Dexter Village voters will soon make their biggest political decision since the town was settled in 1824: to be or not to be a city. And the clock is ticking: as the Community Observer went to press, voters were selecting nine members for a commission to draft a city charter.
The commission will have ninety days to do its work. After being reviewed by the state, the proposed charter will come before the voters again. If all goes as planned, next fall Dexter residents will decide whether to approve the charter and become a city–or reject it and remain a village.
Through the annexation of three new residential developments outside the historic town center, the village’s population grew 172 percent between 1990 and 2010, from 1,497 to 4,067–the largest percentage of population increase in the state. The growth caused some folks to wonder if it weren’t time for the village to become a city.
“If it’s done right, cityhood is a really good thing,” says village council president Shawn Keough. “I’ve been the face of this process because I felt it was important to get to this point so residents can react and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of becoming a city.”
Jim Smith, former village trustee and leader of the Committee to Keep Dexter a Village, doesn’t see any advantages. “All along I’ve asked to see the real benefits of doing so, and I’ve never got answers that persuaded me.”
Nonetheless, in May Dexter residents voted 460 to 408 to continue the cityhood process. “It was surprising there was such a small turnout,” says Smith. “But some people didn’t know there was a vote, and others didn’t know the issues, while some thought it was already a done deal and didn’t know they were being given a chance to vote.”
Small as it was, May’s vote showed the stark divide between east and west. The east-side precinct that includes the new Dexter Crossing and Huron Farms developments tilted slightly against heading down the path to a city charter, 373 to 336, while the west-side precinct, including the new Westridge subdivision, approved it overwhelmingly, 124 to 35. That advanced the process to this November’s election, when voters nine of thirteen candidates to write the charter.
Smith ran for a seat on the charter committee–because he wants to shape the document, not because he favors cityhood. “So many people you talk to here, people like myself, we like the small-town feel,” he says. “People move here for the quaintness of the village, and that’s something we don’t want to see taken away.”
If cityhood passes, he predicts, “the way people in government operate will change. When a village becomes a city, they feel they have to do all these new things to justify becoming a city. I was born and raised here, and I’ve lived here for sixty-five years. I don’t want to see much change.”
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Since the village already takes care of streets, water, wastewater, trash collection, and leaf and brush pickup as well as contracting for police services with the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Department and for fire services with the Dexter Area Fire Department, few day-to-day aspects of government would change if voters approved cityhood. But big changes would affect taxes, elections, assessments, access to state and federal money, and, most of all, control.
“Becoming a city gives the residents more local control over everything,” says Jack Donaldson, a Westridge resident and charter commission candidate. And, he says, “a more centralized government would give us more ability in dealing with state and federal government for grants and loans.”
Because the village is currently divided between Scio and Webster townships, cityhood would simplify taxation, among other things.
Cityhood “eliminates an unnecessary level of government,” says Keough. “Right now, village residents pay taxes to a number of different agencies–the village of Dexter, the townships of Scio and Webster, the county, the school district, and the library–and it’s all collected by the townships, Scio if you live in the east and Webster if you live in the west. It would be much less complicated if all taxes were paid to one agency and we were the agency. A lot of people stop in the [village] office to pay their taxes, and now we have to send them somewhere else.”
More importantly, Keough says, cityhood would have financial benefits. “Residents in the village pay taxes to the townships, and the townships provide only assessing and election support. All of our residents aren’t assessed by the same government, but if we become a city, we’d have the same assessor for everybody, and we could do it much cheaper. We pay approximately $300,000 to the townships annually to do our assessing, and we could do that for a third of the cost.”
This means lower taxes for everybody, though lower for some than for others. Village residents living in Webster now pay higher taxes than those in Scio, so if Dexter chooses to become a city, their taxes would drop by about 3 mills. In Scio the drop would be about 1.5 mills. This difference explains why voters in the western part of the village overwhelmingly approved cityhood.
“I’m in favor of cityhood,” says John Hansen, also a charter commission candidate. “It boils down to money. The state and federal governments provide more opportunities for cites. As a village, we provide minimal services. We don’t have a recreation program, for example, or civic-owned facilities like public pools and skating rinks. We’ll never become Ann Arbor, but we could decide we want to have some of those things, and being a city would help.”
Though he won’t say if he’s for or against cityhood, Matt Kowalski, a longtime member of the planning commission and charter commission candidate, sees further advantages to being a city: “As we continue to grow, not physically but our population, operations will become more complex, and being a city would help streamline things. Our population growth won’t be like the late nineties and early 2000s, but we could get more development on the Webster side and also some infill, so it could get up to 4,500 [residents]. At that point we could decide to have a larger park system, for example.”
“The folks who argue against cityhood say that Dexter will somehow lose its small-town feel, so people won’t say hello to each other on the street anymore,” says Hansen. “But unless the people here change, that doesn’t seem likely to me.
“There’s also a feeling that taxes are higher in cities,” he adds. “They are in Ann Arbor, but taxes are self-imposed. Cities do tend to want to do more things, but taxes will only go up if we want them to, because services will only increase if we want them to. If we want to provide services to senior citizens or get involved with public housing, we can only do it if we go to the voters for money.”
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Jim Smith still sees plenty of disadvantages to cityhood. “The biggest issue that bothers me is the annexation process changes. When you’re a village, if the village and township disagree it goes to the county board of commissioners for a decision. But if we become a city and there’s a disagreement, then it goes to the state boundary commission, and it’s not in local hands anymore.
