Why does it have to be Us vs Them?

[shovelhead]

Detroit Pole,

I can't speak from the Livonia viewpoint, but I can from the Novi viewpoint as I lived there when the VOTERS opted out of the SMART bus.

Grand River to Novi Road, basically only to the malls. Limited hours, no shelters, hard to find schedules, and the rest of the city, approximately 36 square miles in area NOT covered. I forget how much it cost the average taxpayer per year, but enough said they were not getting a fair return on their money. And at the same time, Novi was in a lawsuit that ultimately would cost they 65 MILLION DOLLARS as a settlement. At that time, it was estimated that the settlement of this case with principal and interest would cost the average homeowner two hundred dollars a year in a Special Assessment for twenty years. Look it up, the Sandstone Development.

The way the taxpayers were getting squeezed at that time along with the uncertainty on the lawsuit probably entered into a lot of peoples thought processes. Not to mention the bond proposals that were continually put out for vote in both the Novi and Walled Lake school systems. And not all of us lived in McMansions or could afford that. That two hundred dollar SAD was almost a fifteen percent jump in my property taxes at that time.

Novi did a lot of stupid things in that era. IN the early 90's there was a push to buy up land for open space parks. Us taxpayers fell for it hook line and sinker. Once they bought the old tree farm on Twelve and a Half mile road, the "New" plans were in the making. And none of this was told to us, it was a later "enhancenment" for the taxpayers!

The city wanted to develop this area previously known as open space as a golf course and banquet center. HMMM, how did this happen? The only way this got shut down was a city charter amendment prohibiting this. Yes, this too can be looked up. City Clowncil [[there too) meetings were getting ugly, we were told that we [[the taxpayers) did not know what was good for us. For real! A petition drive and special vote on a charter amendment was the only thing that saved our a***s then.

And as a bonus, part of that park land was used to settle the Sandstone lawsuit. The houses on the north side of Twelve Mile east of the CSX railway to Dixon Road were built on settlement land.
Oh yeah, forgot to mention, the city had to spend about a half million on Arsenic abatement as that area was previously a apple orchard and this was a byproduct of tree spraying back in the day. This was before they could turn the land over to the developer. Again this can be researched.



I voted no at the time, it was not racist, it was economic. Just fallout from being burned too many times......