City Comm. talks site approval procedures with Brownfield

The Marquette City Commission and the Marquette Brownfield Redevelopment Authority met Thursday night for a joint work session.

The purpose of the work session was to get clarity on a number of items, and how to increase communication and understanding between the two groups.

“This is kind of one of those seminal meetings where they’re really trying to feel like–the commission–about how much authority ultimately they would like to see the Brownfield (Authority) assume in  making these decisions, and how much (authority) the commission would like to preserve,” Marquette City Manager Bill Vajda said.

“Our dialog tonight, for direction from you as the commission, and the board, so that when we are sitting there, we do have to keep that in mind, what exactly we’re looking at,” MBRA Member Buzz Tiseo said.  “Because we don’t want to send someone in front of you and you’re going to have to hammer down ‘yes’ or ‘no’.  We want to be able to work together on this.”

They discussed more efficient project approval for Brownfield Project sites, which included giving the commission a few reasons why each site was approved.

“I think it would be very helpful if we prepared some information with a justification or finding that says here’s why this (site) is supported for all of these reasons,” MBRA Consultant Mac McClelland said.  “There is an opportunity to look at a whole variety of issues, but it needs to be consistent between the two boards and authorities.”

The two groups also talked about understanding public benefit and public improvements while deciding what sites to consider.