Oakland County’s new executive, David Coulter, visited Oxford Public Library on Jan. 7 for a meet and greet called “Your County with David Coulter.”
After opening remarks highlighting his accomplishments so far in office and his goals for the coming year, Coulter opened the floor for questions and comments. The discussion shifted almost exclusively to mass transit. “Metro

Detroit is the only major metropolitan area in the country that doesn’t have some kind of comprehensive transit system,” Coulter asserted.
“Not true, not true,” interrupted an audience member, citing Dallas as a counterexample.
Coulter disagreed, saying he had studied Dallas’s system as a potential model.
The audience member insisted people get around Dallas via the automobile. “Anyone who says Dallas is dominated by mass transit – you’re not fact-based.”
Coulter corrected, “Dallas is dominated by mass transit.”
He went on to make a case for why the region needs better transit. “It’s not that I’m dying to ride buses and trains,” he said. “It harms our region economically not to have transit. It also hurts people with disabilities, and seniors, and people with low income, and those who just don’t want a vehicle.”
Transit “is one of the many things that young people are looking for when they are looking for a community to live in,” he added. “Now, I get I’m in a part of the county right now where people . . . are not looking for that kind of transit. Believe me, I understand that.”
In 2016, a millage proposal to fund the Regional Transit Authority (RTA), failed at the polls. Coulter said when he took over as county executive he wanted to take another look at transit to see if there was something they could improve. “But I am not interested in looking at the old 2016 plan – it failed in Oakland County, frankly, and it got creamed in Macomb County – and I’m just dusting that off. Because a lot of people were telling me it just needed a better sales person, Brooks Patterson wasn’t supportive of it and he didn’t push it. And I said, ‘no, no, no there were flaws in that plan. It wasn’t a perfect plan and I want to start from scratch.’”
Dallas, Coulter said, was a good example of a phased approach. “Let’s start with something, see how it goes. It doesn’t have to be the full massive investment. Let’s see if we can build ridership.” One of the problems with the 2016 plan, Coulter said, was that it was great for people who lived along major roads like Woodward Ave., while it excluded everyone else because there weren’t enough connector routes to get them “the last mile” to the main thoroughfares.
“That was a challenge in places like Southfield and Hazel Park. It’s an even bigger challenge when you’re in the north. If you’re in a big subdivision or a rural area, how do you get from there to a transit stop that makes sense for you?” Coulter said he didn’t know the answer and they’re still studying it.
The RTA consists of four counties: Macomb, Oakland, Washtenaw and Wayne. All four counties must agree to any plan under RTA. “What became clear to me is that Macomb is just not going to participate in any kind of transit plan,” Coulter said. “So, under the current legislation as it exists, we can’t do transit under RTA.”
However, legislation already exists called the Municipal Partnership Act (MPA), which allows local units of government to partner on services together. “It’s been used for a lot of different things, but it’s never been used for transit before,” Coulter said.
He explained if they used the MPA, then those communities which want to participate can agree to form a contract with each other. Then the so-called “coalition of the willing” could work with RTA, but they would be in charge. “One of the misconceptions is the RTA is trying to jam down some plan. It has nothing to do with the RTA,” Coulter said.
Coulter is supporting new legislation, Michigan House Bill 5229, that seeks to modify the MPA to make it easier to use for transit, but no transit legislation currently exists. “There is not a plan on the table today. I want to be clear about that. All options are on the table,” he said.
Coulter said they were exploring ways to add more value for the rural areas. “One of the things I didn’t like when I looked at the 2016 plan, I don’t think there was enough value for areas like Oxford. That was clear to me. I don’t know why it wasn’t clear to people in 2016. You were being asked to pay 1.2 mills and what did you get for that? Frankly, if I was a resident of Oxford in 2016, I probably wouldn’t have voted for that plan.”
“You might not be asked to add any more value,” an audience member said. “We may want no value added.”
