MOUNT CLEMENS — On the frigid evening of Jan. 21, the Mount Clemens City Commission held one of its most conversational meetings of recent years as public comments and public hearings dominated the agenda.
Most unique to the late-January meeting was the public hearing for the allocation of the city’s Community Development Block Grant funding for 2025. The funds, which come from the federal government and are distributed by the county, can be allocated to support public service organizations in the city. Mount Clemens was allotted $13,700, and nine organizations, including the city’s recreation department, vied for some portion of the funds.
Of the eight nonmunicipal organizations to ask for funds, the following had representatives to speak on behalf of their bids:
• Care House: $4,500 to support child victims of physical and sexual assault.
• Hearts 4 Homes: $3,000 to help up to two homeless families make security deposits or rent payments for apartments.
• Interfaith Volunteer Caregivers: $1,590 to support its Safe at Home program, which assists income-limited and physically challenged adults with home upkeep.
• Maggie’s Wigs 4 Kids of Michigan: $1,200 to create and provide maintenance kits for wigs for children with medical-related hair loss.
• Turning Point Macomb: $3,000 to fund motel stays for survivors and families of domestic abuse.
• Wave Project: $4,000 to support the Warren-based Macomb County Winter Shelter.
The city’s recreation department requested $13,700 for senior programming. The Macomb County Rotating Emergency Shelter Team requested $3,740 for its emergency homeless shelters, and Single Family Living requested $10,000 to provide emergency rental assistance.
City commissioners thanked representatives for speaking at the meeting, with Commissioner Erik Rick urging residents to support the organizations and Mayor Laura Kropp explaining the difficulties of allocating the limited funding.
“CDGB funding is unfair,” Kropp said. “I hate to use that word because it sounds weak, but it is. A community that is considered a non-entitlement community has some of the greatest needs in the county. We have 27% of the low-income housing of the county, yet we receive one of the smallest allocations you can have of CDBG funding. It’s so counterintuitive. It makes no sense. Call your congressman, because it is a federal formula that I don’t think even a mathematician could solve. … It’s not fair, but it is, unfortunately, the $13,700 we do receive.”
Along with the $13,700 the city is allowed to allocate, it can apply for up to two capital project grants, each in an amount no greater than $150,000. In 2024 commissioners applied to use the capital project funds on a new fire truck and fire hose. Commissioners will vote on their allocations at the Feb. 3 meeting.
Public comments
Several residents spoke during the meeting’s public comment periods about issues they were having regarding the city’s post office.
Ruthie Stevenson raised the issue of post office vehicles being parked along neighborhood streets.
“I’ve been coming up here for a number of years concerning the parking in the neighborhood of the post office, and it’s gotten really out of hand,” Stevenson said. “Some days it’s as much as 50 cars, and it goes all the way from midway-north Beyene Street around Rhone (Street) from northbound Gratiot and on Clinton River Drive down to Meadle (Street). And if there is a special event at church or something like that, or a funeral, there’s no place to park. … It’s really gotten totally out of hand. Something has to be done. This is a neighborhood, not an all-day parking lot.”
Curtis Harrington told commissioners that the post office had stopped delivering mail to his street due to a dog attack. A dog attack last year did not see the dog removed, and an attack last December has led to delays in deliveries.
“I understand some of you have been in contact with the postmaster,” Harrington said. “I understood he was supposed to be here today, but of course he’s not. I would like to know what’s going to be done, what can be done.”
Complaints about the post office have been a regular feature of public comments at City Commission meetings, but the biggest difference on Jan. 21 was that the mayor had news to share regarding the matter.
“I’ve been serving as an elected official in Mount Clemens for nine years, and I can tell you that I have been complaining about the post office for nine years,” Kropp said. “I have done a lot of things to try to work cooperatively with the post office. One of the issues has been that they have a new postmaster about every six months, and that has been an ongoing issue for at least nine years. I will say that this last week, we finally made a phone call and actually got to the postmaster. It was just one phone call, and that is the first time in nine years.”
Kropp said the current postmaster was “very receptive” and that she was glad to finally have a contact at the office. Kropp is also speaking with federal elected officials to see what improvements can be made through that angle.
With Harrington’s comments being based around a nuisance dog, commissioners expressed frustration with the situation, and Kropp said the city “would work to solve that.” Kropp’s son was attacked by a dog in 2020.