The Riverview City Council will vote Feb. 22 about whether to survey the city’s registered voters about what should be done with the city’s land preserve.
By ZEINAB NAJM
Sunday Times Newspapers
RIVERVIEW — The City Council will vote Feb. 22 about whether to survey the city’s registered voters about what should be done with the city’s land preserve. The survey, which would be sent to residents by mail, would ask them about landfill expansion options.
According to the regular meeting agenda, Cobalt Community Research is being recommended and had the latest quote of $16,374. The quote from EPIC-MRA came in at $54,950, which is significantly more due to the staffing comparison for each company.
If approved, Cobalt will be responsible for sending out a survey questionnaire to every registered voter in the city, with a postage paid return addressed envelope; then tallying the responses returned to them, and for presenting the results to the city.
Funds are available in the land preserve fund in fiscal year 2021-22.
The city’s purchasing and finance department searched Michigan Inter-governmental Trade Network BidNet for public opinion surveys and community engagement where two bids were found, City of Midland from 2018 and the Charter Township of Shelby from 2021.
“We identified all of the bidders from the state of Michigan and emailed each of them a brief description of the potential project,” the agenda item says. “Two of the companies responded: Cobalt Community Research Inc. and EPIC-MRA. Both of these companies were the two lowest bidders on the Midland Community Engagement Bid of 2018.”
At the city’s Feb. 14 study session, the council members spoke about a ballot alternative for a registered voter survey instead of the ballot question previously approved by the council last August.
City Manager Douglas Drysdale said Finance Director Robert McMahon was getting proposals from survey firms and reached out to four, with only two companies responding.
“During the discussions Rob McMahon had with them, there were two options they suggested to us,” Dysdale said. “The first one is called a ‘single waive first class mail with postage paid reply envelope.’ With this one all registered voters for the city would get the survey, they would be able to fill it out, put it in a postage-paid envelope then mail it back to the survey firm, who would tabulate the results and provide them to us.
“The other one that was suggested to us was called a ‘hybrid online direct mall.’ Essentially what happens is, the postcard gets sent to the registered voter and if they’re interested in participating they would either go online or call the special number, and the survey would be sent to them.”
Drysdale said the recommendation is to go with the single first class mail option with Cobalt.
“Typically we would go out for bid, but due to time constraints and wanting to get this information done, we’d like to just waive the bidding process,” he said at the study session.
The city has a May 2 deadline so it can submit a revised plan application to the Wayne County Solid Waste Planning Division and Facility Inclusion Committee for the proposed landfill expansion.
A special election is not scheduled to be held in Riverview in May so the cost for that would be $20,000 and results would not be ready in time to meet the deadline.
“I would think the biggest reason we want to do this is because itofs the timing when we have get the request in for the expansion, and we need to have this take place long before that,” Mayor Andrew Swift said at the study session.”
If the deadline is not met, the city possibly could have to submit a new application which comes with a $10,000 to $15,000 fee on top of the election cost.
Swift asked if a house with multiple registered voters would get more than one survey mailed to them, in which Drysdale said it would. Riverview will be sharing the addresses of its registered voters with Cobalt so the survey is mailed based on that list.
The city also plans to put out educational and informational details through its website, a public relations firm and local media outlets so residents understand the survey purpose.
Drysdale said a lot of that material is already put together, but did not know the cost.
Another step the council had to take Feb. 7 was rescinding a resolution to place an advisory question on the next available election ballot in regards to land preserve expansion.
During an Aug. 9, 2021, study session, the City Council discussed the option to offset the potential loss of revenue at the Riverview Land Preserve if it were to close. The council unanimously passed the resolution, but because the vote took place at a study session and not meeting it was not official.
The county’s deadline to add the ballot language to the Nov. 2, 2021, ballot was by 4 p.m. Aug. 10. Swift called a special council meeting for noon Aug. 11, where the council voted again to approve the language, but the Wayne County Clerk did not accept the city’s application for the advisory question.
This move by the council came after the Wayne County Solid Waste Planning Division and Facility Inclusion Committee voted to hold off on approving the expansion of the landfill following a lengthy discussion and consideration of public input.
During the more than three-hour meeting Aug. 2, 2021, committee members heard a presentation from city officials as well as public concerns and comments from Downriver elected officials.
Wayne County Environmental Services Division Director Patrick Cullen listed multiple items in a memo that Riverview would have to address before the county would consider the plan again.
Staff of the Wayne County Department of Public Services’ Environmental Services Division completed a review of the application which would expand the landfill eastward on about 45 acres of city-owned golf course property.
(Zeinab Najm can be reached at [email protected].)