Your New Scoop Site

Welcome to Scoop!

To help you figure things out, there is a Scoop Admin Guide which can hopefully answer most of your questions.

Some tips:

Most of the layout is changed in "Blocks", found in the admin tools menu
Features can be turned on and off, and configured, in "Site Controls" in the admin tools menu
Stories have an "edit" link right beside the "Full Story" link on an index page, and right beside the "Post a Comment" link on the full story page. They can also be edited by clicking the story title in the "Story List" admin tool
Boxes are what allow you to write new features for Scoop; they require a knowledge of the perl programming language to work with effectively, although you can often make small changes without knowing much perl. If you would like a feature added but cannot program it yourself, ScoopHost does custom Scoop programming as one of its services.
If you aren't sure where to look for a particular feature or piece of display, try the "Search Admin Tools" link in the admin tools menu.

For support, questions, and general help with Scoop, email support@scoophost.com

ScoopHost.com is currently running Scoop version Undeterminable from .

Tag: Tax relief

Little Big Things.

By JGillman, Section News
Posted on Tue Jun 07, 2011 at 07:42:06 AM EST
Tags: Traverse City, Michigan, Tax relief, Lowered Taxes, Mike Gillman, Chris Bzdok, Property Taxes (all tags)

Last night I watched an amazing thing.

The Traverse City commission voted on their budget.

I was present at probably the longest Traverse City Commission meeting I have attended. So long in fact, that protocol required the commissioners to remove the clock from the wall so as to "ignore" the new day. And with the clock removed and facing down on the table, the commission proceeded to do a couple things of note. Using a series of budget adjustments for a building fund, fire and police (a $35k consultant recommended move) and engineering/GIS, and they paid half down on a long term liability, an act 325 fund.

Responsible yes. Amazing, no.

What really is amazing in this day and age of shrinking municipal revenues, is that they cut spending, and paid liabilities AND lowered the taxes.

Its something you might not often see in Michigan or many other states, as municipalities fight to maintain programs, spending levels, and incoming revenues. However in Traverse City Michigan on 06-06-11, commissioners voted to lower the levied rate by 0.7 mils providing real relief for owners of property within the Traverse City taxing boundaries.

I'll write more as I wake a bit (been a long night), but I should not leave this without pointing out I was happy to see the board make this "progressive" move towards responsible handling of the people's affairs. I was also happy to see it spearheaded by a "liberal Democrat Mayor," Chris Bzdok, and one city commissioner, Michael Gillman.

A small amount of relief goes a long way in revealing a changing tide.

Comments >>