Community Spotlight: Southgate

In November, AJM Packaging Corporation, a Southgate-based manufacturer of both private label and branded paper products, was awarded a state tax credit valued at $564,772 to support a new investment of $28.3 million at its Reeck Road plant. The project will result in the creation of at least 292 new jobs in Michigan. City leaders first learned of the company’s growth plans when its representatives informed the City of their plan to move its Southgate operations to New Jersey. The story behind this turn-around success for Southgate is the result of a new way of doing business and a new local government culture that has been put into place by Southgate Mayor Joseph Kuspa¹, his City Administrator Brandon Fournier, and the Southgate management team.   

Since taking the position of Southgate’s chief elected official, Mayor Kuspa has had to deal with the new and uncompromising realities of municipal government leadership and management. From the Mayor’s vantage point, it certainly appears that the federal government has passed more and more of its budget problems on to the state, while the state in turn has passed more and more on to local governments. In his own words, he summarized the challenge when he said, “The cavalry ain’t coming.”

 

“I think that part of the problem with municipal government is that historically, it has not valued innovation, or for that matter, needed to,” according to Mayor Kuspa. “As time went on, the framework could easily breed a sense of complacency. Bold moves and reforms were, therefore, typically not rewarded because adoption may require more effort and a potential ‘rocking of the boat’. Budgets were on a stable, if not accelerated glide path. And each department could remain somewhat independent, and therefore isolated, to carry on the ‘day-to-day’ in a false sense of satisfaction and belief that the city was moving forward if all the bills were processed, phone calls answered, rubbish collected, etc. Tomorrow would take care of itself. And thus, forward planning and visioning were limited to an election cycle.”

Southgate is a mature community. The City does not have a lot of vacant greenfield properties to develop. Recognizing that realty, Kuspa believes that “the real challenge is, and will be, how effectively the City continues to redevelop itself. We must remain flexible but firm on the core values that define our neighborhoods while supporting our commercial district.”

In the foreseeable future, Southgate, or for that matter any local government, will not see the scale of new investment and growth experienced in the 1980s and 1990s. As a result, Southgate has been forced to analyze how they do business in order to deliver services more efficiently.

Lessons learned from the City’s budget process, while very painful and difficult, have gone a long way to help define Southgate’s core priorities. The health, safety and welfare of its constituencies are Southgate’s first and foremost concern. City departments work closely with each other to develop best management practices and efficiencies. Furthermore, staff is strongly encouraged to develop and practice a culture of teamwork, trust, integrity, credibility, and clarity.

Southgate’s professional staff has a clearer understanding of the value that the business community plays in the future success of the city and its residents. The Mayor and his management team’s strategy is to provide assistance to projects that involved the redevelopment of existing properties, “leveraging these and other properties to meet the immediate and future needs of our community and that of the Southeast Michigan region,” according to the Mayor. Specifically, the Mayor and City Manager have identified the long-range goal of growing Southgate’s business districts by focusing on the sustainable economic growth of proven companies. 

In practice, Southgate’s business community is a very welcomed partner and resource in the Mayor’s implementation plan. Again, in his words, the Mayor writes, “To that end, we will avail ourselves of any and all ‘tools’ to assist businesses in expanding and/or locating in our community so that Southgate remains the premiere downriver community to live, work and raise a family.”

¹Regular readers of the EDGE Newsletter may recall an article this past summer about the City of Southgate and the financial challenges facing a new Mayor.