Police millage renewed in Clinton Township

CLINTON TOWNSHIP — Voters in Clinton Township decided on Aug. 5 to renew the Clinton Township Police Department’s millage for 2026-2035.

“There was a lot weighing on getting this renewal, so having this pass at such a large percentage shows us that we have a lot of support from the community,” Clinton Township Police Chief Preston Susalla said. “We already knew we had a lot of support from the community, but this just reinforces it, so it definitely makes us feel good knowing that we have the community support and that we’ll have the funding to provide the protective service that the community has come to expect and deserves.”

About 15% of Clinton Township’s registered voters participated in the single-item special election by returning absentee ballots or voting in-person on Aug. 5, with the Macomb County Clerk’s Office reporting 7,972 voters in support of the millage and 4,729 voters against it unofficially as of Aug. 6. In-person early voting was waived by the township board, with Township Clerk Kim Meltzer citing costs as the reason.

“As a clerk my expectations are always higher than the turnout, but 12-15% is about the norm on a special election,” Meltzer said. “When I saw the social media information out there (about the election) I thought we might get more than that; I thought we were looking more closely to a 20% turnout, but that did not happen.”

The run-up to the election saw some confusion regarding the language of the ballot initiative. While the millage would maintain the 2.3766 mills rate currently set for the department’s services, language in the ballot initiative made it appear as though the rate would increase due to it technically being an increase from 0 mills once the current millage ends. This led to media and door-to-door campaigns from the township to raise awareness of the details, ultimately paying off with support from about 63% of participating voters. 

“We had a pretty robust campaign of going door to door talking to voters and residents,” Susalla said. “We were getting a lot of positive feedback from those interactions, so that also helped to reinforce the confidence in getting this thing passed.”

The $9.6 million expected to be raised annually from this millage covers about a third of the township’s police budget. Had it not passed, officials across the township would have needed to look into service cuts.

“We have a lot of resources here that we’re able to provide such as school resource officers, K-9 officers, we have a drone program, we have a public relations team, a full-time detective bureau, evidence technicians, accident reconstructionists,” Susalla said. “We have a lot of things that we’re able to provide to the community because of the funding that we have, and that’s why we have such a high level of service that we provide. If we didn’t have the funding for that obviously we wouldn’t be able to have those types of resources, and it would significantly impact what we are able to provide in a negative way.”

The Aug. 5 election was notable for being a first for both the township and Police Department. It was the first township-wide election under the new precinct map for the township, with trustees voting in February this year to reduce the precincts from 42 to 20 and the number of Election Day voting sites from 23 to 19. For Susalla, a 23-year Clinton Township Police Department employee, it was his first major undertaking since being sworn in as chief of police in June.

“Coming into this job (getting the millage renewed was) priority number one because of the significant impact that the millage has on our budget, so I tackled it head-on” Susalla said. “Being employed here for the past almost 23 years, I’ve done other millage efforts — new millages and renewals — and we have a very good team here of employees that have also been involved in past campaigns, so I was familiar with it and that gave us all confidence.”

“Everybody at the department worked as a team as we always do to see its success, and it was definitely a relief from my point of view leading this department to get this under our belt. Now we can look forward to the future of this department,” Susalla said. 

Call Staff Writer Dean Vaglia at (586) 498-1043.