Many, years ago, I had a boss who hung a sign on his office door, saying:
‘When entering this office, never utter the phrase, “Well, we’ve never done it that way before.”’
That’s a message that stuck with me—and it’s guided my work on behalf of this community!
The Township’s role in Economic Development is about creating an environment that supports business development, activity and sustainability. We can’t create that environment without understanding the climate in which we operate.
50 years of being a growing community meant that the Township didn’t have to fight for development–it just came our way. Along with it, came a steady stream of new tax base and new revenue.
What changed?
- Our land area became 95% developed.
- Around the same time, the global economic crisis of 2008 hit Macomb County and Clinton Township hard, and came with a precipitous decline in home values, personal income, and tax revenue.
- We fought our way back, but we’ve also aged as a community. Our older neighborhoods are now sixty-five years old, and our newer neighborhoods are 20 to 35 years old.
Our aging infrastructure underground (sewer system) received the attention in needed, beginning in 2003, largely because of highly-publicized raw sewage dumped into the Clinton River and out to Lake St. Clair. Everyone took notice, including the State of Michigan, which placed Clinton Township under a consent judgement. Around $40 million dollars later, and we’ll soon be back to routine maintenance.
Our side-streets, roads, neighborhoods and commercial corridors now call to us, yet full recognition on what we are facing has been slow to develop, and complacency is too common.
Economic Development, is the way we can grow our tax base, and then do more, without everyone having to pay more. But we need to do it without anyone making us do it, and we can’t do it the way we’ve always done it before.
As your Treasurer, I’ve pushed for a Township Government that is Accountable to you, and has been a Leader in the Fight for Economic Development.
Paul Gieleghem’s efforts included:
- Fought Against No-Bid Contracts.
- Called for the former Planning Director to be fired after admitting, in the Dean Reynolds trial, that he was a part of the fraud conspiracy.
- Served on the Committee to hire a Planning Director with actual experience, working in a community in need of re-development.
- Voted to create a first-ever, Clinton Township Strategic Plan and served on the Committee to choose the company that the Township hired.
- Worked with Trustee Pearl and other colleagues to propose that the Township hire an Economic Development Director, specifically responsible for ramping up our business retention and attraction efforts, and then sat on the interview and hiring committee. Then served on the interview and hiring committee.
- Voted to approve the new Planning Director’s proposal for a Groesbeck Corridor Study.
- Voted to restore the Gratiot Avenue DDA (Downtown Development Authority) after the Township inadvertently let it lapse, losing crucial revenue.
- Chair the Property Disposition Committee that has ramped up efforts to sell Township owned properties, making money off the sale, saving money by no longer having to maintain them, and generating additional revenue when they get developed and back on the tax rolls.
- Chair the Conservation Committee, where we actively goes out to improve and plant trees in our parks, making us a more attractive community.
- Pushed for grant dollars from the State to buy parcels that we can eventually turn into parks.
Moving forward, I know that we have our work cut out for us—and I’m up to the challenge. But we can’t just do things the way we’ve always done them. We can’t jump for the first investor who wants to throw the Township a bone without thought to sustainability. And we can’t just play follow-the-leader, when it’s clear there really isn’t a viable plan.