According to a recent article in the Petoskey News, SB 627 would:
“give state and local government agencies the power to enter into joint operating arrangements with a particular business for purposes of building a transportation project or health care (hospital) or laboratory facilities. These operations could be ones solicited by a private developer, and would benefit from the government partner’s tax exemptions and its power to impose property tax levies, borrow, take private property using eminent domain, levy tolls and user fees and more. Among (many) other things this would authorize new toll roads or toll lanes. The government agency involved could choose the private sector actor without necessarily having to accept the lowest bid.”
According to the Monroe Evening News, allowing public-private partnerships to invest in toll lanes and toll roads in Michigan is part of a broader effort to address a $2.2 billion annual state budget shortfall that Michigan Governor Rick Snyder said this week is necessary to address the state’s crumbling infrastructure.
Our issues with this bill are two-fold:
- This is a major issue for legislators to try to deal with under the cover of a Lame Duck legislative session, and,
- This is especially true in light of the fact that the same legislature just increased your taxes and vehicle registration fees by $400 million last year.
While we agree that there needs to be continued discussion about how to fund the crumbling infrastructure, we don’t feel that trying to ram something through that has the potential magnitude on Michigan residents and tourists as public-private partnerships to build toll lanes and roads is in Michigan taxpayers’ best interest.