Although the council's not interested, some Stevensville residents want to disincorporate - but the process is difficult
By WILLIAM F. AST III - H-P Staff Writer
Published: Sunday, March 14, 2010 1:08 PM EDT
STEVENSVILLE - If Stevensville disbanded, it wouldn't be the first time a Berrien County village had disappeared into the dustbin of history.
However, those vanished villages were never incorporated, never legally organized entities. Some were 19th century proposals by developers, schemes that never worked out for one reason or another.
Berrien County has never had an incorporated village disband. For that matter, the state of Michigan has never had an incorporated village disincorporate, though some villages have tried.
But once again, a few Stevensville residents have called for the village to disband.
Upset by the indictment of former village manager Todd Gardner on charges of misappropriating $293,140 from the village, and the ensuing fiscal scandal and problems, some residents at recent council meetings have called for disbandment. They've said they don't like paying the extra village taxes, that the extra services they get aren't worth the cost, and that the Village Council should resign.
That anger has been simmering for some time. Even before the financial scandal broke, some residents were seething over Gardner's fractious relations with Lincoln Township and the boards of the water authorities that serve the village and township.
As it turns out, the village had already looked into disbanding at times, most recently in 1998.
Back then, the issue was village taxes and the difficulty of finding enough people to serve in village government. The village, only a square mile in size, has a population of close to 1,200 people, so it doesn't have a large pool of people to serve in government.
At first, council members and a lot of residents seemed solidly behind disbanding. As they looked into the complex process and considered what they would lose, sentiment changed within a few months. The council decided it would be better to hire a manager and remain a village.
Michael Marrs, the village's lawyer at the time, said he thinks that went beyond a cold, objective decision.
"What I remember was that it was an emotional policy decision that had to be made, and I don't think people were willing to do that," Marrs said.
Current council President Lori Gibson said the question has not come up among council members, despite the calls from the audience at meetings. "We haven't even had that discussion," she said.
Instead, the council is concentrating on fixing the damage that occurred under Gardner, instituting policies and procedures to make sure it can't happen again, and saving as much money as possible to put toward bills, Gibson said.
Easier said than done
But what if the council did decide to go ahead with disincorporation?
William Mathewson, general counsel for the Michigan Municipal League, said state law provides two ways for villages to disincorporate. However, "They are not easy, necessarily, to accomplish," he said.
The first method would require a two-thirds vote of the electors in both the village and the township, Mathewson said. That's Lincoln Township, in this case, which surrounds Stevensville. And Stevensville residents are also Lincoln Township residents.
There's a second method that would require a petition of 15 percent of registered voters, Mathewson said. Once those petitions are certified, the village council creates a disincorporation commission consisting of both village and township residents. That body determines whether disincorporation should occur, and what would need to be done to "divide assets and assume liabilities," he continued.
"There's a lot to do," Mathewson said.
Once the commission makes its report - and it would probably require legal help to do so - then the matter goes to the voters of the township and village, Mathewson said. A simple majority in each unit would be sufficient, he said.
"The first (method) is simpler on the surface, but it doesn't say what needs to be done," Mathewson said. "The alternative seems longer, but it sets forth the decisions that have to be made and the process, if in fact the community wants to disincorporate."
Has any village ever done it?
"To our knowledge, there have not been any successful disincorporations," Mathewson said. "There have been a couple of attempts in recent years. In each instance, they were not successful."
What do residents get?
Stevensville's property tax levy pays for roads, street lights, water, general maintenance, and the salaries of the council and village employees.
As Stevensville residents are also residents of Lincoln Township, they pay township as well as village taxes. If they live in Stevensville, they pay an additional property tax millage levy of 8.7253 mills to the village.
Former interim Village Manager Bret Witkowski said the average house in Stevensville probably has a state equalized valuation (half the market value) of $75,000. The owner of such a house would pay annual village property taxes of $654.40.
Witkowski said the extra services residents receive include weekly garbage pickup, leaf and branch pickup, and pickup of large trash items. They also receive snow removal services on streets and sidewalks.
Lincoln Township residents arrange for and pay for their own trash removal. Township streets get snow plowing services through Berrien County.
Township residents (and that includes Stevensville residents) pay 2.786 mills for township services, which equates to $208.97 for the owner of that house with an SEV of $75,000. (There is an additional levy of 1.122 mills for the library that both township and village residents pay.)
So if Stevensville disbanded, property owners would see significant reductions in their annual property taxes. However, they would then have to arrange for, and pay for, their own rubbish pickup. In addition, they would not get leaf, branch or large trash pickup unless they arrange it, and they would likely see a significant reduction in snow plowing.
Lincoln Township Supervisor Dick Stauffer said his own arrangements for trash cost him $42 a quarter. That's $168 a year.
"It's not a big issue," Stauffer said.
The village has made a number of downtown improvements, from a new streetscape to new facades for downtown business buildings. Villages have "more leeway to get funding" for such projects than townships do, Witkowski said.
Up and down
Stevensville, founded in 1836, is one of Berrien County's oldest municipal units and even predates the State of Michigan. Michigan became a state in 1837. The state Senate in 1893 passed a resolution incorporating the village.
Villages in the 19th century tended to form around railroad stops, and Stevensville still has a railroad running through it. The village's downtown area remained stable for decades, a convenient place for village residents and nearby farmers and township residents to do their shopping.
But with the coming of the automobile and better roads, things started to change as residents found it increasingly easier to shop wherever they pleased.
Before it consolidated with Baroda into the Lakeshore Public Schools district in the late 1950s, Stevensville had its own high school.
Then the village suffered a big blow in the 1980s when Lakeshore closed Stevensville Elementary School, and the village no longer had its own school.
The village still has St. Paul's Elementary School, but a parochial school generally isn't quite like a public school as a focal point of the community.
The village's grocery store closed down. The drug store left. Even the post office is gone, having moved out to the area of Lakeshore High School in Lincoln Township. The fire station and the police station also moved from the village into the township.
But the downtown still has businesses, including a bank branch, a music store, hair salons and several popular restaurants.
And two bars, of course. There are some wags who say the village will be OK as long as the Stevensville Station and the Welcome Inn are in business.
wast@TheH-P.com
