Dearborn Neighborhood Eyes New Tax to Save Pool
In a new twist on pay-to-play, residents in Dearborn’s Hemlock Park have petitioned the city of Dearborn to allow residents to decide whether they want to pay to keep their neighborhood pool open.
Hemlock Pool is one of two pools that city officials decided to close after the 2010 summer season in an attempt to bring municipal costs in line with available revenue.
If residents wanted to keep the pool open about 2,000 homes in the area would be assessed a tax of between $60 and $70 annually for the next decade for improvements and general maintenance to the pool.
A public meeting for residents in the Hemlock Park area is being held at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, June 26 at Hemlock Cabin concerning the pool’s future.
The meeting is intended as a public forum to provide information about the proposed future of Hemlock Pool. It will be hosted by Dearborn Recreation & Parks Department Director Greg Orner and include other city officials.
The meeting could be a contentious one, particularly since the city has been talking about budget issues and being forced to close pools and library branches to make ends meet but still managed to spend nearly $4 million to purchase a vacant building that it plans to convert into a new City Hall.
Residents in the Hemlock Park area, through a petition campaign, have indicated their interest in allowing area residents to vote on whether they would like to reopen the pool—after extensive redesign and modernization—by assuming financial responsibility for the facility.
As the next step in the process, the city has created a Special Assessment District (SAD), which includes approximately 2,000 residential parcels.
This Special Assessment District (SAD) encompasses the area from Warren to Wyoming, along the Detroit Terminal Railroad to Ford Road, west to Schaefer, north to Haggerty, west to Maple and north back to Warren.
The owners of these parcels will be asked if they are willing to assume responsibility for the capital improvements, maintenance and operation of the pool for the next 10 years at an annual cost of approximately $60-70 per household.
Initial capital improvements call for the modernization and reconfiguration of the pool into an L-shaped facility with a zero-depth entry at a cost of approximately $1.3 million.
If payments are assessed through the SAD, property owners within the district would not pay an entrance fee to use Hemlock Pool or pay for seasonal pool tags for Hemlock Pool.
June 20th, 2012 at 5:45 am
Hey Dearborn, there is light at the end of the tunnel. If the City of Detroit has the guts to remove their city attorney maybe the clueless mayor and council will follow suit! But then again, who will think for them and mislead them?? This administration has been a disgrace and if you think we have it bad now, wait until you see your tax bill in July. We need real business minded people running this town not a bunch of folks that make every decision a personal one. Time to clean house in 13.
June 20th, 2012 at 5:58 am
I’m sorry didn’t the city council tell us that pools will be closing this year?? Another lie from the big boy and the little rascals. Nice to see the city is working so hard to ratify the unexpired police contract when most of non-public safety (mostly residents) are left to hang out to dry with EXPIRED contracts. the mayors comment “get used to it.”. The chief labor negotiator either has amnesia or black outs. Seems she never remembers what she says or where documents are. This city is on the brink of collapse. Walling better get the weeds out of her garden before she judges another.
June 20th, 2012 at 7:42 am
what is the area of Hemlock? I’d like to know if I’m being asked to pay for a pool I can’t use since none of them do adult lap swim.
June 20th, 2012 at 9:20 am
Property taxes in Dearborn are high enough. I have no desire to pay an additional $60.00 a year to keep a pool open to provide free daycare to fellow residents who have no place to drop their kids off now that the library branches are closing.
June 20th, 2012 at 10:21 am
The inconvenient truth is the new city hall is going to cost $7M+. The first $4M is just the building cost and doesn’t include all of the expected additional costs.
June 20th, 2012 at 3:14 pm
Sadly, the Mayor is just trying to make himself look good. Sad thing is, people will look at this and see something good and vote him back into office.
June 21st, 2012 at 6:04 am
This is the same mayor that supports Judge Sumers during the litigation of several lawsuits for his unconstitutional acts. If that’s not bad enough, the bill to taxpayers exceeds 2 million dollars, and the mayor was at his fundraiser this week. What’s wrong with this picture?? Word has it they both had around 50 people at their fundraisers. never under estimate Dearborn voters. They will be reminded of their lies, deceit and hypocrisies.
June 21st, 2012 at 11:54 am
Lifetime Resident you are wrong, the Mayor looks like a complete chump if he does this, because it show what a weak person and leader he actually is. His philosophy is, if they don’t bitch don’t worry about it, and if they do bitch bend over backwards for their vote. His father must be saying to himself be a man, and be a leader, in other words take a stand for once instead of listening to the wind. That was our mistake, thinking we would inherit someone like his dad, but Doug Thomas was right, saying he couldn’t lead himself, let alone others.
June 21st, 2012 at 11:58 am
Anyone that is thinking of running for mayor next year would be smart to get their name out there NOW and often for voters to see. Dearborn voters seem to vote by name recognition and right we all know who they would vote for.
June 21st, 2012 at 11:59 am
Mcrea you might be on the high side saying there were 50 people at the function. This is all the people that their respective followers could get to come to the fuction, and thats taking into consideration how many were there on freebies. The people are waking up — Somers you are the first to go, and hopefully you will be followed by Bluto O’Reilly next.
June 21st, 2012 at 9:08 pm
How can they even think about saying they have no money and closing pools and libraries when they are spending millions on other projects that don’t even do the citizens as much good? First to say they don’t have the money for all the pools, then spend millions (more than it would cost to renovate the existing pools) one ONE pool is ridiculous. So they throw all the senior citizens who worked for years out of their condo’s in Florida, then throw the kids and seniors out of the pools and libraries only to make new offices for themselves? The only reason there is no money is because the money we are paying in taxes now is mismanaged.
June 23rd, 2012 at 3:49 pm
These hacks sure have a definite plan to bury this city financially. All mccheese cries about is how property values have dropped the city income, but in turn he & his appointed financial buffoon raise taxes & spend careless dollars that mean squat to the citizens. The people in Florida offered to buy their building at the fair market value proposal & take on the infrastructure repairs, but no boz hogg lies to them first & sells them out. Then he is on his bullony cable show bragging about the great cabins HE built at camp, great value to the citizens in town, he was so thrilled staying out there maybe he could move there & turn the city over to a fiscally responsible person who cares for this city, instead of his own self serving agenda.
June 24th, 2012 at 4:06 pm
Why the heck are they going to ‘reconfigure’ the pool at a cost of $1.3 Million? Why don’t they just maintain the basic pool that they have?
June 24th, 2012 at 10:30 pm
EVERYTHING they do costs more than they plan. Look at how much over budget the Ford Center is. Look at the parking decks too. All their big ideas do nothing more than cost us money.
June 25th, 2012 at 10:21 am
The Big Boys legacy will be known to everyone as Over Budget O’Reilley. He never comes under the estimated costs of anything, because he wants the residents to believe he is looking out for them, and when the project is finally completed it blows up in his mug, just like everything this guy does, because he isn’t competent.
June 25th, 2012 at 6:28 pm
someone mentioned Doug Thomas….we should have voted him in back many years ago. This would have been a beautiful little town.
July 24th, 2012 at 7:52 pm
Doug Thomas was a good councilman. He was just outnumbered