Conversation with Commissioner Stephen* Miller

Right off, Miller set me straight about widespread speculation that he won’t seek re-election. “I absolutely will seek re-election in 2009. There is a lot of unfinished business to complete”

Another surprise of sorts was that this Commissioner, who speaks softly and deliberately at what I call The Table, even when he’s angry, spoke rapidly and vigorously whether expounding on a matter he wanted to talk about or answering a question.

Miller, 56, is a “95 percent retired” accountant and businessman who accepts an occasional client but whose professional time is devoted mostly to serving as the guardian and managing care giver for an invalid 88 year-old-women who was a longtime family friend of his late parents. Miller added, “Marjorie has no family and I stepped in 11 years ago to take this responsibility because she had nobody.  At times it has been overwhelming and, unfortunately I have missed some Commission meetings because of hospital emergencies and medical situations that I am singularly responsible to address in her care.”

When I chided Steve about not having his picture on the city’s website, he said he is “uneasy with the celebrity associated with being a City Commissioner” and he prefers not to be singled out on the street as he is just another resident of Royal Oak. Pressed about his no-picture stance by a Royal Oak staffer, he joked, “I’m in the Witness-Protection program!” He agreed to let his picture be taken to accompany this report.

As we discussed his work for the city and his relationships with fellow commissioners and with the Administration, the words “frustrated” and “frustrating” came up repeatedly. Asked whether he included department heads when he refers to the Administration, Miller slowed down to say, “When I say ‘Administration” I mean City Manager Tom Hoover.”

I asked that question as Steve was describing his preparation for a commission meeting. He says he spends 10 or 15 hours per month studying the packets (most but not all of it now supplied electronically), 3 to 5 of those hours on studying the budget and city finances whether or not a budget item is on the agenda. He reaches out to department heads as necessary for additional information, further analysis, and clarification.

Miller has made his mark on CITCOM for his never-ending effort to encourage them to pay sufficient attention to the city’s financial plight. He acknowledges to being a bit blunt, “I say what I think,” so he isn’t offended when his colleagues sometimes bristle. It was his “digging and prodding at the Administration” that uncovered the $1.7 million in the “overlooked and ignored”

Court Facility Fund. 

Money, he added that belonged to the taxpayers of Royal Oak and, as such, “needed to be spent on providing services to those deserving taxpayers.”

One past commissioner complained of his going on-and-on ad nauseum about financial matters. “From the beginning, I maintained that Royal Oak is in crisis, and I don’t use the term loosely. A crisis demands attention immediately. It is not the same as, 'Well, we’re having some problems that we’ll have to address soon,' and, I will not apologize for doing the job the taxpayers elected me to do no matter how unpopular or uncomfortable it makes the Administration or the other Commissioners. Remember, Frank, it’s the ‘financial matters’ that are the lifeblood of our or any city.”

In those early days, all his fellow commissioners except Mike Andrzejak ignored his warning, Steve says. He went on to add that he is pleased to have Chuck Semchena onboard (“Chuck has a Master’s in Accounting and a tremendous analytical mind for budget and financial matters”), and Miller praises Finance Director Don Johnson as “the best finance director I’ve ever met in all my many years in municipal and school auditing. He simply is not a parrot.”

And, the Administration? “Hoover is stubborn, entrenched, and thinks that only he has the answer to whatever is being debated, not just finances. And too often that answer is just the status quo of spending all the money then hoping against hope that the residents will vote a big giant tax increase. Unfortunately, there are still a couple of Commissioners who still feel the same as Hoover does.”  Miller recalled that when elected in 2003 Andrzejak proposed nine actions to address budget shortfalls. The Administration dismissed the proposals, but since then eight of the nine, including metering the Farmers Market and changing parking meter hours to 10-to-10, have been adopted, Steve maintains. Miller’s focus is on city finances and he ties together cash management, attrition, prioritizing. “We have a responsibility to the 55,000 taxpaying residents and, yes, to the 325 city employees. The parking meters 10 am-to-10 pm change takes into consideration the needs of downtown retailers, by giving residents a chance to do a little shopping without having to feed a meter.”

