A public meeting tomorrow night aims to educate voters in the Village of Milford about two ballot proposals ahead of the November election.

Two proposed Charter amendments will appear on the November 6th election ballot. The first would increase the pay of elected Village Council members, which has remained at $7.50 per meeting since the adoption of the current Village Charter by voters in 1958. The change cannot be done via a vote by Council, only voters. The other proposal, and the one that will be the focus of Tuesday’s public information session, is a revised road millage for additional projects in the Village. It would alter the 20-year-road millage adopted by voters in 2012. It would actually lower the millage rate to 2.9 mills but extend the length of the revised millage out to 2032 to generate funding for additional road projects. If approved, the revised road millage would generate a little over $4 (m) million in additional revenue. Wuerth says the initial millage was a 20-year road millage collection. It was set at 3.5 mills for the first ten years and intended for upgrades of roads, maintenance and repairs. He says the second ten years is scheduled for 1-mill, which is really intended for nothing more than maintenance and doesn’t generate enough revenue to get beyond routine maintenance of the road network. Since that time, Wuerth says a number of projects have been completed but there were a number that weren’t necessarily included in the first group of projects to take place. There has been some renewed interest in a number of those projects, one of which is the paving of Peters Road, which is currently a dirt road in the Village. Wuerth says the Capital Improvements Committee and village council have been working with staff and consultants to see what adjustments could be made to generate additional revenue to not only pave Peters Road but also look at some of the other projects that aren’t going to be incorporated into the existing millage.

Wuerth says the Peters Road project is estimated around $1.5 (m) million, leaving around $2.5 (m) for other road projects that wouldn’t be able to be competed under the existing millage. In addition to the current millage, the Village has been able to leverage local dollars to obtain federal funds for improvements as well as general fund contributions. Wuerth says overall, roads are generally rated fair or pardon the pun, middle of the road. Since 2012, he says they have been able to complete projects on significant roadways and upgrade those, which has been a mix of projects in neighborhoods and the main corridor, but they still have others that haven’t received as much attention yet. He says as is practice, staff and consultants would continue to go out and evaluate the road network every spring and then make recommendations on what projects they feel are going to be an efficient use of the resources and improve the overall road network the best.

The Village is hosting two public information meetings to discuss the revised road millage. The first is tomorrow night and the other will take place on Monday, October 29th. Both sessions start at 7pm at the Milford Civic Center on Atlantic Street. Wuerth says there will be presentations from staff and consulting engineers, and then an opportunity for questions and answers. For those who can’t attend, Wuerth says after the events they plan to add the presentations to the website, where voters will currently find detailed information on the ballot proposals and road projects completed to date. (JM)