“Given the past history of expanding the size of the town by incorporating large developments, I don’t want to make it easier to annex. It does become easier if we become a city, and some people will take advantage of that. They say the town’s boundaries will stay the same if we become a city, but you can’t guarantee that.”
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Smith acknowledges being a city means “we won’t have to pay township taxes, and the average person will save between $100 and $150 a year. But you lose the relationship with the townships when you stop paying taxes to them.
“I really like being a registered voter in the township. If the township is going to be doing something right outside our town, I can tell them I think it’s bad idea because I’m a taxpayer, and this is what we’ve had to do on a couple of issues. If we become a city we don’t have a voice there, and they could approve development we don’t like, and we wouldn’t have any influence at all. What we pay to the townships is relatively small for that kind of influence.”
Shawn Keough doesn’t agree: “I feel that if you have something to say, the township board will listen to you whether you’re a taxpayer or not.”
“I’m not sure there are any advantages to staying a village,” says Jack Donaldson. “A lot of people feel becoming a city means we won’t be as quaint a community. But we all selected Dexter to live in because it’s a nice little community where people are friendly and helpful, and becoming a city is not going to change the people. What makes Dexter are the people, not the name.”
“The big disadvantage of staying a village is that we can’t improve ourselves,” Keough sums up. “Becoming a city is really about improving our processes for our citizens.”
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How Dexter would look as a city will be determined the charter commission. “It matters what’s in the charter,” explains Hansen. “It’s like a constitution. Of course, 90 percent of all charters are identical, but there are important differences–for example, whether you have a strong mayor or a weak mayor, whether the mayor is the city’s chief executive or should a city manager be the chief executive?”
“The charter will probably be very similar to the rules the village currently operates under,” Keough predicts. “We could change to have more council members or a strong mayor. But I believe we like who we are, and we like having a seven-member board and a village manager. I don’t believe residents are going to see changes in the things that make us who we are. We’re not going to be taking away the charm and the friendliness or the type of government.”
Keough’s advocated cityhood for years, but he chose not to run for the charter group. “I didn’t think it was fair for me to be on the committee. And it’s going to be a difficult process, because there’s going to be a lot of things they’ll have to work through.”
“This process takes a long time,” agrees Hansen. “But I know most of the people running, and they’ll create a charter that’ll be appealing. It’ll calm down folks. Cityhood’s a reasonable thing, and it’s going to happen sooner or later, so why stop and do it all over again when we can do it right now?”
“If we end up passing the charter I want it to be something a majority of the people can accept,” Jim Smith says. And he says he’ll keep an open mind: “If the charter is an outstanding document that would be a benefit to the people, I’ll support it,” he says. “But if I think it’s something bad for our community, I’ll definitely campaign against it.
“You have to do the job of informing people of what’s in it and let them make the decision. I hope people pay attention in November [2014].”
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When it goes before the voters, will cityhood pass? “It will,” Keough says confidently. “There’ll be enough people in the community who’ve thought about it and understand the benefits.”
Hansen and Kowalski agree with Keough, but Donaldson says he’s “not sure it’ll be approved. The sentiment up until the election was in favor by a majority, but that could change as we get further along in discussions.”
“If it was just a one-time election, I’d say the odds are fifty-fifty,” says Smith. “But if it fails the first time, they can take the charter back and change it and put it up again, so in the long term the odds are in their favor.”
What happens if Dexter does decide to stay a village? “Nothing changes,” says Keough with a sigh. “As far as the government part of it, it would stay the same as it is,” agrees Smith happily.
“If we stayed a village, life wouldn’t change,” concludes Hansen. “But we wouldn’t be as forward thinking.”
Chelsea’s Choice
Ten years ago, the Village of Chelsea decided to become the City of Chelsea. Fred Mills, a member of Chelsea’s charter commission, has some thoughts for Dexter on the process: “It’s the biggest decision a village can make, and it’s going to affect everything for years.”
Mills was for cityhood. “A village is the lowest form of government in the state. Townships are more powerful than villages. They have the power to run all elections and to assess property taxes. But the main reason to do it was it gave us leverage in dealing with the state we didn’t have as a village.”
Chelsea needed that leverage, says Mills, because “as a village, we had no authority over what happened on M-52,” which runs through the center of town. “In the past the state had put in traffic lights without asking the village, and they were talking about widening it, and that would have ruined everything.”
Beyond changing relations with other governments, Mills says becoming a city “gave us a means to deal with our own problems by writing our own charter, to tailor-make our own ordinances and zoning. It gave the residents the right to control their destiny.”
Like Dexter, Chelsea’s charter commission had nine members. “It was a lot of work,” Mills says. “We met thirty times in ninety days to get it written. To me, the charter became the key piece in the puzzle, because it’ll stand for years.”
After a long educational effort in advance, cityhood didn’t face organized opposition in Chelsea. “There were people who felt we didn’t need to do it,” says Mills. “But once we discussed the positives, people saw that they outweighed the negatives, and it passed relatively quickly.”
A decade later, Mills says, cityhood has “worked out well for Chelsea. People like it–things like the board of review that citizens can come and appeal their assessment. Where it used to be done by the township, now it’s held in our city offices, with three people from within our community who are registered voters appointed by [the] mayor and approved by council.”
Chelsea had only one small bump on the road to cityhood. “The name,” says Mills with a laugh. “Some people had some fondness for the name of ‘village’ so it was proposed that we call ourselves ‘the city of the village of Chelsea’–but thankfully that didn’t fly.”
