KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO) -- After over two hours of impassioned debate and pleas, the Kalamazoo County Board has once again refused to put a housing millage on the fall ballot for taxpayers to decide. On a straight party line vote, the County Board’s Republican majority rejected a request from the housing commission to place a 1/10th of a mil request on the ballot to continue programs to help homeowners from becoming homeless and to help the 1,000 children who are homeless to find permanent shelter.
Nearly two dozen came forward to speak for it. But Commissioner John Zull says it would be wrong to let voters decide, because they don’t understand all the issues involved. He says only commissioners have a view of the “big picture’. The Millage request was supported by area Superintendents, a number of community organizations and no doubt will be taken back to the drawing board by the Housing commission and brought back in some other form.
