Saline City Council Election: Candidate Jim Dell'Orco Answers Our Questions

The Saline Post sent questions to the six candidates running for Saline City Council. In this piece, we publish the answers of Jim Dell'Orco, who previously served two terms on council. Voters will elect three people to council in Tuesday's election.

Why are you running for City Council?

As an expression of my gratitude, I’ve felt compelled to give back to this community throughout the entire duration of time I’ve lived here by volunteering in various capacities through multiple groups and organizations. Additionally, I’ve previously served on the City Council for 4 years (two consecutive terms) from January 2020 through December 2023. Having stepped away from my role as a council member to work through some family matters, I would very much like to continue the hard work I was a key part of in my previous tenure alongside several of my former colleagues that remain on the current council today.

Why should voters choose you?

In my previous tenure, within months of being elected, my leadership ability was tested and tremendously challenged with the task of navigating the city through the difficult times of the Covid-19 pandemic. Through that experience, I put in the time and effort to make myself available to anyone and everyone that reached out to me with questions and concerns. I showed up to every meeting prepared and was willing to ask the difficult questions where the public demanded answers. I forged meaningful relationships with City staff and department heads to solve problems and get things done. I advocated tirelessly for fair and living wages for those that are employed by the City of Saline. I served on several boards and commissions that gave me a broad depth of exposure to various aspects of Municipal Governance. Equally as important, I am passionate about the job and remain focused on the needs and concerns of the members of this community.

Please share your top three issues and how you plan to address them.

My top priority is to sufficiently address the issues that residents have been having with discoloration of their tap water in some areas. While the city has been aggressively pursuing a solution to this issue, I feel that some recent information presented to DPW regarding some procedural changes to how we go about hydrant flushing can dramatically improve the removal of iron sentiment that accumulates in portions of the infrastructure.

I would also like to play an instrumental role in facilitating the realization of the proposed downtown gathering space initiative. This is an exciting project that carries the potential to revitalize Saline’s downtown landscape, bringing more people downtown to bolster local businesses and fill vacant store fronts.

Finally, I would like to get back to the council to help finish what we’ve started with the renovation of our city’s wastewater treatment plant. Construction is currently underway and scheduled to wrap up at about this time next year. For all three of these projects, I would like to work closely and collaboratively with my council colleagues, our city manager, and the department heads to fully execute these goals and tie up any loose ends that may crop up along the way.

Are you happy with the direction of the City of Saline? Please explain your answer.

While there is always room for improvement, and we will invariably face numerous challenges ahead, I sincerely believe the city is firmly planted on a good trajectory moving forward. Some key changes have been made to administrative and staff personnel that will have a positive impact on the city’s building department, the department of public works, and the assessor’s office. I will state for the record, however, that the matriculation of our former community development director is a tremendous loss to the community. That said, his innumerable accomplishments and contributions to strategic visioning and the city’s master plan positioned us well for spirited growth and economic development. Long overdue upgrades are currently underway to the city’s aging infrastructure and wastewater treatment plant that will address a multitude of ongoing issues and citizen complaints.

Can the city afford to operate the Saline Rec Center? If so, specify how. If not, how should the city handle it?

The current funding model of the Saline Rec Center is not sustainable. The cold, hard reality is that there is simply too much money being siphoned out of the general fund to subsidize ongoing maintenance to the aging building, pool area, and day-to-day operations. To preserve this asset, the city will have to partner with other entities and the surrounding communities to make the necessary upgrades and add amenities to attract additional patrons to increase the revenue stream from annual memberships.

At a recent work meeting held on October 20th, the Rec Center Task Force brought forward their recommendation to “begin formal discussions with the Saline Area Schools and other potential partners regarding a potential regional or district wide property tax millage funding campaign that would allocate specific financial support to the Saline Recreation Center”.

If elected to council, I will endorse and support this initiative. Visitation tracking has shown that approximately 39% of the users are City residents, with the balance coming from the surrounding townships and predominantly within the Saline School District. The Rec Center serves a regional population, making City-only funding inequitable and unsustainable. A regional funding model, such as a school district-wide millage, offers the most fair and impactful path forward. Moreover, it will place the decision whether to preserve this asset firmly in the hands of residents.

Some residents want to save the Saline River Dam and Mill Pond. Others want to remove the dam. What are your considerations and where do you stand on the issue?

Irrespective of whether the council votes in favor of removal or preservation, maintaining the dam until said decision is made is not optional. The dam must be inspected and maintained as mandated by state regulations which are currently evolving. I cannot, in good conscience, vote in favor of removing the dam unless there is assurance that sufficient grants and funding resources are awarded and allocated to the redevelopment of Millpond Park. Thus far, I’ve not seen any detailed analysis of what it would cost to redevelop the park after removing the dam let alone where the money will come from.

If there is a viable and creative plan put forward to connect Mill Pond to Curtiss Park that enhances pedestrian access to additional features in both, with sufficient external funding sources, I can see the public getting excited about something like that. As It’s been discussed thus far, the plan for the park post-hoc is cursory at best. A landmark decision of this magnitude with such a broad impact on the community should be put to the voters and I will advocate fiercely to get this initiative as a proposal on the ballot for you all to decide.

Does downtown have enough parking? If not, how would you create more parking spaces to help people access the local businesses? Tell us your thoughts.

While I would not consider parking, or ostensible lack thereof, a major issue for the Saline community, I am certainly open to looking for creative ways to work with current landowners and commercial businesses to create more spaces where they can be obtained. I don’t feel this is a particularly pressing issue because when we have major events like Summerfest, Oktoberfest, Trunk or Treat, and Holiday Parades, these events are well attended and successful. When surface lots are full, folks manage to find street side parking in surrounding neighborhoods to get downtown when something engaging and exciting enough is happening to set aside the minor inconvenience of having to walk a fair bit to get to their desired place. I would argue that any town has a much bigger problem if everyone could pull up within 50 feet of any location in the city at any time of day.

