It’s not a great time for cities in Michigan. Today, nearly a dozen Michigan cities have been in, are in or are close to being in receivership.

Saginaw is not one of them.

All over the state, cities are staring into the jaws of six- and seven-figure budget deficits. They’re just starting to look at reorganization and cost-cutting strategies. Many of them have made the cut of last resort – eliminating police and fire positions.

Saginaw is not one of them.

In fact, around the state, municipalities are looking to the cities that are bright spots – where effective planning, great partnerships and proactive management have allowed them to weather the downturn, maintain critical staffing levels, and even plan for the future.

Saginaw is one of those places.

We do not have a deficit. We have not cut police and fire positions. We have already completed the first part of our reorganization – saving us $1.4 million this year alone.

So while urban Michigan is, in many ways, some­thing of a train wreck, Saginaw – today – is not.

We were, not long ago.

Financially, we were a train wreck. Accounts went unreconciled, revenues went uncollected, and audits were highly critical.

Organizationally, we were a train wreck. As the city shrank, so did the ranks within city government. Orphaned departments were grafted on to others. Span of control grew unsustainable. Cracks were opened for things – and people and money – to fall through.

And our city became a train wreck of crime and blight. We’ve all seen the crime statistics. Lived them, in some cases. And we’ve all seen the blight – and felt its effects on our property values, our eco­nomic prospects, and our sense of security.

After about five years of careful planning, critical analysis, many of the kinds of employee concessions Mr. Novak just spoke of, and an awful lot of hard work, we can say this:

Saginaw, our train is back on the track. And it’s moving into the future.

We can credit some new engineers. This city has a management team that absolutely rocks. The leader of that team, City Manager Darnell Earley, couldn’t be here this morning. He is, in fact, appearing at a statewide program to help other cities learn more about what we’ve done.

But I would like to recognize Tim Morales, who is the assistant city manager for adminstrative services, and Yolanda Jones, the baroness of the budget. You will not find a finer municipal finance team in this state. This is important, because we know the financial pressures on units of government, as we just heard, will only intensify in years to come.

I’d also like to recognize some of the other engineers who play roles just as critical in the process. (Introduction of staff)

Over the past several years, you’ve also had some new people planning where our train is going to go. You have a City Council that brings to the table a wide range of thought and a broad base of experience – including business experience.

What it doesn’t bring to the table is self-interest or divisiveness, because its members share the same goals.

It’s a council that has diversity of thought, but unanimity of purpose.

Which some critics, apparently, mistake as the attributes of a “bobblehead,” “rubber stamp” or, my personal favorite, “sock puppet.”

Allow me to introduce, briefly, my fellow Councilmembers … who must be the smartest and hardest-working sock puppets of all time.

(Introduction of Councilmembers)

Last year, I talked about where Saginaw was – the good and the bad, the best and the worst. It was an objective look at the carnage and destruction from our train wreck, and some of the steps we had taken to get past it.
It might be good to have a little update on some of them.

Violent crime is down again, by nearly 20 per­cent. Assaults are down by 30 percent, arson by 14 percent. And homicides are at a 40-year low.

That’s the result of strong neighborhood associ­ations, the service of volunteers such as Arson Watch and Parishioners on Patrol, new technology and good, old-fashioned police work. Today, our detectives have a 71 percent clearance rate on vio­lent crime; the national average is 47 percent.

Chief Cliff and I debate whether that means our police are extra smart, or our criminals are extra dumb. I don’t really care as long as our streets are safer.

We can maintain that level of public safety service for the immediate future because the voters of Saginaw last summer overwhelmingly approved a renewal – and increase – in the special millage for police and fire.

Last year at this time, we had just announced the award of a $17.4-million NSP 2 grant. The neighborhood stabilization program’s main goal: Go into a neighborhood. Identify “the worst house on the block.” If it’s beyond hope, tear it down. If it’s not, acquire it, turn it into the best house on the block. And put into it a family that will keep it that way.

In 2010, we tore down more than 500 worst houses on the block. And the first five “best houses on the block” were completed last month.

These are, of course, incremental changes. As people quoted in Sunday’s Saginaw News said about neighborhood renewal, “I can see it, but it’s happening slowly.”

Well, the train wreck we’re pulling away from happened slowly, too – over a 30- to 40-year period. It may take that long to fix all its damage.

But how quickly that train wreck becomes a distant memory depends upon how quickly we can get every car moving the same way – and upon the direction in which the new tracks are laid.

Today, I’d like to talk about where those tracks are going.

They’re leading us into what will be a smaller city. An important part of our plan for NSP2 and the master plan currently being developed by the city with the Spicer Group is to begin “shrinking” or “downsizing” the physical city to meet the population needs of a city of 50,000 to 60,000 people. That plan will identify areas of low occupancy and low density to eventually take “off-line.”

But even as it’s downsized, the city will still be recognizable as “Saginaw.” We will be working to retain the cultural and architectural heritage that gives Saginaw its character. Thanks to a grant from the Americana Foundation and technical assistance from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Michigan Historic Preservation Network, we are one of the first cities in the country to systematically incorporate historic preservation into “downsizing.”

This is important to who we are: the personalities of our neighborhoods and our distinctive architecture are part of Saginaw’s soul. And it is that soul that makes those of us who have lived here for a long time feel at “home.” We also know that practical historic preservation has been central to nearly every successful urban revitalization in the United States.

The new tracks are leading us to a renaissance and rediscovery of our neighborhoods – the true building blocks of any community – to neighborhoods that are safe, clean and stable … where people look out for one another and refuse to accept decline and decay.

