From
By Lonnie Huhman
Monroe to
Ironwood
MML’s Gilmartin works to improve Michigan communities
O
ne of Northville’s own works each day to help make Michigan communities better places. As executive director and CEO of the Michigan Municipal League, Dan Gilmartin leads an organization that works hard to fulfill its mission. “The League works with communities throughout Michigan to improve quality of life – downtown development consulting, neighborhood and housing issues, placemaking, elected official training, state and federal advocacy, legal defense,” Gilmartin said. “You name it, we do it.” Gilmartin has been recognized as a national leader in the fields of urban revitalization, placemaking, local government reform and transportation policy. Under his leadership, the MML was recognized by Crain’s Detroit Business as a “Cool Place to Work” in 2011. Prior to his current position, Gilmartin served four years
22 The ‘Ville
as the lead advocate for Michigan’s communities in Lansing and in Washington, where he concentrated on a number of key issues including transportation, land use and urban redevelopment. In 2012, he was selected as the Strategic Association Leader of the Year by the Michigan Society of Association Executives. “The Michigan Municipal League is dedicated to making Michigan’s communities better by thoughtfully innovating programs, energetically connecting ideas and people, actively serving members with resources and services, and passionately inspiring positive change for Michigan’s greatest centers of potential: its communities,” Gilmartin said. There are more than 500 municipalities in Michigan and Gilmartin said they serve them all – “from Monroe to Ironwood and everywhere in between.” “My work takes me everywhere in Michigan and I am introduced to some amazing
local officials, business leaders and community activists,” he said. “We may be working on a housing project in midtown Detroit one day and performing a citizen engagement workshop in Marquette the next.” Gilmartin also spends a good deal of time in Washington, D.C. advocating on behalf of Michigan municipalities at the federal level. He calls himself a city guy through and through. He and his family live in downtown Northville, which he said they “love for its walkability and historical architecture.” His wife, Lori, grew up in Northville and he said their sons, Graham and Chase, love it in Northville. “Our favorite weekends are when we don’t have to get in a car because so much is available to us – eating, shopping, recreation by walking and biking,” he said. A BROKEN SYSTEM At present, one important goal the MML is working on is
to amend the state system for funding municipal government services. For more than a decade, the state government has been balancing its own budget on the backs of local governments by redirecting more than $8 billion in municipal funding to its own coffers. Locally, he said since 2002, the City of Northville has been shorted more than $2 million and Northville Township has lost over $5.5 million, “forcing local leaders to cut important services or ask voters for higher taxes.” “The system is broke and it needs to be fixed, so the League and its partners formed the SaveMICity campaign to drive the creation of a new municipal finance system that puts the money where it is needed -- local roads and public safety – without raising taxes,” Gilmartin said. Besides the municipal finance dilemma, he said people should pay close attention to the