Community Spotlight: Southgate

The city’s website markets itself as the dining capital of Downriver. And when you drive the nearly seven square miles of Southgate, it has its share of eateries: Irish, Thai, German, Polish, a lot of national chain restaurants and then some mom-n-pop kind of joints.

You’ll notice the city’s 75 acres of parks, including nine neighborhood parks, two community parks, a baseball complex, a municipal golf course and, of course, an impressive community ice and hockey rink.

Southgate hasn’t experienced the high rates of home foreclosures that its neighbors have. Consequently, it didn’t receive any Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) monies from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), monies earmarked for the rehabilitation or demolition of abandoned structures.

“That has to do with the condition of our city,” said Mayor Joseph Kuspa, one afternoon in his city office. Kuspa was elected in November 2009. “We don’t have the kind of issues that other cities have. There’s a plus and minus to that. On the one hand, we don’t receive any of the federal monies. But we also don’t have the [high rate of abandoned structures.]”

Kuspa and Brandon Fournier, the city administrator, attribute Southgate’s better condition relatively speaking to a high rate of home-ownership in the city. “That helps stabilize a community,” Kuspa said.

The city’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program received $40,000 in income last year from the repayment of home improvement loans back to the CDBG program. With the money, the city installed CDBG-eligible automated doors and completed an elevator project in the civic center, and automated doors at city hall. “It was pretty unique to receive that much program income,” Fournier said.

The city also received $89,000 in Energy Efficient Community Block Grant (EECBG) monies and will use it to retrofit the over-head lighting around the municipal campus with more energy efficient lighting.

Reality bites

Many if not all of Wayne County’s 43 cities and townships are facing declining state revenue and reduced property tax receipts, their bread and butter as it relates to delivering services like trash pick-up, public safety and park maintenance.

Southgate is facing a $1.6-million shortfall this upcoming fiscal year, beginning July 1. But the city couldn’t have a better chief elected officer working the big grill than Mayor Kuspa, a man who’s one year older than the city itself, 53, raised and educated in Southgate, served on the school board from 1976-1989 fresh out of high school, served on the Downtown Development Authority, and built-up and runs a $7 million a year wholesale, fresh vegetable distribution business in the Eastern Market.

Last November when Kuspa took office, in the midst of its current fiscal year, the state told the city it would be getting $400,000 less then promised. “I said OK. We are going to make this happen without touching the staff,” Kuspa said. “David [Angileri, director of finance], Brandon and I worked through the holidays … and we found things we didn’t need to do and we [made the cuts] without affecting the staff.”

But Kuspa, who has a poster-size picture in his office of Southgate employees, a picture to remind him everyday that it’s real people who are impacted by his decisions, said they knew in January the deficit for fiscal year 2010-11 was going to be $1.6 million. Kuspa said most of the unions have come to the table to help find a solution to the budget deficit.

“I want to emphasize that there were a number of unions that re-opened their contracts which was a major feat including the police,” he said. “We’ve never had to do this in our city’s 52-year history.”

For example, the mayor points to the Southgate police changing their shifts from eight hours to 12 hours and modifying the way overtime is defined. “That will reduce overtime in this city by $500,000 per year,” Kuspa said.

The mayor said he had two objectives when his team began addressing the impending budget shortfall: One, everybody had to be involved including the bargaining units; and two, we had to keep an eye on preserving jobs. “And that’s important as you weigh decisions and that should be one of your concerns and in my case it is,” Kuspa said.

Retaining what you have

Kuspa, a successful entrepreneur with a workhorse-like constitution, begins the day in his 40,000 square foot, Eastern Market warehouse at 2:30 a.m. and finishes it at city hall around supper time. The focus of his administration has been the retention of business, he said.

The mayor said his years of experience in the Eastern Market have taught him that business attraction is very expensive. “The more efficient way as I see it, based on the economy we are faced with, is to stress business retention here in Southgate.”

Toward that philosophy the mayor initiated something called the Southgate Business Advisory Council (SBAC) in January. SBAC is a group of business owners in Southgate who meet directly with the administration to discuss issues that concern them and how best to weather the economic storm they face.

