bridge be eventually replaced with a tunnel. It was the right idea 70 years ago, and though it will be a long-term battle to wage, it's the only long-term solution.
What about the traffic and pollution problems in Port Huron resulting from non-bridge north-south traffic? We'll address that issue further on.
BUILDING AND ZONING CODES
Although most of Port Huron remains very presentable today (we are, after all, still a relatively young community), too many of our neighborhoods are showing serious signs of dilapidation. Like most American cities, virtually all of our housing stock is made up of wood-frame buildings. It's the reason American homes don't look as well and don't last as long as houses in many areas of Europe, for instance. In addition, wood-frame housing poses a serious fire hazard, especially when combined with our modern heating methods and electricity in all its various uses. It will cost Port Huron $5.5 million dollars this fiscal year to maintain a fire department. Homes built of stone or masonry material look better, last longer, and obviously are fireproof, so they're cheaper in the long run. No less a person than Thomas Edison designed plans for all-concrete homes for these very reasons. Again, Edison was well ahead of his time.
Port Huron should modify its present building code so that all new structures erected within the city after January 1, 2008 will have a foundation, frame, interior and exterior walls, floors, ceilings, roofs and trusses made entirely of fireproof materials. It will take a long time of attrition to replace all of our present rickety buildings so the sooner we get started the better.
Traditionally, Port Huron has had a large population of renters, usually 40% or more of the population. I'm one myself. For much of our history, renters were accomdated in single family homes, duplexes or apartment houses specifically designed for that purpose. In the 1920's the practice began of carving up some of the larger single family homes into apartments. This destructive practice has had a degrading effect on neighborhoods all over town, and has encouraged slumlords to milk properties for all they can get, then abandon them. All cities need multiple-unit rental housing, but it should be designed and built for that purpose from the ground up, not jerry-built out of existing homes.
Port Huron's zoning code should be amended to ban the conversion of single-family homes into multiple-unit structures anywhere in the city. We should also commence a program offering a 5 year property tax examption for persons converting multiple-unit dwellings into single family homes.
Port Huron's first zoning ordinance was passed in 1943. It had only been in force two years before the Times Herald was denouncing it as "Hitlerism." That's a little strong but the law is too restrictive in some respects. There should be some adjustment to allow for more mixed residential and commerical use, to encourage neighborhood stores and dual-use buildings, such as those allowed only in the downtown area today.
The city should also ban the installation or replacement of seawalls. These devices are a waste of money and manpower, and are symptomatic of the idea that if you fight Nature long and hard enough eventually you'll win. Port Huron has been especially blessed by Nature and should be working with these forces not against them. Natural embankments are cheaper and more beautiful, and as seawalls on the rivers fail they should be removed. Where docks are needed concrete piers can be built out into the watercourse.
CASINO
Port Huron residents once before turned down at the polls the idea of a gambling casino in the community. Now, however, we have the spectacle of this development right before our eyes in Point Edward. If a reputable, publicly-owned gaming company wishes to make another concrete proposal through one of the Indian tribes and the federal and state legal hurdles can be cleared, the issue should be put to another vote. Gambling is for suckers, but if they insist on throwing their money away, I have no objections to putting it to use in the community.
CHARTER REVISION
Port Huron's city charter was last revised in 1969. The 38-year period since that time is the longest the city has ever gone without revising its basic constitution. A new revision is needed immediately, for the simple purpose of restoring democracy to the city. Much of the apathy and disinterest that surrounds civic affairs in Port Huron stems from the fact that the average citizen realizes he or she has virtually no say in how municipal affairs are handled. This was not always the case. The early history of the community was marked by vigorous local government and political activity. City council elections were hotly contested and the winners were held to account by their constituents. In fact Port Huron's democracy was so pronounced that the "city fathers" decided to get rid of it.
The first step in ridding the town of representative government was in switching to at-large council elections. Prior to 1911 Port Huron elected two councilpersons from each of eleven wards, 22 in all. The elections were partisan and the city council ran the community through various appointed department heads who served at the council's pleasure. Switching to a non-partisan city commision of five at-large members effectively disenfranchised the poorer neighborhoods of Port Huron, neighborhoods which sometimes went entire generations without having anybody in the government to look after their interests. This is still true today. We don't elect the Congress on an at-large basis, we don't elect the Michigan Legislature on an at-large basis, we don't elect the St. Clair County Commisioners on an at-large basis, and we shouldn't elect the Port Huron City Council on an at-large basis. A city council person should be elected from each of the ten precincts in the city, so that each neighborhood will have somebody at the head of the government who knows his-or-her neighborhood's problems initmately and can act in its behalf.
