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David Fair: We're going to move forward with 89 one WEMU News and our post-election coverage. All nine of the incumbent Democrats running for reelection to the Washtenaw County Board of commissioners won their races. Washtenaw County voters were also charged with deciding four ballot proposals put forth by county government. All four passed. We're joined on the WEMU news line by Eighth District Commissioner Yousef Rabhi for some reflection on the race and the passage of those four proposals. First of all, congratulations on another term!
Yousef Rabhi: Thank you, David! I appreciate it! And good morning to you!
David Fair: Were you expecting all nine of you to win reelection?
Yousef Rabhi: In the end, yeah, I was. And, obviously the race--Shannon Beeman's race--was always going to be the tightest. But she did pull that one off. I was very happy to hear that. And I really enjoy serving with her. She's an excellent public servant. And so, she's won reelection, which I'm very happy about.
David Fair: And what does that kind of continuity provide for those you serve?
Yousef Rabhi: I mean, it's really building that institutional knowledge of how the county works, and the county is a very complex organization with a lot of different moving parts. And having some of that experience on the board I think is really, really useful. Obviously, this is now my eighth year serving as a county commissioner. Andy LaBarre has also been on the board for quite some time. And so, just having that continuity, having that institutional knowledge, is going to be really helpful, I think.
David Fair: And before we begin to specifically look at each of the proposals that would pass, I just want to ask you if you also expected that all four would win voter approval.
Yousef Rabhi: I did. And I kind of thought going kind of the way that I figured that the police, mental health and police public safety millage would be really close. In fact, I thought that maybe it may not pass, but I kind of leaned towards that passing. And so, that kind of went as expected.
David Fair: We're talking with Eighth District Washtenaw County Commissioner Yousef Rabhi about the four ballot proposals passed by Washtenaw County voters in the general election. And let's talk more specifically about Proposal 4, the renewal of the community mental health and public safety millage. Now, you did go with your fellow commissioners and made some changes before putting that measure back before voters. And it was to address community concerns about how the money was being allocated. Obviously, that worked. How important were those changes to you as a board?
Yousef Rabhi: I think they were critical, and I think they were critical in helping it to pass. Honestly, I don't know if it would have passed without those changes. It's just a little, I think, odd for voters when they see a ballot measure that combines two issues that are not always thought of in the same way--mental health and public safety. So, we're funding police services at the same time that we're funding mental health services in the county. And then, there's that component of the sort of rebate to communities that have their own policing units of basically money that isn't necessarily always used for mental health or public safety. So, I think there was a lot of community scrutiny around that money. And some of the changes that we made didn't fix all of those concerns, but we did try to fix some of the concerns that we had heard from the public and create more accountability, too. And I think that's one of the things that I want to talk about this morning is, like, one of the overarching resolutions that we passed as a board, before any of these measures went on the ballot, was basically a measure to make more transparency of how all the millage dollars that voters approve are being spent. So, the public has that transparency, has that awareness, and there can be better accountability of how those dollars are spent.
David Fair: And what is that transparency going to look like? How is it going to become more accessible to us as a community?
Yousef Rabhi: Yep. And so, one of the complaints that I have always had is that, a lot of times, we're sending money to other governmental agencies or even, in some cases, other organizations through millage dollars. And one of the things that I had asked for and that we got in this resolution that I put forward that ended up passing, is basically requiring that organizations that are receiving those dollars, either governmental units or county departments or other organizations, have to basically provide four-year plans of how those dollars are going to be spent and, then also, annual plans need to be submitted to the board. And then, after the the fiscal year is done, they have to submit a line item budget of how they actually spent the dollars in relation to the plan of how they were going to spend that. And so, they have to release the actual expenditure of dollars as well, so that we have that accounting and the public has that detail of actually how the money is spent. In the case of the mental health and public safety millage, I also pushed for and was able to get into the ordinance language about us getting the board, getting approval of a line item budget of how both the sheriff's office dollars and the mental health dollars are going to be spent in our budget process. And I think that is really crucial and important for that transparency aspect, so that we can actually see how the exact dollars are being spent and the public can weigh in through the public engagement process, through public comment and at our public board meetings in telling us whether they think that the money is being spent appropriately or not.
David Fair: So, 38% of that county community health and public safety millage is going to go to--
Yousef Rabhi: Yeah. 38% is mental health. Yup.
David Fair: And then 38% to the sheriff's office, 24% to the jurisdictions you outlined to communities that have their own police departments. So, you put that all together. And with the accountability and transparency designed by the county board, what impact you expect this measure is going to have over the life of the millage?
