Harper Woods votes down proposal to combine services

Steve Pardo and Micki Steele / The Detroit News

Community leaders in Wayne and Oakland counties are breathing a little easier now that voters — for the most part — showed Tuesday they're willing to pay higher taxes to keep services intact.

Voters in Southfield, Ferndale, Madison Heights, Hazel Park and Clawson all approved tax increases for everything from public safety to libraries.

An exception was in Garden City, where a measure calling for a 12-mill increase — the most asked of any municipality in the region — failed 2,675 to 2,060. Voters in Harper Woods also rejected a proposal that would have let city officials combine police and fire services.

With the failure, staffing will go from 114 full-time positions citywide to 77, and a number of services will be eliminated, Garden City Manager Darwin McClary said recently.

Six employees will have to be laid off in the Fire Department, leaving the department with nine firefighters. The number of police officers will need to be cut from 32 to 20, McClary said.