The second step down the road to our present system of misgovernment was switching to the City Manager format in 1941. It is no accident that the city manager movement in America grew up during the age of the dictators, when many well-meaning but misguided people actually admired the "efficiency" of men like Lenin and Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler and Franco. This admiration was ususally cloaked in the expression that "what government needs is a business administration" or "take politics out of government." The day before Port Huron's election on the city manager question, the Labor and Trades Council ran an ad in the Times Herald, warning that a city manager government amounted to one-man rule. No truer assessment has ever been made about the fate of our local government, but the manager system was adopted anyway, by a total of 200 votes our of 7,000 cast.
Today, Port Huron's City Council is essentially a powerless body of men and women who meet twice a month to debate whatever trivialities the manager places before them, and in most cases to rubber-stamp his deicisions. The manager is the sole conduit for the city council in dealing with the city's 350-person bureacracy. It is literally a crime in Port Huron for a city council member to give an order to any muncipal employee. Only the city manager can be given direction and only by the council acting as a body. The council has a single alternative if it doesn't like the way things are going: fire the manager, and start the whole circus over again by hiring another. The fate of Port Huron lies in the hands of a single bureaucrat, whose sympathies cannot help but lie with other bureaucrats at all levels of government, and whom it is far easier for special interests to manipulate than to influence an entire city council. The manager is not elected, not directly answerable to the people for his decisons, and even if he were, no one person is sufficiently energetic, knowledgeable, or far-sighted to guide the destiny of this city by himself. The last 66 years have been abundant proof of that.
Port Huron's city charter should be revised to eliminate both at-large council elections and the city manager's position. A single councilperson should be elected directly from each of the city's ten precincts on a partisan basis for a four-year term. A mayor selected by councilmembers from among themselves and serving at their pleasure should be the city's chief executive and administrative officer. Department heads should likewise be selected by the council, serve at their pleasure, and should report to the entire council at a public meeting at least once a month.
The newly empowered city council should also abolish the major appointed commissions, like the Planning Commission, the Zoning Board of Appeals, the McMorran board of trustees, etc., etc. The issues now handled by these committees are properly the province of the council, and are too important to be vetted by appointees. Such commissions are all too often vehicles for special interests.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Port Huron was originally a lumbering town, feeding on the timber that covered the Thumb region in the 19th century. But the last sawmill here closed in 1900, and ever since then our town has been floundering around looking for another economic identity. For generations, the largest employer in town was the Grand Trunk Railroad, which was only supplanted as the biggest by Mueller Brass in the 1940's. But those two industries have largely faded from the scene today, as have a long list of other manufacturers, Collins and Aikman being the latest casualty. Only a handful of stalwart companies have been here more than half the town's history: the Tmes Herald goes back to 1872, Domtar Paper, Acheson, Dunn Paper, Stephenson Electric, Troy Laundry, Woman's Life Insurance, Cawood Auto, Moshers, etc. For much of the last ninety years Port Huron has been grubbing around after jobs connected with automobile manufacturing. With the exception of Autolite, which operated in the city for fifty years but does no longer, this has been largely a wasted effort.
What we have failed to do is develop an industry that is inextricably bound to our locality, something that is unmistakably and irreplaceably Port Huron. But we had plenty of hints. As far back 1910 a group of local businessmen commissioned a survey to determine which were the largest businesses in town. The Grand Trunk RR, to no one's suprise, was determined to be the biggest. But the community was startled to learn that tourism was Port Huron's second largest industry. Every year thousands of people from across Eastern Michigan and northern Ohio, whole trainloads or shiploads at a time, came to Port Huron for a few hours, days or weeks to enjoy what was then one of the most beautiful spots in America. When future president Harry Truman and his wife honeymooned here in 1919 they were so transported by our community that for the rest of their lives their code words for unusual happiness were "Port Huron."
Unfortunately, our city could never bring itself to believe that its true destiny was as a tourism center. The very year the Trumans stayed at the Harrington, 1919, the city council passed up the chance to buy for the municipal park system the entire Lake Huron shoreline from the lighthouse to the Black River canal. The price was $120,000 (about $1.8 million today). It was probably the single biggest muncipal catastrophe in Port Huron's history, because it was the temporary forfeit of a priceless chunk of the city's single biggest economic asset, its water frontage. If you include both banks of the Black River, (and why shouldn't we?), Port Huron has 15 miles of what used to be some of the most beautiful water frontage around. After amalgamation that total will swell to almost 25 miles. That water frontage is Port Huron's fortune and its future.