“I get that,” Coulter rebutted. “And that won’t be up to me to decide.” If and when they draft a plan, they will take it around the county to get feedback. “This is the beginning of a process that will be shared with you all the way through,” he said. Then it will be up to the voters.
“To me, the plan is more important than the timing,” he continued. “I know a lot of people want to get this on the ballot late this year, and that’s a goal, but the plan is much more important. At the end of the day, once this plan gets put together, it has to be something that I can support.”
Someone asked if a new plan would replace SMART (Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transit). Coulter said it was a great question. “No, SMART will not go away. SMART and DDOT (Detroit Department of Transportation) would have to operate this system,” he said. SMART would operate the connector routes he referred to, or even the main routes. “You can’t do a regional transit plan without a strong SMART and a strong DDOT.”
A point of confusion about the MPA is that it allows up to five mills to be levied. The millage on the RTA ballot in 2016 was 1.2 mills. Coulter said that although the MPA allows up to five mills, there is “no interest or intent” to go higher than what was proposed in 2016. “We’ll put that in writing. There’s no intent to go higher than what we proposed last time.”
Still, some folks were not reassured.
“But there could be,” one man pointed out.
“There is zero, zero interest in going higher than what was proposed,” Coulter repeated.

Several folks were concerned Oakland County would be put into a voting bloc with Wayne and Washtenaw and their vote wouldn’t count, once they joined the partnership and voted for the millage. “Our vote would be diluted is I guess the point,” one man said.
Coulter said it would be similar to what they did with the Cobo Authority for Cobo Hall. “We put a board together that had representatives,” he said. “One of the things they put in there which I think was brilliant and works really well, is that it has to be a unanimous vote so counties don’t dictate to other counties. So we would have a representative on this RTA-like authority and they would have to have our input. I’m not going to let Wayne County or Detroit or Washtenaw County dictate what happens with transit in Oakland County.”
This was met with clamor.
The man suggested that when Coulter speaks at a Detroit Free Press sponsored round table with representative from Wayne and Washtenaw counties on Jan. 21, it would be “a perfect time for you to clarify this issue of Oakland County being able to act independently and not being put into a voting bloc where our votes don’t count. That would be a perfect spot for you to get up and say, for those of you who are Oakland County residents, you’re going to be able to vote and you’re going to be able to decide if you want in.”
Former county commissioner Larry Obrecht spoke next. “First of all, thanks for coming to the north forty. We love having you here.”
Obrecht recalled when he worked with Coulter on the commission, there was always a split of power and opinion between the north and south ends of the county.
“As you know, there is no opt out option for us up here. It’s going to be a county vote which will be controlled by the south end of the county where the population is, so whatever they say is what we’re going to be doing. That goes even before you start talking about the collaboration with other counties,” he said.
A major concern of Obrecht is protecting NOTA (North Oakland Transportation Authority), which provides transportation for senior citizens, individuals with disabilities and low-income residing in Orion, Oxford, Addison and Leonard.
“What you’re going to be looking at is an RTA millage, a SMART millage, and then a NOTA millage. Well, I don’t know about y’all, but when that comes to us I’m going to make a choice. So my request of you is to be cognizant of that, be aware and protect what we’ve put together out here in these communities for seniors and people with disabilities. It’s not mass transit, we understand that.”
Last year, NOTA provided 42,090 rides, which is 242 rides more than in 2018. In 2019, NOTA vehicles traveled a combined 538,794 miles, which is 10,949 miles more than the previous year.
“It is important to us that we take care of our seniors and people with disabilities and welfare individuals through that system,” Obrecht continued. “We operate that on one-fifth of a mill. Not 1.2. We need you to protect us.”
Coulter said that he understood “protecting NOTA and those kinds of transit services is critical” and that it is important not to break what already works efficiently.
“Thank you for being so welcoming to me,” Coulter said after hearing a few more comments. “I really do appreciate that you came out and we had a chance to meet each other, so thank you very much.”