Ludington Public Safety Special Assessment
PA 33 Landowner Petition Effort Moving Forward
A coordinated community effort is beginning to collect and verify landowner petitions concerning the proposed Ludington Public Safety Special Assessment.
One petition effort. One set of records.
As property owners begin asking for petitions and volunteers begin collecting signatures, it is important that the effort remain organized.
Public Act 33 uses a land-based threshold. MCL 41.801(3) refers to owners of 10% of the land to be made into the special assessment district.
That means this effort involves more than counting signatures. Ownership, parcel information, duplicate properties and land area need to be verified before any conclusion is reached about whether the statutory threshold has been satisfied.
Dan Jensen will serve as the central records coordinator for the PA 33 petition effort.
Completed petition sheets should be returned for centralized numbering, copying, parcel verification, duplicate control, land-area calculation and preservation of the petition record.
If you are collecting signatures
- Please use the petition contained in the current PA 33 Landowner Petition Kit.
- Keep completed signature sheets intact and legible.
- Record the property address and parcel ID whenever possible.
- Do not estimate acreage or decide whether an unusual ownership situation qualifies.
- Do not count signatures yourself toward the statutory 10% threshold.
- If one owner has multiple properties, identify those properties so each parcel can be verified.
- Questions involving trusts, LLCs, corporations, estates, joint ownership or other unusual ownership situations should be flagged for verification.
- If a property owner asks a question you cannot answer, write it down rather than guessing.
Already working on a petition?
We know other community members may already be researching or preparing PA 33 petitions.
We welcome coordination.
The goal is not to compete over petition forms. The goal is to avoid conflicting language, duplicate property counts and fragmented records while making sure useful work already being done in the community is not lost.
Download the complete petition kit
The current kit includes the petition, continuation sheets, Quick Start guide, collector materials, property-owner question forms, parcel verification worksheet, 10%-of-land calculation worksheet, submission materials and PA 33 statutory reference material.
What this effort does not claim
We are not representing that the proposed assessment has been determined unlawful. We are not representing that a particular number of signatures automatically satisfies PA 33, and signing the petition should not be described as a guarantee that an election will occur or that the assessment will stop.
Questions concerning petition timing, ownership qualification, calculation of the statutory land threshold and other procedural matters continue to be researched.
The purpose of centralized recordkeeping is to make sure the petition effort produces a record that can be checked against the statute and the City’s property information.