Although we should always be a supportive home to manufacturing and service industries (and, we hope, shipping), Port Huron should direct its active economic development and promotional efforts toward tourism. It will at last give us a purpose, a direction and an identity which have been missing for over a century. The city should begin immediately a vigorous progam of voluntary acquisition of waterfront property. The goal should be to evenutally incorporate ALL of the waterfont (except for a small reserve for industrial, docking and leasing purposes) into the Port Huron city park system. A city with 25 miles of waterfront park will be an unstoppable economic powerhouse, not just in terms of tourism, but in attracting other businesses as well. We should also take a page from the success story of Michigan's #1 vacation sport, Mackinac Island, and transform Port Huron into an automobile-free (execepting I-94 and the Bridge) waterfront resort and retirement community.
That's quite an agenda, I realize. So let's tackle a couple of questions that naturally arise from such a proposal.
Q. How are we going to afford to acquire all that waterfront? Won't removing private homes and businesses from that frontage decrease property tax revenues disastrously?
A. Port Huron already has a land acquisition fund; it's currently being raided to help pay for the sewer separation. That practice must stop, and the city must commit at least 10% of its annual revenue for waterfront acquisition purposes. In addition we'll have to seek wherever and however we can get them grants from public and private sources. We can also hope that civic minded waterfront owners will donate their land to the city for the appropriate tax advantages, as well as civic recognition. I'll emphasize here that the acquisition program will be VOLUNTARY. Nobody is going to be forced from their homes or thrown off their property. But when a piece of waterfront land is voluntarily placed on the market, and the money is there, Port Huron will exercise its powers of eminent domain and acquire it. The waterfront would be demarcated by the nearest public sidewalk or street to the water. It will take a long time, several decades, so we should get started at once.
No, this plan will not decrease property tax revenues, it will increase them, because every piece of waterfront added to the park system increases the value of every other parcel of property in the city, because every other parcel now has access to that frontage. Private waterfront homes are great for the people who live in them, but for the city as a whole they are a very bad bargain. Again, the waterfront is Port Huron's greatest economic asset, and that asset has to be put to work for the entire community, not just a fortunate few. Moreover it will not necessarily require the removal of all homes now fronting the water. For instance on Conger Beach there is a public sidewalk running along the beach. Only the land on the eastern side of the walk would be incorporated as parkland. The homes could remain as parkfront, rather than waterfront homes.
On this same topic, the present plan to sell the Water Street Marina to Acheson Ventures should be modified from an outright sale to a long-term lease.
Q. Why go automobile free? How will we move goods and people around the city? How will visitors get here? How will residents get to out-of-town jobs?
A. An automobile free Port Huron is going to be one of the most unique and attractive cities in America, as well as healthier, quieter, cleaner, more orderly, much more valuable and much, much cheaper to run. Just in the police department alone, the force spends an estimated one-third of its time and resources on traffic control, and that's a conservative estimate. A huge percentage of crime is facilitated by automobiles, and anywhere from 1000 to 1500 people are injured in Port Huron car accidents every year. There will be similar savings in street upkeep. Street paving this year is gong to swallow an astounding $22 million in local, state and federal monies; $1.2 million dollars of direct city taxes. Much of that 22 million is related to the sewer separation project, but experience demonstrates that there is always some large-scale street or bridge "project" underway in Port Huron, requiring millions of dollars. To cite another example of auto costs, Port Huron is spending $3 million next fiscal year on its massive fleet of 166 municipal motor vehicles alone. Going car-free will also position us in direct competition with Northern Michigan as a vacation spot. Port Huron is closer, better facilitated, and more convenient to millions of potential visitors in southern Lower Michigan, Ohio and Ontario, as the past has demonstated. It will also free up for development a huge amount of property now buried under asphalt for parking lots. From my own survey, I estimate at least 150 acres.
Visitors will get here the same way they've always gotten here. They simply won't be able to bring their cars into the city. Trains and boats will be free to enter the community, and facilities for bus and truck transfer will be made at major entry points.