Though it just began in January, SBAC is already paying-off. Dick Genthe of Dick Genthe Chevrolet has a long-term contract with the News Herald to run full-page ads, which cost a pretty penny. But Genthe, Kuspa said, offered at a SBAC meeting to sell half of the page to local merchants at a “far reduced rate” so they could advertise and market their products. “This is how [Genthe] feels he can be proactive,” Kuspa said.

“Hat’s off to Dick Genthe,” said Steve Johnson, 54, owner of Malarkey’s Irish Pub in Southgate and a member of the DDA. Johnson added that Dick Genthe Chevrolet stepped up to sponsor this year’s fireworks for the city of Southgate.

Kuspa said SBAC, in the long run, will ultimately steer the business community to become ambassadors to the business world. “If they feel Southgate is a great community to do business, both in a sense of municipality and the consumer, then they become our ambassadors and they talk to other businesses.”

The other initiative Kuspa started was the Southgate Business Minute. At every council meeting a business is featured on the agenda. The owner or company representative has a minute or so to stand up in front of council, which is captured by the local cable channel, to talk about his or her business. The business is presented with a plaque made by the trade classes at the local high school. Then the city sends a press release and photo of the Business Minute recipient to the News Herald where it appears a week later, free of charge.

“It doesn’t cost a lot to do what we are trying to do here and it creates a better relationship with the municipality in saying there is an open door,” said Kuspa.

Other initiatives new to the DDA are the recent hiring of a contracted business coordinator to interface more with the business community, a $7,500 matching grant façade improvement program call BIG –Building Improvement Grant Program– and a new DDA website to roll-out in the fall.

New attractions

But the city and the mayor would like you to know, notwithstanding the current focus on business retention, business attraction has always been a priority.

Kuspa said the DDA — which he spent four years on, two of them as its chairman — some years ago combined all the intake information one would need to open a business in Southgate onto one single document. And the prior administration, Kuspa said, streamlined the development process by having a review procedure where all the city departments as well as the city planner were at the same table with the developer at the initial meeting.

Investment is happening in Southgate. With the help of a no-interest $20,000 DDA loan, a shuttered, derelict Burger King on Eureka near Trenton Road was demolished to make room for an Advanced Auto Parts supply store. The ribbon cutting is expected next month.

And on the corner of Dix and Eureka, just south of city hall, demolition will begin later this summer on a huge abandoned complex to make way for a brand new 80,000-square- foot Walmart. Officials say the new store will open next summer.

“The important thing to note here,” said Kuspa, “is that the city did not have to offer any incentives for this to happen. They were interested in Southgate because of the demographics.”

Kuspa added that Walmart agreed to pay for the installation of a special emergency vehicle light at the corner of Dix and Eureka as well as implementing DDA-mandated design criteria like low signage and other aesthetics. This is a notable change from today’s business climate where prospective developers meet with city officials and typically expect tax incentives and other throw-ins to locate a business in the area.

Worth preserving

Kuspa is a thoughtful, reflective, regional-like leader. A business owner in Eastern Market since 1983, he was appointed by Mayor Dennis Archer to chair a task force which led to recommendations and improvements to the market. His work days are yeoman-like long. “My eleven-year old tucks me in bed around 7:30,” he said with a smile on his face.

His experience from and commitment to the Eastern Market over the years is really a stand-alone feature by itself. However, it’s influenced the way he’s carried out his duties as mayor of Southgate. The use of committees and councils, for example, and inviting stakeholders in the community to participate to make recommendations and steer public policy is an old democratic process which Kuspa employs with success. SBAC is a case in point.

“I know as a business owner in Detroit I will listen to a fellow business person about Eastern Market or what his recommendations are about something rather than city hall,” Kuspa said. “When you have your business community speaking up about what a great place Southgate is to do business, that’s the best thing we can do.”

Kuspa loves the sense of community in Southgate. He said he has neighbors he’s been neighbors with for 40 years. He said when he takes his daughter out for Halloween, he recognizes houses with the same families passing candy out when he was a kid.

“That to me is worth preserving and [motivated me] to run for mayor.”

Pat Dostine is deputy press secretary for the Wayne County Executive and a regular contributor to the EDGE newsletter.

Photos were taken by James Wallace, who works for the Communication Division for Wayne County, with the exception of the photo of the mayor in his office.