Village Manager’s Office
To: Village Council and Staff
From: Ryan Cotton, Village Manager
Date: March 5, 2009
Re: Council Information Letter
MML and Treasury Program: The Capitol conference was good. One thing I learned was from the head of the Michigan Treasury Department. Although the Proposition A inflationary amount was 4.4% this year, he expects it to be only a fraction of one percent next year. Gas tax receipts are estimated to be 4% below last year’s. Revenue sharing is being kept at the 2% level for now.
Trust Fund Grant Competition and the Grand River Greenway: I went to a training program on this in Lansing this week. We hope to request $486,000 from this program funded by oil and gas tax receipts. They got 120 applications last year and funded 80. They are supporting trails now, more than ever before. That is the good news. They want them to be in the heavily urbanized areas, however. We will do our best nonetheless.
Grand River Greenway Enhancement Grant Will Be on Next Council Agenda Also: Benedikt, Projects Administrator, is preparing this MDOT application for the remainder of the Grand River Greenway costs ($511,000). We are advertising a public meeting on this program for the benefit of the general public and to demonstrate community input.
Letters of Support Coming In: The Chamber’s Travel and Tourism Bureau and Ottawa County Extension Service sent letters of support came in this week. More are coming from other county agencies and neighboring communities.
MPO Supports Phase II of the Grand River Greenway with $20,000 More: New estimates allowed restoration of the CMAQ grant’s original recommendation from the Technical Committee to the Policy Committee today. They recommended restoring the original amount of $300,000.
Taxable Value Increase: The SLT Assessing Office used data that showed an average 1.6% reduction in residential value in sales reported by the County last year. Commercial property went down 1.6%. Industrial dropped by 3%. In Grand Haven, residential property went down 3%.
The bottom line is that Spring Lake Village’s taxable value went up by 2.1%. Our Budget Team will plan accordingly. FYI.
***Upcoming Meetings***
Cityhood Meeting: Wednesday, March 11 at 7:00 PM at Village Hall, upstairs.
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