Question 7 for Saline City Council Candidates: What Are Your Thoughts on Consolidation of Services?

The city is coming under increasing pressure to consolidate services with other municipalities. Are there any services you can see sharing? Are there any that you would be opposed to sharing? Tell us why.

Jim Roth

The city and schools have been consolidating services with other municipalities. All pros and cons must be explored and assessed before engaging into such agreements. The citizens should be a part of the assessment process.

Consolidating services with other municipalities should NOT be a condition for receiving state funds!

The citizens should have the quality of police protection that they have been accustomed to!

John Heller

As my answers to previous question indicate, I don't see any services that the city provides that should be shared.

To illustrate, in the very early years of the Saline Police Department, officers were dispatched by the Sheriff's Department. The city began its own dispatching service for a reason. The service provided by the Sheriff was substandard.

Similarly, in the mid-1980s both the Pittsfield and Milan police departments decided to close their dispatch centers and have their officers dispatched by Washtenaw Central Dispatch, which was essentially run by the sheriff. By the early 1990s both of those departments had discontinued that arrangement and reopened their own dispatch centers for the same reason that Saline instituted its own dispatch center—the serice provided by the Sheriff's Department was inadequate.

To me, the lesson from those experiences applies not only to dispatch centers, but across the range of all serices. Locally provided services have existed since the first European immigrants arrived in the Western Hemisphere. They continue to exist for a reason. They are the best way to deliver essential services to the people who live in a well-defined homogeneous communities. Local communities should not let the state blackmail them into giving up a long-proven method of providing services to their residents.

Linda TerHaar

Lacking specifics of how a consolidation would work, I am not willing to identify particular candidates. One way to find possibilities for Saline would be to look at ideas from successful collaborations elsewhere. In general, I believe the city needs to be open to considering new ways to provide services, including consolidation.

Such changes should only be made after thorough, respectful discussion and careful consideration of facts and data.

Jim Peters

I would prefer Saline remain independent. But if we can't, other local cities have demonstrated considerable proactive efforts associated with establishing collaborative arrangements with other communities and partners.

Some examples are using resources from the state and county such as personal property auditing, elections, joint purchasing agreements and sharing services like school elections, fire department training, senior and youth assistance and various police services.

Additional sharing opportunities include parks and recreation programs, public works, human resources and benefits. We need to look at all options but I would consider looking at police and fire as a last resort.