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Politics & Government

Huntington Woods Approves 2012-13 Budget with Positive Outlook

Officials say this year's financial plan reflects balance and recovery and includes a tree replacement plan.

At Tuesday evening’s Huntington Woods City Commission meeting, the biggest item on the agenda was approval of the new budget.

City Commission unanimously approved the propsed 2012-13 city budget that reflects a 2 percent increase from last year. The budget for the next fiscal year has been set for $6,613,977 and City Manager Alex Allie, along with commissioners, believe the outlook is positive.

“The good news is, the budget appears to be leveling off,” Allie said. “Hopefully there is some bright economic news on the horizon. Let’s hope the recession is over and Michigan is in a recovery mode.”

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While no one participated in the public hearing on the city budget at before it was approved at the meeting, Allie echoed that the budget had been efficiently publicized.

“The budget has been available for public inspection for approximately one month, we had three meetings regarding the budget and have it pretty well ironed out,” he said.

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Mayor Ronald Gillham commented on the absence of public feedback at the meeting, saying, “I take it to assume that people have a great deal of confidence in us to do the right thing. We’ve been doing well over the past few years even though it was a rough time the last few years.”

Allie added that the city projects it is the final year revenue will go down and that property values have finally stabilized, reflecting progress.

Tree replacement plan added

The approved budget did have one modification to create a five-year tree replacement program in the capital planning fund, Allie explained.

Based on organizations like the, Allie said a five-year plan was able to be developed in order to catch up on the 340 trees that suffered from the Emerald Ash Borer plague.

The goal is to plan 60-80 more trees by fall, Allie said.

“Hopefully ‘The Woods’ will stay ‘The Woods’ and we won’t lose any further ground.”

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