Speaking of downtown led to my contention that the “Puritans” on the commission are occasionally irrational in their deliberations over liquor licenses. I have also suggested that the conservatives on the commission at times seem anti-business.  Steve was ready for that one: “We are pro-business, but there is more to Royal Oak than downtown and liquor licenses. What is the wisdom of insisting that all the liquor licenses for a 12-square mile city should go into a 12-square block area?  Why must retailers have to live with liquor establishments on both sides of their store? It’s a judgment call.” 

Miller wondered instead if those who support every single liquor license application be shoe-horned into the downtown don’t do so to simply further their political careers.

“It has long been the rumor that Mayor Ellison and Commissioner Ginotti have higher state office or a local District Court Judgeship in their future plans and that is fine with me” he added. He only bristles when he suspects that some votes at the table, by any elected official are with other motives in mind than what is really best for the city.

Others who have spoken with Miller, learning that I would be having a conversation with him, told me to ask him about “corruption” comments they had heard him make. “The term I use is ‘situational corruption,’” Steve said. “It’s the side agenda, working for a personal motive, for a special interest rather than for the general good.” I objected that much of what CITCOM does serves special interests, that his own fight for re-creating the Ice Arena Committee was an example. We noodled that a bit, and he took the opportunity to expand a bit about that debate.

As Miller sees it, “The Administration and a few Commissioners didn’t want a committee. I found neglect, not by Holbrook [the arena manager] but by the Administration. I found actual financial losses and missed revenue opportunities but we got the committee running again, and with the right mix to allow representation but not control by user groups. Unfortunately Terry [Commissioner Drinkwine] was successful and, as usual short-sighted, in getting the High School team to replace one of the two city representatives. I have nothing against the high school but the mischief created by Terry and some others, who want this committee to fail, is that we now have a multi million dollar city asset in the control of the user groups.” He went on to add that “this is just so typical of Terry. He voted against the committee formation four times and, as usual, when he doesn’t get his way he will stop at nothing to create roadblocks.

“Unfortunately, this time it’s the taxpayers of Royal Oak and their major asset (the two ice rinks) that will end up suffering.”  Miller lamented that his vision was for the ice arena to become so financially secure that in year two (2010/ 2011) he foresaw “the parents of our young skaters and hockey players seeing up to a 10% decrease in their rink bills.”  Sadly, he contends, “those whose only goal was and is to see this committee fail now will have to face those same parents and explain the big….why. Frank, I was willing to put in the work and whatever it took to make this a success to be proud of and all the others, including Terry could have all the credit they wished but this “situational corruption” once again became the soup de jour.” [Previous Ice Arena coverage]

His take on the recent confusion over the restructuring of the police department? “Chief Quisenberry’s memo set policy, which department heads have no right to do. The leaking of the internal memo has to be looked at as an attempt to pressure the commission, to make us look bad. I will not make any financial decision until I have all the facts and not simply because someone else has a self-serving motive and wants to pressure me to make it sooner”

I (FJV) contend that if the chief’s restructuring did not exceed his departmental budget, he was within his rights to reassign personnel as he saw fit.

Steve and I did the usual comparing of notes about people and events; about whether the residents will accept a tax increase (he contends “never”) until they know all expenses have been examined and reduced as much as possible; about the “delay” of the Administration to provide the prioritizing-document CITCOM has asked for; about seeking “face time” on camera and talking too many matters to death.

Acknowledging that he is sometimes consistent to the point of stubbornness, he says he will change his mind only if proven wrong. It is possible for others, of course to be consistently wrong and only occasionally right. “Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while.”

Through it all, Miller’s focus returns to city finances, and he’s always thinking cash management, attrition, prioritizing. Repeating, “We have a responsibility first and foremost to the 55,000 taxpaying residents, to provide the best services we can and to use their tax dollars as wisely and as efficiently as possible. That’s the oath I swore to uphold and the standard I expect of myself and every Commissioner I serve with” 

* Miller responds to “Steve” both in conversation and in writing, but he tries to respect his deceased mother’s request to be called “Stephen” in print.

 

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