City Hall Holiday Hours
City Hall will be observing the upcoming holidays as follows:
- November 24 – 25, 2016 – Closed for Thanksgiving holiday
- December 23 – 26, 2016 – Closed for Christmas holiday
- December 30 – January 2, 2017 – Closed for New Year’s holiday
Property Taxes Please look for your 2016 winter tax bill to arrive around December 1
st. If you don’t receive your tax bill please call the treasury office at 248-644-1520 to request another copy. Don’t forget to look on the back of the tax bill for important information, including payment options. As always, we happy to answer any questions property owners have by calling our office. Finally, for your convenience we have a drop box located on the left-side of the building at the entrance to the City Hall.
Preventing Sewer Backups Fats, Oils and Grease (FOG) in sanitary sewer pipes create numerous problems in a community’s sewer system. FOG enters sewer pipes through restaurant businesses, residential developments, and commercial properties. Once in the sewer, FOG sticks to the pipe and thickens. Over time, FOG can build up resulting in reduced capacity of a pipe and eventually blocking the entire pipe. Blockages in sewer pipes send sewage backward and overflowing out of manholes into streets, rivers, or up floor drains in homes.
Fats, oils, and grease are by-products of cooking found in food scraps, meat fats, lard, cooking oil, butter, margarine, or shortening. Chemicals from industrial complexes also produce FOG waste. Follow these tips to protect our environment and keep drains and sewers clear of FOG:
- Pour or scrape greasy or oily food waste into a container or jar
- Allow grease to cool or freeze in the container before throwing it in the trash
- Do not use hot water to rinse grease off cookware, utensils, or dishes. Wipe it off with a paper towel or dish rag instead
- Keep drains clean by pouring ½ cup baking soda down the drain, followed by ½ cup vinegar. Wait 10 to 15 minutes and then rinse with hot water
For more information on Fats, Oils, and Grease (FOG), please visit the Clean Water Services’ website at
www.cleanwaterservices.org.
Winter Salt Practices for Water Quality ImprovementWith the upcoming winter season, preparation for snow and ice removal becomes critical as anticipated winter storms create mounds of snow to shovel and layers of ice to melt from our sidewalks and driveways. We often make snow and ice removal easier by applying deicers like salt. However, salt degrades water quality by increasing chloride content. Besides sodium chloride, many deicers also contain chemicals like cyanide. When ice melts, the salts and chemicals dissolve and flow into street drains that lead directly to the rivers, lakes, and streams, endangering aquatic life. Follow these simple tips below to help reduce the detrimental water quality impacts deicers have on the environment:
Try an alternative:- Calcium magnesium acetate (CMA) was developed as a deicing alternative because it has fewer adverse environmental impacts than salt and does not cause corrosion. Although CMA is more expensive than rock salt, it is recommended for environmentally sensitive areas.
- GeoMelt 55, a sugar beet juice product, which makes salt more effective at melting ice and snow; lowers the amount of salt needed; and is more environmentally-safe and less corrosive than traditional products.
Reduce your salt use. By limiting the amount of salt we use on sidewalks and driveways, we can reduce the amount of polluted storm water washing into our waterways.
Limit access. Limit access to your home to one entrance. For every doorway that is not used, there will be less salt running into the catch basin in your street.
Keep in mind that although there are alternative deicers, this does not mean that we can utilize more of the alternatives because they are slightly better than salt. The best solution in minimizing water quality impacts is to limit your overall use of deicing materials.
For more information, visit the State of Michigan website at www.michigan.gov or the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality at www.michigan.gov/deq.