Guest Blogger: Brandon Fournier

Brandon Fournier was appointed city administrator for the city of Southgate in 2009 at the age of 26. He grew up in Metro Detroit and received a bachelor's degree in business administration from Western Michigan University. While serving as city administrator he obtained a Juris Doctor degree from Wayne State University Law School, obtaining admission to the state bar. Over the past four years he has been involved in overseeing various projects focused on government reform including the establishment of the Downriver Central Dispatch, Downriver Central Animal Control, and serving as a voice for collaborative regional governance. 

He currently is a board member of the Downriver Community Conference and the Southeastern Michigan Regional Energy Office. He has previously served as the business development officer for the Southeast Gratiot Ave. Business District and is a member of the board of directors for the Eight Mile Boulevard Association.



As a crisis comes to an end, how local governments can take advantage of new opportunities

In 1943, after three years of set back and defeat, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously opined "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." As the city of Detroit has filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in history I cannot think of a way that better describes the circumstances facing local government in Michigan. At that time the world was the benefactor of a break in the storm and a brighter future on the horizon; regrettably the circumstances facing government officials in Michigan are much bleaker. 

As the state of Michigan continues to reap the benefits of an economic recovery, there is a sense that local government in Michigan will also be on the mend financially. Regrettably, the past few years have seen little in terms of comprehensive solutions addressing the systematic issues plaguing these entities. Over the next two years it is a safe prediction that many more cities, townships, and school districts will share the same fate as the city of Detroit. 

When I began working for the city of Southgate in late 2009, local governments in Michigan were in a triple vise, threatening our very survival. First, the automotive industry was facing collapse leading to record unemployment. Property valuations, which are the primary source of revenue for cities, lost value at rates never conceived. Finally, the state had once again reduced our share of sales tax revenues to historic lows. As tragic and challenging as these issues were, they created an environment of local cooperation and coordination leading to internal reviews of each and every sector of government in order to reduce costs and maintain the level of service we provide. Cities which were never forced to work together began establishing joint services and collaborating on everything from fire services to joint purchasing. 

In 2010, faced with the possibility of financial collapse, I was fortunate enough to be one member of a group of civic leaders who after years of stalled talks moved forward and established the Downriver Central Dispatch. The plans to create a regional emergency dispatch center had been shelved for five years, but the circumstances gave the catalyst for the communities to move ahead. Together we have pooled our capital resources and operational costs and created a sustainable model moving forward. Now entering the fourth year of operations, the center continues to be an essential part of our emergency operations and we are now studying the feasibility of expanding the scope to include the majority of the downriver communities. 

Leveraging that success, the core communities involved with that initiative have gone on to establish combined animal control operations and assessing services. Currently the cities of Southgate and Wyandotte are studying a possible fire services merger. However, as we look to our region for support we are surrounded by communities that have the benefit of stronger financial footing due to recent economic development and are confronted with a different series of issues. As beneficial as these efforts can be they do not have the possibility of addressing the seriousness of the financial decline faced over the last decade. 

As the economy continues to stabilize, the state and cities have begun to return to the patterns before this crisis, leaving many communities without the means of addressing these problems and creating a divide for the citizens of the state of Michigan. Pressure continues to be applied through inflation and additional unfunded governmental requirements. Communities like Southgate that have been fortunate enough to band together and reduce our expenses in order to remain solvent have been left with almost no resources to reinvest in our communities. As we begin to enter a stage of prolonged stagnation we will be fortunate if our marginal revenue gains can outpace the increase in expenses. However, this will not begin to address the status of our infrastructure that dates back fifty years and overwhelming legacy costs.

Encouragingly, all is not lost. By reforming our system of governance in the state and embracing 21st-century communication and transportation we can redefine what local government means and what it should provide, leading to a reduction of the overwhelming layers of redundancy. There is an infrastructure in place through the state of Michigan's vast retail networks that can provide economies of scale for tax collection, assessing services, and building standards. Additionally, there are potential solutions available for combining our legacy costs and current health care costs which will not decrease the benefits, but increase our combined ability to fund and procure lower cost benefit packages. We can no longer allow ourselves to be shackled by the laws from another era. Now more than ever we should review our system of governance and funding and establish the next Michigan for generations to come.  

As we all welcome what we hope is a truly robust economic recovery in our state, it would be a travesty to allow contemporary stabilization to extinguish the opportunity for true comprehensive reform to pass by.