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Public hearing on CDBG 2025 action plan spotlights concerns over use of funds for fire station bond
Summary
At a June 10 public hearing, City of Muskegon staff presented the 2025 Community Neighborhood Services annual action plan and fielded commissioner questions about the long-running use of CDBG dollars to help pay the central fire station bond.
The City of Muskegon held a public hearing June 10 on the Community Neighborhood Services 2025 Annual Action Plan (the city’s CDBG annual plan), where staff described program priorities and commissioners questioned the use of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds to help pay a central fire station bond.
Sharonda Carson, director of Community Neighborhood Services, explained that the annual action plan is the city’s yearly element of a five-year consolidated plan started in 2021 and that roughly 50% of proposed resources are set aside for home repairs and about 20% for housing preservation for low-income families. "Tonight is an opportunity to hear back from the community," Carson said, and she announced an additional public hearing on Thursday, June 12 at 10 a.m.
Commissioner Evelyn German pressed for details about the city’s longstanding practice of using CDBG funds toward the central fire station bond. Carson and Mayor Kenneth D. Johnson traced the issue back more than a decade: the city initially planned to shift the bond financing to the Downtown Development Authority (DDA) later, but changing revenue dynamics limited the DDA’s capacity to assume the debt. Staff said the fire-station bond payments had peaked in the current fiscal year and are scheduled to decline; one staff member said the bonds are expected to be paid off in 2033.
Commissioners and staff also said the city has been reducing reliance on CDBG for the bond in recent years and that for the coming fiscal year the budgeted CDBG allocation for the bond was reduced to $200,000. Commissioner German and others expressed concern that diverting HUD-funded CDBG dollars to bond payments competes with home repair and youth program funding; Carson said Citizens District Council recommendations had prioritized using reduced bond payments to increase home repair funding.
No action was taken on the plan at the hearing; staff said the CDBG budget will come to the commission for formal approval at a later meeting and encouraged public comment at the June 12 hearing.
