By Danielle Salisbury
mlive.com
NORVELL TWP. Mich. — The Norvell Township board likely will discuss what to do about its fledgling police department after a request for a public safety millage failed.
Residents voted down the measure 873-656, unofficial Jackson County results show.
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“At this time, I don’t really have any answers about what we are going to do,” township Supervisor Andrew Haystead said.
The hope had been the 2-mill tax would sustainably fund the new department, which the board decided in November 2024 to reestablish. It was expected to collect $391,000 in its first year.
Haystead said the board must now decide whether to move forward with the department or disband it.
The township already has purchased a vehicle and equipment and hired a chief – until he resigned in February. Officials have not hired a new chief and the department now has no staff. Haystead was not certain of the total cost already spent.
Norvell would have to reexamine its budget if it were keep the department because the 2026-2027 budget did not include police funding, said Haystead, who became supervisor in April.
When he was a trustee, he supported restarting the police department.
The township is in the southeast corner of the county and if it had its own force, officers could fill in any gaps left by the Michigan State Police and the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, which has struggled with staffing. “There is not a lot of coverage out here as it is,” Haystead said.
Without the levy, the city will not suspend the current 1.01 mill special assessment district for its fire service contracts with Napoleon and Cambridge townships
If the public safety millage had passed, it would have also funded the fire contracts, the supervisor said.
He said township probably would not put the public safety request again on a ballot, but this too will be up to the board.
“Honestly, there probably wasn’t enough information gotten out to the voters as far as what it would have covered and what the intent of it was,” he said of the millage proposal.
The township had a police department until 2008, when the board closed the department because residents twice voted against a police millage.
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