By JAMES MITCHELL
Sunday Times Newspapers
SOUTHGATE — Starting with his first inaugural address in November 2009, Mayor Joseph Kuspa has somehow found reasons for optimism at each year’s State of the City presentation.
In spite of financially challenging years, Kuspa had consistently predicted better economic days for the city and region, and recognized a community that had demonstrated pride in itself through difficult times.
As 2015 gets underway, Kuspa’s State of the City address Wednesday looked back on what may have been the most difficult year of all, for reasons that had nothing to do with recession economics.
“It was the first time in our history that the city of Southgate was part of a National Disaster Declaration by our Federal Emergency Management Agency and president of the United States,” Kuspa said. The historic August rains resulted in the region suffering billions of dollars in damages. Federal aid was forthcoming, Kuspa said, but first the city had to take care of itself. How that was accomplished was, Kuspa said, a tribute to the community.
“In the crucial few days following the storm we had a critical concern, the removal of debris from our neighborhood,” Kuspa said. “We removed an estimated 45 days of normal collection in just 10 days.”
Rather than celebrate the success – of a local government and residents working as a team when needed – Kuspa said the disaster prompted future programs “in an attempt to avert the next disaster.”
Among other initiatives announced Wednesday was a pilot program, courtesy of a Wayne County grant, to install 100 back flow preventers in the houses of senior citizens, with additional funding being sought to expand the program.
Surviving a storm was just one of the city’s accomplishments in 2014. Kuspa’s address – hosted by the Southgate Rotary Club at Holiday Inn on North Line Road – reviewed a year that he called “transformative,” a fitting time to renew a covenant he’d made when he first took office of prudent stewardship, collaboration and cooperation.
On the business front, Kuspa described the $8 million investment being made to transform the former American Sunroof headquarters site into a Holiday Inn Express; hospitality expansions include the rebranding of the current Holiday Inn as the Southgate Wyndham Gardens.
These businesses, Kuspa said, will generate traffic on newly-updated roads that include the expanded Brest Road, the first new road in the city in nearly a decade. Connecting AJM Packaging’s main campus with Allen Road will, Kuspa said, ease the company’s future expansion after having added 100 new positions.
Last week’s luncheon honored several business of the year winners, including new business Biggby Coffee on Fort Street, Pet Supplies Plus on Eureka Road for façade improvements, and Southgate Dental for community engagement.
On the downside, the Wayne County Building in the former Home Quarters at North Line and I-75 remains, Kuspa said, “a shadow on our progress.” Recent communications with newly-elected county officials have, he said, begun a process to address the longstanding problem.
Overall Kuspa said the past year had been one that, “witnessed development in every corner of Southgate, spearheaded by our Downtown Development District along Eureka Road.” Last year’s groundbreaking at Market Center Park in the footprint of the former Montgomery Ward store should result, by late summer, in live music at the city’s first amphitheater.
“The opening of the park will be an important step in returning the Southgate Shopping Center to its status as the premiere place for families to gather,” Kuspa said.
Details of the first-ever summer outing will, he said, be released soon.
Large-scale projects, Kuspa said, had opened the door to a host of developments, including the Genthe Chevrolet purchase of the former Melton Motors with plans for a Honda Power Sports retail center, the first of its kind in Michigan.
All told more than $5 million in private investment was made to the city in 2014, and Kuspa said continued investments in infrastructure, both roads and below ground, were part of a 10 percent increase seen in overall property values. Kuspa said that 2015 will introduce a Parks Capital Improvement Program to upgrade recreational facilities to further improve home values.
“The city of Southgate is moving forward,” Kuspa said. “We have not lost sight of the basics. We are paying our bills. We are staying within our budget. We are enhancing public safety. We are also reducing our debt and adding to the quality of life for all of our residents.”
Kuspa said last week’s address represented a renewed commitment by the elected officials tasked with maintaining that quality of life.
“I sincerely believe that we are doing what we were sent to City Hall to do,” Kuspa said. As he had in 2009 Kuspa quoted Henry Ford, whose auto company philosophy served as a mission statement for Kuspa’s tenure as mayor:
“If everyone is moving forward together, success will take care of itself.”
(James Mitchell can be reached at [email protected].)