Community Meeting
February 19 at Palmer Park Preparatory Academy from 7-9pm
3901 Margareta, Enter through the south side of the school (Margareta & Oak)
Hello Neighbors. In the beginning of December the City Assessor’s office contacted the UDCA to inform us that our petition drive asking the City Council establish the Special Assessment District (SAD) was successful! We collected signatures supporting the SAD from 80% of the property owners in our neighborhood. I believe that is the highest percentage of any neighborhood so far. If this is new to you or you’re new to the neighborhood check out some of the past blog postings.
That begs the question: What’s next? With the signatures certified by the assessor’s office, they decide whether we are ready to give council our petition request. After the Assessor, it will be reviewed by a subcommittee of City Council called the Budget, Finance and Audit Committee. This committee will schedule a public hearing at which they will review the proposed SAD and take statements from the residents. This is when our residents can speak to the council members and express their views of the proposed SAD. The committee also will review our proposed budget and spending plan. They too want to make sure our plan is going to work.
After the Budget, Finance and Audit committee is satisfied they will vote whether to advance the petition to the full city council. The process is similar. The full City Council will review the petition, consider our plan and its likelihood of success, decide if they should schedule another public hearing and then they finally vote to establish the Special Assessment District. If the City Council votes in favor of our SAD they will direct the Clerk to adjust the tax rolls to reflect our $175 (Council can change this) assessment on the 2019 summer tax bill.
In Detroit, summer tax bills are due August 15th. That’s not to say we all actually pay our taxes by then but by the end of 2019 we should have collected enough assessment money that the UDCA SAD committee can take over funding and operation of the University District Patrol and expand it to 24 hours a day.
Please join the UDCA SAD committee and representative of the Assessor’s office for a community meeting to discuss this and ask questions:
February 19 at Palmer Park Preparatory Academy from 7-9pm
3901 Margareta, Enter through the south side of the school (Margareta & Oak)