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Photo by Kym Muckler
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Milan City Administrator Dan Bishop took over in 2006, facing a harsh financial reality that required him to cut more than $600,000 from the city's budget.
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1. Milan Struggles To Meet Obligations
Topping the list of stories in 2006 was the city of Milan's struggle to come up with more than $600,000 from its general fund to make a looming $940,000 bond payment on the wastewater treatment plant.
In May, the City Council approved a budget with a 0.25-mill tax cut for residents, but five months later was scrambling to hack its $5.7 million budget by at least 9 percent in an effort to compensate for much lower-than-anticipated new sewer tap-in fees.
In 2005, the council approved a 20-year, $13.6 million bond to expand the wastewater treatment plant and planned to cover the bond payments, in large part, with tap-in fees estimated to approach $750,000 in light of expected new housing growth. It was clear by late summer, however, that the housing market in Milan was sputtering as no less than four residential development projects, representing thousands of new Milan homes, stalled.
Rather than collecting $750,000 in tap-in fees, a meager $50,000 came into the municipal coffers. The shortfall left the city's budget reeling.
Worsening the city's financial outlook was a second bond payment of more than $1 million due the following budget cycle.
In November, the council took action under the direction of new City Administrator Dan Bishop to trim more than $400,000 from the budget, including the elimination of two positions, cutting $27,000 intended for a new back-up generator for City Hall and $20,000 slotted for a new surveillance camera for the police department.
The council also approved suspending the Retiree Health Savings Plan, changing the sidewalk repair program from city-paid to a special assessment, and eliminated its $45,000 subsidy to the Downtown Development Authority, effectively cutting the post of a DDA director.
Plans were initiated to sell the Milan Transit Building and a city-owned house on Neckel Court and possibly the Milan Day Care property with the hope of generating more than $1 million. Water and sewer rates are expected to rise.
The city also offered eight employees an early retirement package expected to save the city more than $200,000 and is considering privatizing some services, such as landscaping and snow removal.
By the end of November, Bishop told council, "I'm feeling pretty good about where we are right now, pending something else happening … This is as tight as we're going to get. There is no breathing room."
2. Changes Could Help Local Economy
The year started out with good news concerning a new Toyota Technical Center in York Township and ended with hopeful news about the future of Milan's Automotive Components Holdings plant.
In March, York Township officials inked a development agreement with the Japanese automaker Toyota for a 690-acre parcel that will house the new Toyota Technical Center.
It took about a year from start to finish, but in May Toyota closed the land deal with the state, paying $11 million for the site of the former state hospital off Platt Road.
Some 400 current Toyota employees will relocate to the new technical center and an expected 400 new employees will be on the payroll by 2010. State road improvement grants totaling up to $5.4 million were awarded to improve roads leading to the new facility.
The facility represents a $187 million investment by Toyota and the automaker unveiled plans to construct an additional 180,000-square-foot safety test facility at the site, representing an additional investment of $37 million.
Seen as a viable economic boom for the area, many expect to see spin-off growth as a result of the Toyota facility, which could include many of the outside suppliers that currently contract with the manufacturer. The Milan Area School District also hopes to see increased enrollment as a result of Toyota employees relocating to the area.
The company broke ground in September at a ceremony attended by a host of dignitaries, including Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
The first phase of the project is scheduled to be completed in 2008.
Even as good news developed over the Toyota Technical Center, the future of Milan's former Visteon plant grew dark as word came down from Ford Motor Co. that the 23 facilities overseen by Automotive Components Holdings would be closed or sold by the end of 2008.
In October, the City Council granted ACH a one-year $9 million tax abatement to invest in the plant to make it more attractive to potential buyers. At the same time, ACH was pursuing through the Michigan Tax Tribunal dramatic reductions in the assessed property value of its facilities. Seeking a reduction of up to 80 percent, a ruling in ACH's favor could cost the city nearly $1 million in revenue. The issue remains before the Tax Tribunal and may not be decided until well into next year.
The Milan plant opened more than 30 years ago and has fallen from employing a high of 2,000 workers to just around 700. Accounting for 30 percent or roughly $1.5 million of the city's revenue, the plant's closure would devastate the city's budget and put possibly hundreds out of work.
"The plant's closing would leave us only one question," City Administrator Dan Bishop said in October, "How would we survive?"
That question may not now have to be asked with the news in December that an Illinois manufacturer, Flex-N-Gate, had signed a tentative agreement with ACH to purchase the plant.
Flex-N-Gate, which was founded in 1956, manufactures metal and plastic automotive components and assemblies such as bumpers, grills, hinges, instrument panels, pedal systems and running boards.
Bishop called the news as the year drew to an end that the Milan plant was not destined to close the "peace of mind we were really looking for."
3. City Hires New Administrator, Chief
For the first three months of 2006, Milan had no full-time city administrator and no permanent police chief. In the final months of 2005, the city's administrator and police chief resigned under a cloud of conflict and controversy. Soon after, the city attorney announced his firm would not renew its contract with the city and the director of the Milan Transit Authority resigned.
