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Among the party primaries for state office, Livonia voters will see a local roads millage on their ballots this summer.
The city is asking to levy 0.89 mills for 10 years during the Aug. 2 election. The tax would replace an expiring roads millage voters passed in 2012 and would require residents to pay a little more than they already do — the current millage rate is 0.8773 — for local roads. A mill is $1 for every $1,000 of taxable value on a property.
Todd Zilincik, Livonia’s city engineer, said the local roads millage plays a critical role in the city’s infrastructure efforts. This year, the millage is helping pay for neighborhood improvements and, the city hopes, would pay for work on some city-controlled major roads like Gill Road, West Chicago Street and St. Francis Street in future years.
“My goal is to focus on the residential streets but also chip away at some of the industrial streets and major roads,” Zilincik said. “We’ve been tackling Newburgh Road here and there; we did Levan Road four or five years ago and we’ve done some patching on Stark Road.”
Should the millage proposal fail, the city would nearly halve its road work efforts. The city is responsible for 60.5 miles of major roads and about 312 miles of local streets.
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According to the city, proceeds from the 2012-approved tax paid for 74 miles worth of road repairs, nearly 5,000 trees and more than 5,400 sidewalk repairs since 2012. The current millage generates about $3,552,000 annually.
The millage is not intended to fund repairs to county and state roads. Most of Livonia’s largest roads like Haggerty, Merriman and Five Mile fall under the jurisdiction of Wayne County. Having a local roads tax does, however, allow Livonia to partner with Wayne County to expedite repairs on county roads.
For instance, the city payed about 9% of a project Wayne County is doing on Merriman Road this summer.
“Our goal is to perform asset management where we’re doing maintenance to some streets, base repairs and resurface on some streets and others are reconstruct,” Zilincik said. “We want people to have a smoother ride as they’re heading into some of the subdivisions.”
People can register to vote or request an absentee ballot by visiting the Livonia City Clerk’s office, which is at city hall on the corner of Five Mile and Farmington Roads.
Contact reporter Shelby Tankersley at stankersle@hometownlife.com or 248-305-0448. Follow her on Twitter @shelby_tankk.
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