Bay City holds town hall style meeting - ABC 12 – WJRT – Flint, MI

(01/28/13) - Bay City is looking at major changes, including public safety and how much they pay for water.

Monday night, they put everything on the table, and invited residents to voice their opinions.

"It's just a wonderful give and take," said Lori Dufresne, Bay City Commission president.

The commission's goal at Monday night's town hall style meeting was to highlight accomplishments from the last year, and talk about the city's future.

"It's refreshing to hear positive things about the city. You hear so much negative all the time," said Bay City resident Sharon Turow.

One major change coming their way is a $60 million water plant for the county, townships and the city.

"We're going to build a new water filtration plant at the same place our current plant is at," Dufresne said. "We will be tapping into the Midland-Saginaw water system."

The plant will mean better tasting water. The city approved their portion on Friday, now they're waiting for the townships to give their nod of approval.

"We're getting a lot of funding, we're getting a lot of help from the state on that. We will see probably a small (rate) increase, it's going to be county-wide, not just the city of Bay City," Dufresne said.

And another big change they touched on was their new public safety department. Police officers are now being cross trained as fire fighters.