As far as intra-city movement goes, trains and ships will still have direct access to the city, the city will be much more pedestrian and bicycle friendly, and we can license some working drays, but in the main there will be a two-part light rail system, one for passengers and another for package freight. Port Huron's private streetcar system was an enormous transportation sucess for most of 65 years. The last year of operation, 1929-30, the streetcars carried 1.2 million passengers, and in some prevous years that figure hit 2 million. The failure of the system arose for three reasons: (1) unrestricted and government-subsidized automobile competition, (2) the franchise of 30 years was too short and (3) the company had no authority to raise fares. A fare increase required a city election and voters weren't anxious to increase the fees.
Port Huron should offer private industry a 99-year franchise (this will require a charter revision) to construct and operate as a monopoly a light rail system for passenger and package freight transport in an automobile-free environment, with the authority to raise prices in conformity with the federal government's Consumer Price Index. The city would also require access to the lines for municipal purposes such as garbage collection. Should no proposal be forthcoming, the city can operate its own system temporarily by using buses and trucks on a strict lane control grid until we can afford rail.
Another essential element of the New Port Huron is going to be a county-wide transit system, something only the Saint Clair County commisioners can bring into being. The city council must begin lobbying the county government to establish transportation between cities within the county as well as a linkup with the SMART system in metro Detroit; something that should have been done years ago but which has fallen prey to numbskull projects like the new jail and the annex building. It is a disgrace that no such system exists, and it stamps the county as the most transportationally backward in Southeast Michigan.
FIRE AND POLICE SERVICE
As previously mentioned, Port Huron's bill for fire protection will come to more than $5.5 million in the 07-08 fiscal year. A far better system is already in use by the city of Troy, Michigan. Troy covers an area of 34 square miles (about the size of the New Port Huron) and has 86,000 residents. Yet Troy's budget for fire protection is $4.1 million. Port Huron taxpayers are paying $166 per person per year for fire service, Troy $51. The reason is that the Troy Fire Department is a volunteer department. There are only 14 full-time and 2 part-time officers, plus 180 volunteers. Even with the volunteer system, Troy's fire insurance rating is among the best in the state of Michigan.
Port Huron should take action immediately to adopt the volunteer fire department system currently in use by the community of Troy.
The New Port Huron is going to cover a lot more territory, and there will obviously be more responsiblity for our Police Department. Some of that responsibility can be taken up by a police auxiliary. Again, we have a nearby model to look to. The Royal Oak, Michigan police auxiliary numbers 21 volunteer officers, who average about 100 hours of duty per year. That's six extra hours of police patrol per day at very little cost to the community.
Port Huron should direct the Police Chief to immediately organize a police auxiliary and provide for its training and employment. The larger the better.
At one time in the 20's, the Port Huron police department established a sub-station in the north end of the city. It was a good idea which didn't last. After amalgamation, substations should be established at the present Fort Gratiot and Port Huron township halls, as well as on the south side of the city.
Port Huron's police department was the first in the county to start using radio, back in 1933. However, this is no time to stand on precedent. The city should merge its police and fire dispatching with Saint Clair County's as a cost-saving measure.
INCOME AND PROPERTY TAXES
Income taxes are a bad idea at any level of government, but at the local level they are practically an absurdity. Despite a period of continuous national prosperity, Port Huron income tax revnues fell 14% between 1999 and 2006 while property taxes revenue advanced steadily. In order to apply a local income tax we are forced to maintain a redundant Income Tax Division at city hall, whose efforts and costs (over $300,000 per year) parallel those of the assessor's office but are not nearly as effective in producing a stable source of revenue. The reasons are simple: it's far easier to hide income that to hide a building, and even in a recession or depression, the value of property holds up better than income. Then there's the question of enforcement. Have you ever heard of anyone being sent to prison for evading Port Huron's income tax? As things stand now, the income tax is simply another disincentive for people to live and work in the city.
Here are some comparative figures, taxable property value versus income tax collections:
Taxable Income
Property Tax Value 1998-2006
$535 mil $5.9 mil
$559 mil $7.2 mil
$578 mil $7.0 mil
$615 mil $6.4 mil
$645 mil $6.2 mil
$664 mil $5.5 mil
$684 mil $5.5 mil
$731 mil $5.9 mil
$755 mil $6.1 mil
Port Huron's muncipal income tax should be abolished. Replacing it will require an initial increase in the property tax rate of 8.5 mills, according to city figures. This will be offset to some extent by abolishing the 2 mill street tax.
Port Huron must also take steps to rein in the acquisition of real property by non-profit organizations. An ordinance is needed requiring city council approval of all such transactions, since these remove vital property from the tax rolls. Two years ago Port Huron Hospital acquired a dozen homes and businesses along Pine Grove Avenue, including four of the city's most architecturally distinguished houses, and levelled them. Nothing has been done with the properties since.
