Inside 208

Senate Bill 247, a bill that would allow establishments licensed to sell alcohol in central business districts to stay open and serve alcohol until 4 a. m. on Saturdays and Sundays, expanding the current 2 a.m. limit, dies in House committee. Senate Bill 247 would require a majority vote of [...]

Utility systems are continually being challenged to provide quality services while budgets are being decreased. This seminar has been developed to provide relevant information to Utility Owners, Managers, Superintendents, and Consultants associated with infrastructure systems. Attendees will be informed of current funding programs and what other utilities are doing to [...]

Governor Rick Snyder has approved more than $2.7 million from the Disaster and Emergency Contingency Fund to provide financial assistance to Michigan counties and communities impacted by last spring’s flooding disaster and deep freeze emergency. Eligible local governments affected by the flooding or deep freeze were allowed to apply for [...]

In the second to last week of lame duck session, tensions were high as transportation talks continued. The House and Senate sent the transportation bills to conference committees where a small bi-partisan group of six legislators will ultimately vote on the conference report being negotiated by legislative leadership and the [...]

House Speaker Jase Bolger’s (R-Marshall) transportation funding plan, which would shift dollars that currently go to local governments, schools, transit, and the general fund to roads, was voted out of the House without a single democratic vote. The plan relies on projected revenue increases, which supporters say will more than [...]

The Michigan Municipal League sent to the media this week a series of letters to the editor to encourage the state House to approve the transportation funding package passed in the Senate on Nov. 13. The House is considering a couple different transportation funding options and we want the state [...]

On Tuesday (11/25) Speaker of the House, Jase Bolger, put forward a new transportation funding plan. The plan would remove the 6% sales tax now charged on fuel sales (at 1% per year), while at the same time converting the 19-cent-per-gallon fuel tax to a percentage rate that would gradually [...]

In a huge vote, the Michigan Senate has just passed HB 5477, a bill that would phase in a new percentage-based gasoline tax that will result in an additional $1.2 billion for transportation funding by 2019. Revenue from other bills in this package result in transportation increases as high as [...]

Discussions are currently taking place in Lansing on finding a way to raise new revenue for Michigan’s transportation network during the current lame duck legislative session. House Bill 5477 is a key piece to this new revenue. It would switch the current cents per gallon tax on fuel to a percentage based [...]

The Environmental Protection Agency is having an open comment period until December 22nd, to allow individuals and organizations to respond to proposed new regulation of discharge of dental amalgam into publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) as part of the Clean Water Act. The regulation would classify dentists as an “industrial [...]