Archive - May 21, 2008

By BENJAMIN RAY
Herald Special Writer

The baseball field resembles a movie set, almost like one can picture the crowd the way the Little Leaguer would when he walks onto the field with a bat.

John Rowe mows the outfield on a sunny yet windy afternoon, taking care of the field he has worked four years to create. He's the kind of guy foreclosure shouldn't happen to -- the regular guy who just met one hardship after another.

But it is, the dream of home and property ownership dashed for yet another Lenawee County resident this year. The numbers are staggering -- as of May 19, 260 homes in the county alone had been foreclosed, putting Lenawee on track for 720 by the end of the year, at the current rate.

By contrast, 543 homes were foreclosed in 2007 and 400 in 2006. By starker contrast, only 46 homes met the same fate in 1998, a decade ago.

Rowe, 45 and a single dad, lives at 8710 Mills Macon Road in Ridgeway, just northeast of Tecumseh and still in the school district, and the high school baseball teams once used his field for practice, as did traveling leagues.

In late April, though, Rowe was forced to leave, and he now is renting a house and trying to make a go of his landscaping business, Left Field Farms. After climbing off his mower on this particular afternoon, the wind blowing the clothes around his lanky frame, Rowe gets philosophical.

"This affected me so much psychologically that I never asked for help ... I didn't want to have (banks) say no anymore," he said.

Goodbye to the dream

Certainly, critics will say people deserve foreclosures if they don't make payments, overextended themselves or lock into shady deals without reading the fine print.

By DEB WUETHRICH

Tecumseh City Council members will have to reconsider a motion at its next meeting on what method to use to bill residents for repayment of a bond involving a $2 million debt for a tertiary treatment upgrade after a Monday night vote on the measure resulted in a tie. Council members Mary Deming, Gary Naugle, and Larry Van Alstine voted Yes on a motion to approve a per unit charge, while council members Jack Baker, Pat Housekeeper, and Mayor Harvey Schmidt voted No. City Council member Dick Johnson was absent.

During a study session two weeks ago, City Manager Kevin Welch outlined the two alternatives that are available for repayment of the SRF Bond, which would collect a debt charge for repayment of the Tertiary Treatment Plant upgrade over a 20 year term at an interest rate of 1.67%. The DEQ mandated improvements are nearly completed and scheduled to go online by the end of June.

A flat rate debt service charge is a consistent rate set per meter size and is determined by calculating the proportion of sewer charges in previous years, based upon number of meters and total volume. Residents with the same size meter would pay the same amount, regardless of his or her consumption. Individuals with a one-inch or smaller meter would pay $6.76 per quarter and graduated flat fees charged for larger meters based on size.
A per unit cost of sewer charge is a rate charged per unit of sewer quantity used and billed. The rate is determined by dividing the annual bond payment by the total units of sewer charge billed, with residents paying based upon consumption with a 45 cent per unit rate to be charged.

By DEB WUETHRICH

Representatives of Albert Kahn Associates shared a Master Plan and some design guidelines for the Tecumseh Business and Technology Park with members of the Tecumseh City Council and some Tecumseh Planning Commission members during a Study Session prior to Monday night’s council meeting. Tim Walden and Matthew West gave a Power Point presentation and also reviewed a Development Feasibility Report that had been presented in December.

“This was just another step in the process,” said Tecumseh City Manager Kevin Welch, who said the review was like a snapshot of strategies that might be undertaken to help market the park. Albert Kahn Associates was hired after the city received a Community Development Block Grant allocation last year from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation to conduct a feasibility analysis. The purpose of the study was to consider the local physical and economic factors and to determine the best use of the site for the community.

The study concluded that a Business and Technology Campus offers the city the best opportunity to be proactive in the attraction of new companies while planning development in a cohesive, step-by-step fashion. The attraction of new companies is expected to generate jobs, draw new residents, promote private investment, raise property values and aid in Tecumseh’s transition into the knowledge economy, according to the feasibility analysis the company conducted.