Michigan towns work to design life after Delphi

COOPERSVILLE, Mich. — City Manager Steven Patrick's phone rang just before noon March 31. On the line was a Delphi official, breaking the kind of news no small town wants to hear.

After more than 25 years of operating a plant in Coopersville, the nation's largest auto-parts supplier was shutting the factory within two years.

Disappointed but not completely surprised, Patrick reached for a file he had been preparing in anticipation of this day. Four years earlier, Patrick had begun posing the question to City Council members:

"What happens if Delphi leaves?"

That question is being asked not only in this bedroom community near Grand Rapids, but in other Michigan cities after Delphi's announcement in March that it was closing 25 plants nationwide. The closures will eliminate 10,000 jobs combined in Coopersville, Adrian, Flint and Saginaw.

Back to basics

In better times, the cities took in hundreds of thousands of dollars annually from Delphi taxes and spent the money on projects like recreation and park beautification. Now councils are trying to figure out how they'll pay for basic city services in five years when the plants are gone.

They all agree it's a daunting task and residents likely will feel the squeeze, but they say they're resolved to prevent their communities from being devastated.

"Delphi has never defined us," Patrick said from the city's quaint administration building, which resembles a house. "Coopersville is going to survive with or without Delphi."

Patrick has been tweaking a mock budget that doesn't include Delphi. He already has presented the City Council with possible solutions to surviving Delphi's departure, including laying off one administrative staff employee and one Department of Public Works employee. That would save the city $90,000 in wages and benefits.

The plan also calls for significantly raising recreation fees, assuming the recreation department is not shut down altogether, and increasing the rate at which tax revenue is generated.

During the past 25 years, revenue from Delphi allowed city officials to spend planning sessions discussing recreation initiatives and park-beautification projects.

Accounting for 32 percent of Coopersville's total taxable value, or more than $36 million, the auto supplier is the largest taxpayer in the city.

Small-town style

Coopersville is the kind of community where pedestrian traffic signs are nonexistent and motorists, with one hand on the steering wheel, give walkers a wave of permission to pass by; where most retailers incorporate the city into their business name — like Coopersville Car Care and Coopersville Hardware and Farm Service; and where the pride of downtown is in a $35,000 antique clock, a donation from the local Rotary Club.

Coopersville residents aren't wealthy, but life in the town isn't expensive. The median household income is $48,875; the average home value is $113,500.

If there were ever a city with characteristics of early-TV family sitcoms, Coopersville fits it.

Homeowners keep their mini-blinds open at night. There are 23 churches and no strip clubs.

An overwhelming majority of residents, most of German and Dutch descent, are married with children. Married parents outnumber single mothers 8-to-1.

The Coopersville Area Chamber of Commerce has made an effort to promote the city through its "Discover Coopersville" project that trumpets the city's livability, or through its community festivals, which draw thousands of out-of-town visitors every year.

Coopersville's most-known festival is Summerfest, which attracts 30,000 visitors every year, said Jan Richardson, executive director of the chamber. The festival's attractions include a quilt show; truck and tractor show; and the Del Shannon Memorial Car Cruise, named after the 1960s rock guitarist who grew up in Coopersville.

Most of the chamber's business initiatives during the past couple of years involved helping existing businesses grow. Best Packaging has had three expansions, Aggressive Tool & Die recently moved to the city's industrial park; Self Lube Automotive has gone through three expansions; and Reeves Plastic recently built a new facility to complement its Grand Rapids operations.

The chamber's focus on industrial jobs matches the work force. Of the 2,086 residents over age 16 and able to work, more than a third have blue-collar jobs in the production, transportation, construction or farming industries.

Many Delphi workers already started preparing for their life without Delphi a week before Patrick received his phone call.

On March 22, Delphi announced a deal with General Motors and the United Auto Workers union to offer 13,000 workers $35,000 to retire early or accept one of 5,000 positions at GM, Delphi's former owner. Nationwide, 12,600 have accepted the offer.

Robert Betts, president of UAW Local 2151 in Coopersville, said Delphi's attrition offer that included incentives to retire early or transfer to a GM plant, has pushed some of the company's best workers out of the door, and perhaps out of Coopersville.

Many left

On June 23, Delphi's deadline for accepting the attrition offer, 470 of the plant's 653 workers building fuel injectors were in line signing papers to leave.

Delphi's exit could force the city to pay the company's industrial-facility taxes of about $137,000. But the city may take legal action to recoup money from previous tax breaks it gave Delphi, should the auto supplier leave without a replacement.

Coopersville's plans without Delphi impressed Fitch Ratings Service's Chicago branch, which gave Coopersville an A+ bond rating. The report, released April 28, said the rating "reflects the city's strong financial position, growing tax base and extensive long-term planning of the city's management."