Bay City residents weighing in on what they'd like to see for the city's future. From casino's to economic changes everYthing was on the table at tonights town hall meeting.
Dozens of Bay City residents were at the State theatre Monday evening for a town hall meeting. In attendance, the mayor, commissioners, and city manager. Among the most important issues, finances.
City manager Robert Bellman says, " We're going to give an overview of the audit that was completed. We've had an increase in the general fund balance of about four-hundred thousand."
The city finished the last fiscal year with a surplus of just over two-hundred thousand dollars. The current fiscal year is expected to finish with a 4.5 million dollar surplus of total revenue. Bay City's largest expenditure is public safety. A total of 11.2 million dollars is being spent on police and fire fighters. It may be money well spent because there were no homicides last year.
But, the possibility of new revenue was on the mind of some residents, specifically the possibility of a casino. Resident Charles Congdon would like to see a casino in Bay City saying, " Every place that the casino's have gone in the community has benefited tremendously."
Current state law won't allow the casino at this time but deputy city manager Steve Black says the city could always take a page from cities like Detroit where the law was adjusted to allow casino's. Black admits the possibility is extremely unlikely.