Yousef Rabhi: Well, first of all, I think it's going to be able to really continue and even potentially expand some of the mental health services that we're providing. Some of the other things that we did put in the ordinance language, for example, are that some of the money that's going...well, first of all, the money that's going to the sheriff's office cannot be spent on purchasing weapons or basically like crowd control and crowd dispersion chemicals, like tear gas, things like that. So, we've put that barrier in place. That was one of the things that we had heard from the public. Why are you using mental health and millage dollars to buy weapons? And so, we put that restriction in there. We also put stuff in there about wanting the sheriff's office to invest more in human services. And so, there's requirements in there of how the money is going to be spent on human services as well. So, I think that will be transformative, and that is going to be new over what we have had over the last eight years. And so, that will be interesting to see and that will require, I think, a lot of community engagement as well. The interesting thing there, too, is we have a brand new sheriff coming in, which I'm also very excited about. You know, Alyshia, I think will--
David Fair: Alyshia Dyer, yes.
Yousef Rabhi: Alyshia Dyer will bring a whole new energy to the sheriff's office and really be able to use these millage dollars and hopefully, do a lot of good work with that this year.
David Fair: This is 89 one WEMU News. We're talking with Eighth District Washtenaw County Commissioner Yousef Rabhi. And I want to move on to Proposal 3, the older persons services millage. The ballot language said the money generated through this tax would provide services and activities to community members 60 years and older. We are a community that is aging. So, what is this exactly going to look like?
Yousef Rabhi: I think a lot of that is actually still to be determined. The language was pretty vague. One of the things that I pushed for and that we were able to get into the language was an age restriction, which I thought was important to, like, define what does "older person" mean. And so, we got that definition built in there. But beyond that, there's a lot, I think, that we can do with this money. And there's been a lot of discussions about how that is going to look. One of the things that I've been advocating for is that the county tried to do a few things really well, rather than trying to do a bunch of things not very well. And so, I'm hoping that we can narrow down the scope of what we want to try to accomplish. Some of the things that have been talked about are weatherization for seniors. So basically, helping seniors stay in their homes and helping to improve the energy efficiency of their homes, helping them to pay their bills, especially low income seniors, through programs like our Barrier Buster program that helps people if they're having trouble paying their utility bill. We can help pay that if they're having trouble with basic household expenses. We want to keep them in their home. We want to keep them housed. And we want to help them with that. There's also been a lot of talk about food and nutrition as a component of it. And then, one of the things that I'm really excited about is also the idea of creating within the county an office on aging to kind of quarterback a lot of these services and make sure that the seniors in our county are receiving the care that they need and that we're coordinating with all the different organizations that are providing services to seniors across the county. So, as you saw, the margin on this was really good. I think it was probably the second highest of the four, in terms of the passage rate. And so, I'm excited to see that because I think there are a lot of good opportunities for how this money can be spent. I will say that I encourage members of the public to stay really involved in the process over the next few months of how the Board of Commissioners actually ends up deciding to spend this money, because it is up to the board. And the public's input at this phase would be really, really helpful, especially from senior citizens or people that are caring for senior citizens to hear from you about basically how you want this money to be spent. What are your priorities? I think that would be hugely beneficial for the board to hear.
David Fair: I will mention for brevity that Proposal 2 will help veterans in need because that passed with wide voter support as well, and funding for the county's enhanced emergency communication systems was labeled Proposal 1. It too passed. I want to ask you this. It has often been said that if you show me your budget, I'll show you your values. Well, what do these four proposals add up to in describing the values of Washtenaw County?
Yousef Rabhi: Well, I would say that this is a snapshot of many millages that the voters have approved. And so remember that we do, obviously, have several park millages and several roads and transportation millages. We have several millages that are out there. But this snapshot, I think, really provides us with the image that I think people care about seniors. They want to make sure that seniors have the services and protections that they need. They care about veterans. In terms of the mental health and public safety millage, I think the thing that I also wanted to say is I do think that the mental health component of it is something that's really been a powerful driving force for people to support that millage. And, obviously, I think there's a lot of new and interesting things that are going to be happening at the sheriff's office with the new sheriff coming in. So, I think it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. But I do think that the voters value mental health services, they value human services, and they value, I think, the reform that's going to be coming to our public safety space.
David Fair: Well, Yousef Rabhi, thank you so much for joining us today and being a part of WEMU's post-election coverage!
Yousef Rabhi: Happy to do it! Thanks for having me!
David Fair: That is Eighth District Washtenaw County commissioner Yousef Rabhi. He was re-elected to another term in the general election. I'm David Fair, and you are listening to 89 one WEMU. It is your community NPR station.
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