By Megan Kelley
Staff Writer
LAKE ORION — The Downtown Development Authority’s bond and subsequent lumber yard redevelopment has moved forward after the village council during its meeting on Monday adopted a resolution authorizing issuing up to $5 million in bonds for the project.
The bonds will be used to pay all or part of the cost to acquire, construct and equip a gateway into the downtown area of the village where the Lake Orion Lumberyard currently is. The project will likely include enhancing park space, additional public parking and mixed-use buildings.
The resolution authorizes the village manager or finance director/treasurer to finalize the terms of the bonds sale and sign and sale order, and allows them to take all steps necessary to issue the bonds when the time is appropriate, village documents say.
According to village documents, the estimated annual debt service is estimated at $385,000 annually and will be repaid through the DDA’s TIF (tax increment financing) capture. Additionally, the village is also pledging its full faith and credit to provide for the repayment of these bonds should the DDA be unable to fulfill its repayment obligation.
The council voted 4-2 in favor of the resolution with council members Michael Lamb and Nancy Mosier casting the two nay votes. Councilmember Sarah Luchsinger was absent from the meeting. Also absent from the meeting was village Manager Darwin McClary who left comments with council President Jerry Narsh to read into the record before the vote.
McClary’s comments essentially state that the vote allows the manager and finance director to sell the bonds if they are able to be sold at the appropriate time. What this means is that if, for whatever reason, the bonds are not able to be sold that would prevent the authorization of those bonds.
“He wanted everyone to understand that this vote doesn’t necessarily mean everything is going to be that way. There are issues potentially out there that could suspend, temporarily or totally suspend, that,” Narsh said.
In attendance to answer questions from the council was the village’s bond council Jeffrey Aronoff of Miller Canfield.
Arnoff reiterated what Narsh and McClary said, saying that there are things that would prevent the bond council from issuing an approving opinion, like the current residents’ petition that is circulating that would remove the DDA’s TIF.
Last year, residents circulated a petition to repeal the ordinance that provides the DDA with TIF funding. Recently, residents took up the cause again and are again circulating a similar petition.
Lamb, who has been vocal about his stance against the DDA bond, questioned Aronoff about the potential bond sale should the petition go through and should the DDA’s capture be placed on the ballot.
“We would not be able to issue an approving opinion on the bonds if there was a valid petition,” Aronoff said.
Several members of the community spoke on the topic in what seemed to be a relatively close split.
“I support the DDA’s acquisition of the lumber yard property. I see a good return of investment for the DDA in their budget through the years. What I haven’t seen is a good return of investment from the village council,” said resident Linda Crane. “If the infrastructure, the roads, are in such bad shape, somebody along the line, through the years, has not budgeted their money wisely.”
When it came to those who opposed the project, the main issue with the project stemmed from the village’s lack of money to complete the millions of dollars in infrastructure needs, how the DDA spends TIF capture and the transparency of it all, not the project itself.
“This big talk about ‘We want to keep people coming in.’ As Molly (LaLone, DDA Executive Director) was speaking, the only thing I kept thinking is, ‘We brought in a huge developer, Mocheri.’ You guys approved it. How many more people do you want to keep bringing in?” said Nicole Curtis, a Lake Orion homeowner. “As far as the DDA, I think what is always misconstrued is that people are upset when they really look at the nuts and bolts of how the DDA is choosing to spend this tax capture. Simple things; Michael Lamb, you brought up a line budget item a couple weeks ago at a meeting for a luncheon at Anita’s Kitchen when we are paying rent for the DDA to have office space. Why are we paying them to go to lunch to meet? Meet in the office that our taxpayers are already paying for. In regards to the lumber yard, it is a question that I keep asking and no one really has a solid answer for ‘Why are we buying the lumber yard?’”
Curtis also said that the DDA has paid more than $24,000 to an architecture firm for renderings on the project for a lot that is not even owned by the village yet. She said she has yet to see any of the ideas that came from the design charrette last October implemented in those renderings.
“I think there is an outcry again, again, we’re going almost a year straight and there is complete outcry from taxpayers where we are not getting all of the information up front and it is not a transparent situation here and that’s just it. And again, we keep raising taxes. You want to bring in new people to Lake Orion. How about sustaining the people that have already been committed here for a lifetime? How about looking at the taxes that keep going up for senior citizens?” Curtis said.
The council voted 4-2 in favor of the resolution, keeping in mind that the petitions currently circulating could impact the bond sale.
According to village clerk Susan Galeczka, a petition has already been submitted and is currently in the review stage.