Hamtramck has no shortage of leadership skills when it counts

Hamtramck once again proved this week that when we work together, great things can happen.

Case in point: On Tuesday, the City Council put their signature on an agreement worked out with Detroit officials over a stubborn dispute regarding how much tax revenue Detroit is supposed to share with Hamtramck from the GM Poletown plant.

Detroit had insisted it overpaid Hamtramck $7 million over the last several years.

Hamtramck officials dug in their heels, collected the needed information and thoroughly proved that was not the case. In no particular order, those who deserve credit in making this happen within the last year are: City Manager Bill Cooper, Financial Director Nevrus Nazarko, Mayor Karen Majewski, City Attorneys Jim and John Allen and the City Council.

A big thanks also goes out to the state officials who interceded on both cities’ behalf to provide a neutral meeting ground and level-headed guidance. And certainly the administration of Mayor Dave Bing and the Detroit City Council also helped bring this dispute to a civil and fair conclusion.

Had this gone through court, Hamtramck would have had to wait years for a settlement.

And in another example of local leadership, we owe the Piast Institute and the Hamtramck Census Complete Count Committee for getting the word out about last year’s census effort.

Hamtramck received some pretty good news about the official population count: we lost a little over 500 people instead of almost the 3,000 that the Census Bureau had estimated in 2009.

While yes, we lost people, it is a minor blip on the screen. It is agreed by many in the community that at 22,423, we are still undercounted. But if it weren’t for the efforts of the Hamtramck Census Count Committee, organized by Virginia Skrzyniarz, of the Piast Institute, Hamtramck would had likely seen a far steeper drop in population. The committee spent hours pounding the city’s streets and meeting with organizations to spread the word for everyone to fill out a census form.

What was at stake was no small matter. For every person counted, that translated into future federal funding and the ability for the city to get grants.

Hamtramck has consistently proven that we have a lot of talented people here who know how to organize and achieve solid results.