Taxes. There is no end in sight to the potential millages we see coming. And that doesn’t include rising property values and significant water/sewer rate increases, not to mention other forms of inflation. Can the city provide tax relief? If so, how?

Direct reductions or exemptions for eligible groups, deferral programs, and economic development incentives are just a few mechanisms we can explore on council to help offset the rising cost of living here in Saline. Most of this would require participation from the state and county level to help finance these types of initiatives. There is no getting around the reality that Washtenaw County has become an exceedingly expensive place to live. This is primarily driven by market conditions, demand for new housing, and the assessed values of real estate in the region. Add in top-tier school districts, as we have here in Saline and throughout the county, you have all the makings of an incredibly desirable place to live.

With respect to water/sewer rate increases, the only way to mitigate that now is to attract new businesses to the industrial park and expand our housing footprint to undeveloped areas in the neighboring townships via annexation agreements. This will add additional rate payers to the system, thereby spreading those costs over a greater number of people.

We’ve had some low-key political scandals (Fire Board and City Manager search, to name two) in our city. How will you hold others accountable and ensure political shenanigans cease and transparency and thoughtfulness prevail?

I’ll approach this concern with the view that we have had some controversy, as opposed to scandals, over important hiring decisions that will have a broad impact on the quality of services provided to the community for years to come. This is a function of differing opinions on council over how best to move the city forward, and the need to develop unwavering consensus around establishing processes and procedures that yield a more consistent approach to both the hiring and removal of city employees in leadership roles.

In my view, the best way to confer transparency on any process in the city is to ask the focused and difficult questions at the meetings on public record that bring the public into the conversation. The very reason we have the Open Meetings Act is to give the public a fair and equal opportunity to weigh in on the issues and question the decisions being made on their behalf. The council must adhere to these principles and self-governing policies. On several occasions, I’ve gone against the grain and challenged prevailing opinions being discussed during meetings when I felt it was necessary and important.

In your view, should the city buy the Curtiss Mansion? Tell us why or why not?

The Curtiss Mansion is a treasured piece of real estate and a crown jewel of the Saline Community. In my view, the city should do everything it can within reason to preserve this piece of history to stand in perpetuity for both current residents and the generations that follow. Currently, there are no historical protections for the estate and without securing those protections it could potentially fall into the wrong hands and be lost forever.

We should take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ensure that the appropriate deed restrictions are put in place to protect the property from development that robs the city of its charm and character. That said, we need to find a way to put these protections in place in parallel with a plan to move the asset into either public/private partnership or private ownership before it becomes an overwhelming burden to taxpayers.

Explain whether you think a conservative resident in Saline could feel they were getting a fair shake if accused of a civil rights violation, when the judging body, the Civil Rights Commission, always had 40 percent of its members from the town’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee?

The Human Rights Commission was formed while updating the City of Saline’s Non-Discrimination Ordinance. I know the folks who worked on these updates did a lot of research into what other municipalities have done with theirs. The update of creating the HRC was partially modeled after the one in Chelsea.

The group is made up of two serving council members, two members of the DEI Committee, and the City Manager. Folks who serve on the DEI Committee are natural picks to help with matters of Civil Rights. The task of the group is to make recommendations, not judgments, based on the evidence presented. So, Conservative, Liberal, or any other political leanings don’t change the laws of the federal, state, or local government—or, specifically in this case, the city’s NDO.

A couple of things to note are that HRC Members will recuse themselves if there is any conflict of interest. The other point I want to mention is that the Claimant & Respondent can both speak or have representatives speak on their behalf. Before the NDO updates, there was no way for Respondents to “defend” themselves.

This makes the entire process more transparent and gives everyone involved the ability to speak up. This has been incredibly successful in Chelsea and other cities that use a similar approach, and I applaud those who worked on these changes to make the important decisions that were needed.

Saline has been compared to neighboring cities regarding downtown amenities, shops, restaurants and curb appeal. What are your views of downtown, and what changes would you support, or things you'd keep the same?

This is one aspect of our community where I feel substantive improvements are needed. Vacant storefronts and underutilized spaces are hurting downtown. As I made reference to in an earlier question, I am very much in favor of the Greenspace Initiative downtown gathering space proposal currently underway.

I had an opportunity to sit down for lunch with the developer this past week. It’s now clear that many of the necessary pieces to make this possible are coming together through the hard work of so many people involved in the project.

I truly believe this change to downtown carries the potential to be transformative for Saline. Bringing foot traffic downtown and creating a space where folks can escape the disruption of Michigan Avenue will revitalize the downtown experience.

The city council decided that trans women should use the women’s changing room at the Rec Center. At the council table, the Parks and Rec Director said that if a woman is uncomfortable with getting changed in front of a trans woman, she should use the private room. That’s a decision that left some females feeling like second-class citizens. Do you agree with the decision? Can you think of solutions that don’t alienate some people?

Of the many pressing issues and challenges ahead for the rec center, the trans community is not one of them. I feel what this question is really getting at is the lack of privacy for all members and guests of the Rec Center that have experienced a sense of feeling exposed to others in public spaces. Locker rooms are inherently vulnerable places.

In my discussions with our current Parks and Rec Director, I’ve learned that they’ve always followed internal policy for public facilities and that it’s consistent with how these very same issues are treated by Saline Area Schools.

The best solution to make the Rec Center a welcoming and safe place that’s inclusive of everyone wanting to use the facility is to add a couple partition enclosed stalls with a pull-down bench thereby providing private changing areas within the locker room that everyone can use to avoid the issues of anyone feeling uncomfortable or alienated.

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