Time for Royal Oak Township to fold as it runs out of people to tax

Royal Oak Township, a township now all of .56 square miles in size - Yes, really, less than a full square mile and its still a surviving (barely) township! - is going to try and raise taxes yet again to keep surviving as a dysfunctional entity.

Squeeze tightens in Royal Oak Twp. - Town seeks to raise taxes to keep basic services running

Royal Oak Township, the poorest community in Oakland County, is also among the most taxed in the state -- and it's getting ready to ask residents to open their wallets even wider.

This tiny community bordering Eight Mile -- once a proud 36 square miles when it was formed in 1921 -- is now down to 0.56 square miles after years of annexations by neighboring cities. And now, it's fighting for its financial life.

At half a square mile, and with some of the highest mileages, special assessments and overall taxes in Michigan, its time for it to gracefully fold into the surrounding communities that have developed around it.

After all, that's what townships are supposed to do as cities grown around them, become absorbed and gain from economies of scale rather than having a

a $1.2 million annual budget that also pays for 14 full- and part-time workers including two public works employees, a code enforcement officer, Morgan's secretary, a part-time deputy supervisor, a full-time deputy clerk and a full-time deputy treasurer.

for .56 square miles!

Of course the reason its been hanging on, and supported all this time is that it is Michigan's historically Black run township and some people think that race alone is enough to maintain a ridiculously expensive historical oddity that should have been folded long ago into the City of Royal Oak.

Royal Oak Township has some of the highest poverty levels in all of Oakland County - insanely high taxes may have something to do with that by driving away the productive and business property owners until only those who can't leave are left.

It is long past time the township quit its futile struggle tax itself to survival and remain in its half mile square existence and instead saved its residents' monies and futures by relegating itself to history.