Cheboygan's Countywide Emergency Service Radio Proposal-Is It Truth or Fiction?

I know many of us have already cast absentee ballots for the November 6th election. Others will remain undecided in the booth until they check the box beside their chosen candidates. There are many factors in our personal and private decisions to cast that secret ballot choosing our best candidates to both represent and serve us. I do know old dogs never change. Give them a treat and they will still piddle on the floor. I will clean up after an old dog, but old politicians should just be retired. The incumbents in almost every case will deliver the same old stuff. You reward them with your vote, and they piddle on your foot. Do you want more of the same names, same old ideas, and more wrong decisions? Cheboygan County has a history of making the wrong decisions, time after time. It is time to break that mold and cast our new future.

Remember, the ballot is not a test. You do not have to select a candidate for every available seat. When the section for State Board of Education, Regents, Trustees, of Governors for a University says select not more than two, do not go eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Educate yourself on the candidates and make a wise decision or just skip that section.

The ballots for the November election have a backside with ballot proposals and solicitations for more taxes. Three statewide ballot proposals appear because concerned citizens circulated petitions gaining hundreds of thousands of signatures of support. These grass-roots initiatives placed the decision on the ballot of legalizing and regulation of recreational marijuana, a more apolitical re-districting of congressional, state, and house districts, and a proposed State Constitution reform promoting simpler voting registration and straight party voting. Those are proposals 1, 2, and 3 and the people will decide.

There is a very important countywide ballot proposal seeking .5 mills, 50 cents per $1,000 taxable value for four years to pay for a needed 800MHZ radio upgrade for our first responders. If the need is real, the raise in your property taxes is not.  I sat through county meetings at Mackinaw City, two CCE-911 meetings, and additional meetings back in Cheboygan County. County Administrator Lawson and County Commission Chair John Wallace stated repeatedly that we needed to fund an 800 MHZ radio upgrade for the CCE-911 dispatch service. There was much discussion of telephone surcharges or an extra millage. Employing fuzzy math, the Cheboygan County Board of Commissioners, with Commissioner Cal Gouine the only no vote, proposed .5 mills additional taxes on every taxable parcel in Cheboygan County to raise an estimated $717,761 in the first of four years. Commissioner Gouine stated added millages never seem to go away.

You should know that Cheboygan County has a surplus of unassigned funds totaling $8.035 million dollars. On page five of the 2017 annual audit: “At the close of the current fiscal year, the County’s governmental funds reported combined fund balances of $10,163,232, an increase of $487,404 in comparison with the prior year. Approximately 79%, or $8,035,234, of this amount is available for spending at the government’s discretion (unassigned fund balance).”

The Cheboygan County Policy of 30% unassigned funds exceeds the State of Michigan recommendation of a 15% to 25% “rainy day” fund. The $8.035 million dollars as reported by the auditor is 69% of the annual budget and exceeds the County own fiscal policy by over 100%. Fiscal responsibility should mandate the County Commissioners stop over-taxing us, asking for more millage, and instead spend part of the more than $4 million surplus dollars, our tax dollars they already have stuffed into money-market accounts. Unlike our CCE-911 partners, Emmet and Charlevoix Counties have debt on the books; Cheboygan has been over-taxing us and socking away surpluses, $487,404 in just the last audit year.

When you vote no on the “Countywide Emergency Service Radio Proposal", the Commissioners can go to Plan “B”. Spending part of that $4 million dollars surplus directly funding the CCE-911 800 MHZ Radio improvements will speed the needed upgrades. Taxpayers deserve truth in advertising. The need for the additional millage is instead a bald-faced lie. 

The incumbent County Commissioners, excepting Commissioner Gouine who voted no, are complicit in the deceit. Commissioner Gouine runs unopposed. You can vote the others out on the same ballot that bears their millage proposal. Vote for your new County Commissioners and vote NO to new taxes.