It Takes A Village Holly, Michigan

What We're Working On

Governing, Not Just Campaigning

None of these issues have flashy, one-line solutions. They require research, collaboration, legal review, number crunching, and sometimes difficult conversations. That's the difference between campaigning and governing.

Water & Sewer Rates

Shannon and Amber serve on the Finance Committee and have been working to modernize our water and sewer rate structure and make it more equitable.

One recommendation being brought forward is moving toward meter-per-premise billing, with rates that better account for the size of the meter serving a property. A single-family home should not be treated the same as a factory, school, or other large user.

This wasn't something we came up with overnight. It has involved legal review, analysis by Municipal Analytics, looking at how neighboring communities structure their rates, and working through questions like how a “premise” should be defined and billed.

Regionalization of Police Services

Public safety is one of the most important services the Village provides and also one of our largest expenses. We believe Holly should explore opportunities to regionalize certain police services where it makes financial and operational sense, while preserving local control of our Holly Police Department.

Regionalization doesn't have to mean eliminating our local police department or turning policing over to someone else. It can mean neighboring departments working together and sharing certain services, resources, specialized personnel, equipment, training, or administrative costs when doing so benefits everyone.

The question should always be: can we provide the same or better level of public safety more efficiently while keeping the local officers, relationships, and accountability that matter to Holly? We believe those conversations are worth having.

Roads & Safe Routes to School

We're looking at every reasonable option to preserve our roads and get more paving done, including better enforcement of commercial truck weight limits and aggressively pursuing grant opportunities, while not taking a road millage off the table.

One opportunity we're particularly interested in is MDOT's Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program, which funds projects that make walking and biking safer for K–12 students.

Since the new Holly Middle School opened, roads in the surrounding neighborhood have deteriorated and there are areas without sidewalks where students are walking. We believe Holly has a strong case for improvements here and we want to pursue every appropriate funding opportunity available.

Solid Waste & Garbage Fees

While reviewing the Village's rate schedule, we identified concerns about whether refuse fees are being applied consistently to all premises that should be paying them. We'd like to see an internal audit to make sure the fee is being charged correctly and fairly.

When the current garbage contract expires, we believe the Village should have a larger conversation about what comes next — including competitively bidding the service and examining whether residents should be able to choose their own refuse provider.

Some communities regulate collection days to reduce the number of heavy garbage trucks on residential streets while still letting homeowners choose their own provider. It's worth studying, especially if it could reduce costs to residents while helping protect our roads.

We aren't promising everything can be fixed overnight. We're doing the work to find practical solutions, protect taxpayers, and make Holly work better for the people who live here.

— April. Shannon. Amber.