On this same topic, both Port Huron and Mercy Hospitals are among the largest property holders in the city, yet because of their tax-exempt status neither pays propety taxes and they are not pulling their weight in the community. By no stretch of the imagination can either one of these hospitals be described any longer as a "charitable institution," as any patient who has had dealings with them in recent years will attest. The hospitals are medical businesses, being operated for the financial benefit of their doctors and staff. If they are "non-profit" it is because the profits are paid out in the form of fees, wages and benefits before they ever get to the bottom line.
The city of Port Huron should therefore challenge the tax-exempt status of the hospitals and place them on the property tax rolls as soon as possible.
MCMORRAN AND MOC AND MARINAS
A glance across the St. Clair River to Sarnia offers plenty of evidence that there is a market for high-rise near-waterfront condominium property in this region. For whatever reason, Port Huron has been left out of the game. We have on hand, however, a large parkfront structure that might be adapted to condo use, the Muncipal Office Center. Similarily, we also own a comodious but underused building on what was the site of the Port Huron City Hall for more than 70 years, the McMorran complex. There is, in addition, an uncomfortable abundance of vacant downtown office and retail space.
Port Huron should offer the MOC for sale to private interests for residential use. Just the building; the land under it to remain part of Keifer park. The proceeds should be re-allocated to acquire the Sperry's building for the muncipal offices, while the police department will be re-located at the McMorran Pavilion.
Similarily, the city should offer the central fire station on the Black River for sale on the same basis, building only, and move the fire service into the McMorran Pavilion
The city's marinas are currently underused, while scores of boatowners around the city make nuisances of themselves by keeping their boats in their yards and driveways. Port Huron should solve both problems by enacting an ordinance forbidding the outdoor storage of boats on residential or non-marina commercial property.
PARK ASSOCIATIONS
Because the New Port Huron will have an immense amount of parkland, the development of a thriving system of park associations is imperative. The city of Chicago, for instance, encourages residents to take an active interest in their local parks by recognizing associations of volunteers who help look after them, and are empowered to make changes or improvements with the approval of the Parks Department. The efforts of these associations can take some of the financial load off Port Huron as a whole. Currently Port Huron encourages neighborhood associations and has an "adopt-a-park" plan, but park associations would be better anchored since they are a fixed point on which neighbors naturally center.
WATER AND SEWER
Every taxpayer of the city is aware by now of the increases in the water and sewer rates. It would be pleasant to think that there was some way out of this bind, but it's the price of procrastination. The idea of separating Port Huron's sanitary and storm sewers to prevent overflows into the Black and St. Clair Rivers was first suggested in 1914. The cost estimate was $500,000 and that included a sewage plant. We took 80 years to think it over and now we're facing a $185 million tab just for the sewer separation. Plus we must face the fact that after amalgamation many former township customers will see their water and sewer rates reduced. Our sole comfort is the fact that these are temporary costs we are facing, and will decline with time. In the meanwhile it is possible that some of the increased stream of post-amalgamation property tax revenues can be used to offset these costs.
When the State of Michigan finally put a gun to Port Huron's head in 1943 and demanded we build a sewage plant, two sites were considered. One was the present location of the industrial park. But to save the cost of a pumping station, it was decided to build the plant on the riverfront. It was another disastrously bad idea, the result of which is that 1000 feet of our downtown waterfront is taken up with this unfortunate and malodorous building. It will take time and a lot of money, but Port Huron should start drawing up plans now for re-locating sewage treatment in the industrial area and away from the river.
NO MORE STUDIES; LET'S HAVE ACTION
In all of these areas the essential need is for action. Port Huron's municipal situation has been studied to death by public and private agencies for more than 70 years now. The first such study was done in 1937 by a team of Cranbrook School designers, who laid down plans for the day when Port Huron would grow to a city of 250,000 people. The multitude of studies done since that time have been just about as useless. If you were standing in the middle of a railroad trestle and a train was coming you wouldn't say, "I think I need a study of that train." These endless reviews are almost always a form of procrastination, a means of diverting public attention or defusing anxiety while the status quo remains untouched. It's impossible to produce Utopia by one fell swoop of a grand design, or to foresee all the difficulties that will arise in the life of a community. Let's pick out a direction and get moving, deal with the problems as they arise, but also reap the rewards that come with initiative.