For five months, the city ran on the backs of city employees putting in extra hours and picking up the slack as the City Council cast a net for a new administrator and police chief.
Near the end of March, after culling two dozen applicants down to four candidates, the Milan City Council selected Dan Bishop to take the reins as city administrator. Bishop was the former assistant city manager and development director for Sterling Heights. Bishop stepped into the city administrator's office April 3.
Three days later, the council moved to fill the police chief's position with the hiring of Jeffrey Lewis, a law enforcement officer with 28 years of experience and two children in Milan schools.
The hiring of Bishop and Lewis brought an end to one of the more tumultuous periods in the city's administration.
4. Milan Mourns Luminaries
In the fading days of summer 2006, Milan lost its premier historian and its first and only poet laureate within nine days of each another.
Richard McMullen, who died July 20 at the age of 80, composed more than 800 poems and published his first poetry collection, "Chicken Beacon," in 1975. He went on to publish "Trying to Get Out" in 1981 and "Like Heaven" in 1993. His last collection, "Not only Love: New and Collected Poems 1975-2003," was published in 2005.
In 1983, McMullen was named Milan's official poet laureate and was inducted into the Milan High School Hall of Fame in 2005. He was a 1943 Milan High School graduate and spent 32 years as an English teacher in area schools.
McMullen spent the majority of his life in Milan. Born in 1926, his only absence from the town since early childhood was while he was serving as a hospital corpsman in the U.S. Navy during World War II and the Korean War. He moved back in 1964 with his wife, Beverly, and into a cream-colored house where they raised three children.
He was a regular participant of the Tuesday Open Mic Poetry Readings at the Lighthouse Coffee Co. in downtown Milan and could often be seen after the event counseling a group of people on their poems.
At his funeral, more than 200 people crowded the pews at Milan People's Presbyterian Church.
Nine days after McMullen passed, Warren Hale, Milan's most dedicated historian and founder of the Milan Area Historical Society, succumbed to cancer at the age of 76.
In addition to founding the Milan Historical Society, it was the result of his enthusiasm and passion for local lore that the community has the Hack House Museum and the Old Fire Barn in downtown Milan. He was also instrumental in the acquisition and restoration of a 1937 Ford fire truck.
A consummate story teller, Hale began writing a weekly column on Milan history titled "Way Back When" for the local paper in 1978. His last column for The Milan News-Leader ran in the July 27 edition, two days before his passing. Hale never used a typewriter or computer to compose his column. Each article was written in longhand on notepaper with a pencil.
"I can ride into Milan on a stagecoach on Plank Road from Monroe. I can feel what it felt like in my mind, and I can visualize what it looked like and smelled like," Hale said in a Milan News-Leader story that ran the week of his death. "That's one of the things I enjoy about writing the column."
A lifelong resident of Milan, Hale joined the Milan Police Department in 1967 and was named its police chief in 1972, a position he held until 1985. In subsequent years, he served as a U.S. marshal, chief administrator to the Monroe County Sheriff's Department and sold real estate in the area.
In Hale's obituary, it was written he "did not just live in Milan, he lived for Milan."
5. Milan High School Grad Killed In Iraq
The war in Iraq touched too close to home for the Milan community when Marine Cpl. Gary Koehler, a 2003 Milan High School graduate, was killed Nov. 1 by a roadside bomb while on a combat mission in Iraq's Al Anbar province.
He was 21, and just weeks away from coming home for the remainder of his service. A TOW missile operator, he was on his second tour of duty in Iraq. He was wounded in the leg during fighting in Fallujah on his first tour two years ago, but chose to return to active duty instead of coming home.
Koehler was well-liked and popular in high school, where he played varsity baseball and football.
He joined the Marines after graduating from high school with plans to attend college on the GI Bill after he got out. Koehler was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
He volunteered to serve as point man for a 25-man special mission in Iraq's Al Anbar province when he came upon an improvised explosive device. According to accounts, the men behind Koehler heard him shout out the warning, "IED!" The young Marine's last words alerted his fellow soldiers to the danger. The Marine beside Koehler was blinded in the right eye, but the other 23 men were unhurt.
The news of Koehler's death spread quickly through town, leaving many numb with disbelief and grief.
Members of his graduating class tied yellow ribbons to every lamppost on the high school campus. In the front window of the Milan Bakery, proprietor Charlotte Thompson placed a framed high school graduation photo of Koehler as part of a tribute she was designing in honor of Veterans Day.
On Nov. 10, more than 500 of Koehler's friends and family attended his military funeral at the First United Methodist Church of Ypsilanti, where in February Koehler and his wife of eight months planned to have a formal wedding ceremony.
Plans remain under way to erect a permanent memorial honoring Koehler at Milan High School. Donations for the memorial may be sent to Milan High School Principal Ron Reed.
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