Where I stand, and why
Every position here comes with the facts behind it. Where I do not know something yet, I say so.
The three that matter most
Water, roads, and the way decisions get made. The first two are what people raise at the door. The third is why the first two got this expensive.
Water and sewer
Council voted May 7, 2025 to raise rates nearly 108% over five years. The average quarterly bill goes from about $266 to about $550 by 2030. The repairs are real. Both plants date to the 1930s. But Michigan has required an asset management plan for every system this size since January 2018, and that plan has to include a rate methodology adequate to fund it. The advice existed. Nobody was required to compare it to the budget in public, so the gap grew quietly until it reached $141 million.
- Run water assistance through the income test the city already uses to waive building permit fees.
- Publish the gap in dollars before every budget vote. What the plan says we need, what we budgeted, the difference.
- Get the rainwater out of the sanitary sewer. A former utilities director told this council in 2022 and again in 2026 that disconnecting sump pumps and footing drains could shrink or eliminate the need for a $30 million basin. Council approved the basin.
- I will not promise the bills come down. I will promise you can see the math.
Roads, riverwalk, and sidewalks
Thirty-nine of Owosso’s seventy-one street miles are rated poor. The city’s main tool for funding reconstruction is the special assessment, charged to abutting property owners by frontage over ten annual installments at 3% interest. That practice dates to at least 1911. Council held a special meeting on road funding in 2024, discussed it for about ninety minutes, and took no action.
- Publish a work calendar so every street can see its year.
- Most of the frustration I hear is not that the work is slow. It is that the schedule is invisible.
- Bring road funding back with a decision attached. A millage, a different assessment formula, a phased plan. Let’s give the community an opportunity to weigh what they need and what they can afford.
- Count sidewalks and crossings as important travel ways. In our walkable city they play an unsung role in moving people.
- The public works crew is doing what it can with the budget and equipment it has. Community involvement on small tasks might be another option to get the result people need.
Do the research and show your work
I have been following much of the discourse that happens in City Council meetings and most notably there are often decisions made by gut feeling and not informed and well researched context. I have incredible respect for the professionals who provide data to out city council, from city manager Henne to all the team leadership who report on what the city needs to run smoothly. Unfortunately the great work they do can fall on deaf ears when city council members who are not credentialed or educated in they very high level decisions required to run the city are forced to deliberate on subjects they are woefully under prepared to take responsibility for.
- Amend the council’s Rules of Order. No vote on a fee, a rate, a deferred repair, or a permit denial without a written recommendation from the responsible professional in the packet for public record.
- That memo has to state, in dollars, what it costs the city to be wrong. Litigation exposure, refund liability, lost grants, deferred replacement cost.
- Voting against the recommendation is allowed. It just requires a signed statement of reasons, entered in the minutes.
- Rules of Order changes take a two-thirds vote, and so does suspending them. Skipping this would itself be a recorded public vote.
- This takes no decision away from anyone. Council still votes however it wants. It just has to say why, in writing, show proof of adequate guidance and be held accountable for those decisions in a public format.
The rest of the list
Smaller than the first three, but every one of them is either already in front of Council or about to be.
Empty downtown buildings
In May, the Historic District Commission judged its own tools and the property maintenance code insufficient, and pointed to three buildings already lost. A Vacant Commercial Building Registration and Inspection ordinance went to Council on May 20. The DDA tabled it July 8 pending an October report. Adopt it, applied to the Historic District. Registration and inspection let the city act long before a building becomes a demolition bill.
Trash and recycling
State law requires curbside recycling available to 90% of single-family homes by January 1, 2028. Residents are not required to use it but the city is required to offer it. After 23 listening sessions, Council voted 7-0 to draft a single-hauler ordinance. I suggest we settle trash at the same time, and write the contract so local haulers can bid and residents can save money.
The Carnegie library
I sit on the committee, and it is early in its work. Currently we are working on ensuring the library’s legacy, first bring the building into the downtown historic district so nobody can paint it hot pink and second helping to find appropriate use and a future good steward who can afford to maintain the building.
Attracting more city events
There is a group of people who have protested permits for many of Owosso’s favorite events, including Pride and the Farmers Market, and I am concerned they may intend to use the approval or denial of one permit over another as a content-based denial in a public forum. Cities routinely lose those cases and pay the other side’s legal fees. This is a serious problem, both fiscally and as an overreach and misuse of power.
I support the events we have and would go after more. I would also work to move decisions like this to a more sound system with checks and balances that would reduce financial and social risks.
Smart ordinances and rules for data centers
Corunna approved an ordinance unanimously on August 3, 2026, drafted first by its planning commission: 100-foot height maximum, noise limits, setback minimums, and a required environmental study. These are smart protections to prepare for coming developers with data center plans. Water, power, noise, and local investment should be in place now to ensure no one gets steamrolled by this new industry.
Surveillance and Safety
More than 180 Michigan agencies use surveillance camera systems like Flock and the results have not been positive. Bay City, Ferndale and Clawson have all pulled back after public debate and significant problems with the new Ai systems. The failure I keep coming back to is the false match: the wrong plate, the wrong stop, and wasting our officers’ valuable time and resources.
Also on my list
Smaller items, and the honest answers where I do not have the numbers yet.
Open items, and open questions…
Council was asked in 2025 to allow towing vehicles with four or more unpaid tickets over thirty days old. Downtown business owners opposed it and it was tabled. From July 2025 through March 2026 the city issued 385 parking citations, sent 198 delinquent letters, and collected on 40. That is twenty percent. We need to work together to figure out how to enforce our parking ordinances. Working with Downtown business owners who bring traffic to our Main Street is how we find balance and move from contention to success.
The developer has been approved for tax credits on the property. That step normally comes before any visible work, so there should be movement before long. This one is largely settled and I am not going to manufacture a fight about it. What I would do is keep people posted: where it stands, what has been approved, and when work is expected.
We have a community of helpers, and most of them are already spread thin. People want to help and many do not know where to start. I help with a Saturday breakfast and a Sunday dinner, and there is a food bank in the area. Whether what exists is enough is a question I want answered with numbers rather than an impression, and I do not have those numbers yet. What I would do is work with the people already doing this rather than around them, find grants and funding, and coordinate between the city and its helpers so somebody who wants to help knows where to go.
Then tell me about it. Email me at contact@seanharrington.org and I will answer, and if it belongs on this page I will add it and say where I stand. That is easier to do before an election than after one.
Election day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026
Four at-large seats are open. You may vote for up to four candidates. Please make Sean Harrington one of your choices.