Cityscape

Update: Freep, News Slam Wayne Communities For Withholding Some Zoo Tax Dollars

January 21, 2013, 7:32 AM

News:  This is a sleazy practice, and no amount of rationalization by those participating in this bait-and-switch scheme can justify it. . . . If Wayne County communities had wanted a special tax to beautify their downtowns, they should have asked voters to approve one.

Zoo officials tell the Freep that they get all all the 0.10-mill tax from Oakland and Macomb counties -- but not from Wayne County.

The Freep reports:

Since 2008, communities such as Grosse Pointe, Dearborn, Taylor and Van Buren Township have diverted a fraction of zoo-tax revenues to spend in their downtowns, on everything from a dog park and sidewalks to decorative pavers and streetlights, according to community officials.

In a regional snit conducted mostly hush-hush and behind the scenes until now, the communities repeatedly have said -- in official meetings and correspondence -- that they're entitled to capture some of the zoo tax.


Read more:  Detroit Free Press


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