We already have the people part down. Come to a meeting of any of our 19 neighborhood associa­tions, and you’ll see the passion, commitment and care so many of Saginaw’s people have for their neighborhoods.

They are backed by our Community Police Officers: officers assigned to a specific neighborhood, who get to know the places, the routines and the people – good and bad. Since 2005 we’ve increased our complement of CPOs threefold. That will continue to increase: Our new assistant city manager for public safety has been charged with making a community police presence central to the reorganization of our police department.

And our neighborhoods will begin to look, once again, like neighborhoods.

Our planning incorporates what’s often called “new urbanism.” Of course, it’s really “old urbanism,” the way cities were developed before the 1960s and 70s.

That’s when, to planners and developers, a “neighborhood” became something everyone drives through on the way to or from somewhere else. We’re finally back to the basics: and they don’t get any more basic than a strong neighborhood.

Those tracks we’ve laid lead to new and better ways to deliver City services, across the board. SCENIC, for example, has exponentially increased the efficiency and effectiveness of our code enforcement efforts. We’ll see other initiatives that similarly improve nearly every aspect of City government: from the way you pay your bills to the delivery of police and fire service.

The tracks of tomorrow lead to a level of synergy between business, government and education that we haven’t seen in years. This would be the best place to mention some of our most exciting news: A new medical school that will join our existing colleges and universities to help prepare us for the jobs of the future.

But a city lives and dies by many things, and one of the most important is the quality of its K through 12 schools. Saginaw has many bright spots in its school system. But we need more of them … and they must be even brighter.
The Promise Zone initiative will help. It’s a public-private partnership that grants partial college scholarships to any student who lives within the Saginaw Public School District. We’ve seen in Kalamazoo how such a program can impact the schools and the city.

But we know the quality of a community’s schools is ultimately determined by the quality of that community’s parents – and the developmental assets of their children.

And down the tracks, that’s where we’ll find our most important – and challenging – tasks.

Last fall, a multi-disciplinary task force of some of Saginaw’s most talented people began working on some of the problems that face far too many of the young people of Saginaw. Their task: to create a Saginaw:

• Where very child has exposure to, and opportunities to participate in, arts and culture that are broader and deeper than SpongeBob, Playstation and gangsta rap.

• Where every child has a thirst for knowledge, an appreciation for the importance of education and the opportunity to achieve in its pursuit.

• Where every child has parents who care to, and know how to, raise a child, and fully respect the responsibility that entails.

• Where every child has not just a sire, but a father – and mentors and role models who provide the guidance, the encouragement and the discipline that molds a great citizen.

• Where every child has a loving, caring support network that is not based on turf, colors or criminal enterprise.

• Where every child has something positive to do and a safe place to do it – a place to release energy, hone skills, interact with others and build character and self-respect … whether it’s on a basketball court, or in a band room or a computer lab.

• Where every child has a dream that is bigger than he or she is … and the knowledge, expecta­tions and self-confidence to bring that dream to life.

It’s a big job, and that task force will eventually call on every corner of our nonprofit, business, education and philanthropic communities. It will be driving consolidation, cooperation and innovation that will close the cracks that swallow far too many of our children – and ultimately spit them back out into our corrections system.

We can’t afford to not close those cracks. Because those children, and that educational system, are the most important things that will keep our train moving down the tracks. Together, they will generate the fuel of tomorrow’s economic growth: intellectual capital.

Some of the most successful businesses in the world today couldn’t have been remotely imagined even 20 years ago. So we can’t say, with any degree of certainty, what kind of economy we’ll have down the tracks.

But we know it can’t be built by depending on someone to come and “bring us jobs.” No matter how good our economic development team is – and Saginaw Future is one of the country’s  best – we know that the strongest economies are not built by companies bringing jobs for people … but by people creating jobs for themselves … in places where the spirit of entrepreneurism runs deep.

The lifeblood of Saginaw’s economy has always been, and always will be, entrepreneurism.

It’s not the government’s job to create jobs. All we can do is help make it easier for entrepreneurs to create them. And work with business, with our educational system, with our support structures, to not only help our young people do jobs – but create them – by instilling in them the entrepreneurial spirit that built each of the businesses you represent.

There are a lot of changes in store, down those tracks that are being laid. I know that not everyone in Saginaw can see them the way I do, the way my fellow Councilmembers do, the way City staff does.

But what’s sadder is the people who won’t see them.

As this train called Saginaw moves forward, farther down the track of the 21st century, there are people who, partly by circumstance, mostly by choice, have seated themselves in the very last seats on the very last car of the train – that Amtrak observation car with the rear-facing seats.

All they see is where we’ve been: the Saginaw of so long ago, the city of 98,000 people, the All-American City, the city they remember so fondly, the city they loved. And they see it growing more and more distant.

On the periphery, all they see is the despair, darkness and decay of the train wreck from which we now emerge.

It makes all of them sad, and many of them bitter. While that’s perhaps understandable, it’s unfortunate.

Because, for those of us who are at the front of the train this is a very exciting time. Sometimes scary, sometimes hair-raising … for those of us who have hair to raise. But to be able to see what lies ahead … to help imagine, plan and create the Saginaw of the future … to be surrounded by the intellectual, emotional and spiritual momentum … it’s a thrilling and awe-inspiring journey.

The train’s headed for a place that won’t be the same as the Saginaw of our past. But it can be, it will be, in its own way, every bit as great. And the more people we have at the front of the train, the faster we’ll get there.