Ferrysburg passes bike path millage, 4 changes to city charter

FERRYSBURG, MI - Voters in the city of Ferrysburg passed five ballot proposals in Tuesday's general election, including four changes to the city's charter and a bike path millage.

Five additional proposals that would have made changes to the city charter failed.

The ballot proposals to change to the city charter that passed include:

to change the number of nominating petitions a person may sign

require the city clerk to contact any candidate whose petition is found invalid by multiple forms of communication and permit any deficiency to be corrected within five calendar days of notification to the candidate

require an elected official take the oath of office before the start of the first organizational meeting and an appointed official take the oath of office before the next scheduled meeting

change the time for the organizational meeting of the city council after a city election to 7 p.m. from 8 p.m.

A new bike bath millage was also passed to help maintain the city's bike path.

The tax millage is for 0.2000 mills for a period of 10 years, 2025-2034, inclusive, for bike and walking path maintenance and would tax $0.20 per thousand dollars of taxable valuation.

The estimated additional taxes the city would collect if the 0.2000 mills is approved and levied in 2025 is approximately $52,102.

The proposals that failed would have:

reduced the number of registered electors required for a nominating petition

removed the requirement that the city clerk write the determination of the validity of the nominating petitions on the face of the nominating petition

restated the city charter in gender-neutral terms

increased the compensation of city council members and the mayor

compensated the mayor and city council members $50 each time they attend each of the bimonthly, regularly scheduled city council meetings

The multiple changes to the charter stemmed from last year's election challenges.

Last year, the council struggled with what to do next after no names were on the city's election ballot. The city's election commission voted last August to toss out all nine candidates' nominating petitions because City Clerk Amber Schaner had not written on them (initialed) that she had certified them, a specific rule under the city's charter. That forced candidates to file as write-ins.