Sunny Reddy with Dave Niffin: Building a Stronger Troy

So hello community. Hello everybody. Indian community, especially in Troy. I'm sitting here with Dave Niffin today. He's the candidate for the city council. He has so many things to tell us about how he can help our community. You know what, TRI is one of the largest Indian community in the state. So definitely our, you know, we have, they value us. And I just want to talk to him and see what he's intending to do it. David, thank you very much for coming here and trying to let us know what your plans and everything in the city. So please tell introduce yourself.

So first of all, thank you for having me. This is great you have me in your studio here. I really appreciate it. I'm running for city council. My name is Dave Niffin and I am a fourth generation Troy resident here. And I feel like I have an opportunity, if not a duty to do something for the city to better it.

So my question related to the education, I'll tell you Indian community, if you ask them what you need, they always say the best education. And I can tell you right, if not for our parents, they sacrifice their lives to give us a better life and their number one priority is education. So tell me about what's your plans about Tri? Schools is one of the best holiday. But what's your plans?

First of all, I'm a husband, but I'm also a father. So I have kids of my own. I have a 5 year old at home and 11 year old. So their education is very important to me. I want them to excel and succeed better than I ever dreamed. So it is very important to me. Now like you said, Troy schools is vast. It's multiple elementaries. It's four junior highs and middle schools and then two high schools and then we have an international academy and of course Wallace College. But it's a very key part of this community and that's what brings people here. So while the school board is separate from city council and we don't govern them, they don't govern us. We have to give them our support. So we have to maybe set the tone that we find that as a priority, which we do, and I will continue that. But education goes beyond the doors of the schoolroom and that's really the key in city council for us is to understand that we have a duty in the city to educate children and people outside of the schoolroom. So it starts by responsible government, right. And transparency. And if everybody can see that we are transparent, honest and follow through, that filters through the community and they can trust us. And trust is part of education. If you can't trust your people above you or educating you, then there is no relationship. So the important thing is to build relationships with the schools, with the school district, invite children into the city council, let them shadow us, explain to them how government works, because you don't always learn in schools every intricacy of government and then we release them into the world and then they become voters, they become citizens, taxpayers without a true understanding of how the system works. And I think that is really important and it's really lost on a lot of people how important knowing what's going on is. So I want to push to have the children, even the citizens, have a firm understanding of the city government, how it works, what it's doing for us and why we pay for it and why it's important.

Exactly. So let me ask you a question. I am on the, I'm sure I'm on the Vinci board and one of the reason I got elected is I felt like I want to give it back and education is the best place to give it back. That's what our community and myself face. So last year we had a issue in tri school district that they removed our honors requirement. Are you aware of it?

I am aware of that. And you know, I feel like that's part of more of a plan to balance everybody out. And frankly, that's improper. We need to reward achievers, overachievers, strong achievers, and there has to be a bar set and it doesn't mean we're diminishing people below that. It just gives something to strive for. Because we in our society, in America, we're a strive based society. We can all do things, but we all have to put in the effort and the hard work at it and it should be rewarded.

Exactly. And also I think, you know what, when we educate, when we send these kids out into the job market or you know, college going kids, right?

Yes.

We want to give them the best education possible so that they can compete. They can go out and compete.

Right, Exactly. There's no value to keeping everybody at the same level or to taking away the bar. Because the real world, it's tough, you know, to coddle people and say, well, you know, we're all on the same level. No, it's, it's tough out there. The real world is tough. And if we don't hinder, if we start to hinder people, then they get out of the real world and they say what, what's going on here?

Right.

And no, we, we get the best when we push for the best. And I, I think they should bring back the honors class. I don't know why they would get rid of that. Honestly, I still don't understand the reasoning and that. That's really bothersome to me, you know?

You know, I'm not sure or sometimes I feel bad that the way people feel. Twenty years ago we used to have a, you know, old country. They used to say, you know, if you need a job, go to Detroit. You'll find something.

Yes.

Not anymore. Our kids are not only competing with our neighbors, our kids are competing with the kids across the world. China, India.

Oh, yeah. Global world, global market.

Exactly. If you don't give them the right tools to these kids, they can't compete outside. And that's, that's what I feel. I think, I'm sure you agree with.

Well, take it a step further. You know, 20 years ago they were competing globally. Now we're competing against the machines.

100%. 100%. And the machines are not going to take your jobs. You need to get ready. The person who knows the machines is going to take your job. So if you're not ready, then if.

You'Re not prepared, you're absolute.

Exactly. I think we both agree on the education side, apart from the education, the safety is concerned. TRI is one of the safest, there's no question about it. But it doesn't mean that we didn't have issues. Issues. So how do you want to tackle the.

Well, the thing with safety is it's not something we solve and rest on.

Right.

It's a continual process. We had. I live at 18 and a half in Rochester Road. There was a murder a mile and a half north of us just inside Rochester Hills. It could have just as easy been across the border in Troy. And we can't have that. This is not a city where we would tolerate that. So we have to stay vigilant. We have to have well trained officers, we have to have smart officers. We have to have people that are always, not only on patrol, but aware people looking for everything. And it starts in schools as well. We're talking about education there. You know, we haven't had any issues like they had in Oxford, and let's hope that we never do. As long as we stay vigilant and it starts with the students, it starts with the teachers and starts with the resource officers. Everybody, everybody stay vigilant, stay on top of this. And I think we will have a safe community and we'll continue to have a safe community as long as we do that. The Minute we start taking it for granted is when we'll have a problem. And I'm not going to take it for granted, and I don't think anybody would want that.

Right, right. Question a little bit on the outside when it comes to immigration and try is one of the diverse city.

It is.

You see, every person from every country, I think, tries that how diverse it is. People feel like it's their home. What do you think about it?

Well, you know, I grew up here from Troy Union to Troy Athens. And I know the diversity very well. I mean, I went to school with Chaldeans and Indian children and different Asian nationalities. And what I found was nice is people think that somehow we can't get along. And guess what? We get along great. You know what it takes? Smile, talk, communication, and realize that we have everything in common. You know what I find is kids that play sports understand that immediately that we all have something in common. We can all go out there and throw the basketball or get on the baseball field and hit the ball together. And once we start doing that, then we can communicate and then we can all get along and raise a great community together. And I think that's what Troy's done. Honestly. Troy is actually nationally, I would say we stand out as the pillar of globalization because we all do get along very well. Right.

Thank you. Thank you, Dave. You know what? I think I agree with you, especially on the immigration, the people coming here, they're bringing the value. They're bringing not only just their background, but this is a great country. This is a melting pot. You see, America is the only country. You see everything and tries to, in fact, actually reflects America.

It does. And, you know, I'm the president of my HOA here in Troy, and on our board, we have four different engineers. Ford, Chrysler, I don't know where all they work, but one's Indian, one's American, one's a mix of something. I don't want to step on their toes, but they all have the same background, the same education, and they do the same thing, but for different companies. And we all can come together in the same neighborhood. So, no, it's very much a melting pot, a blend of nationalities and cultures. One of them celebrates Diwali, one does not. But we all talk about building this community the same together. It doesn't hinder anything. In fact, it helps us work together and learn things.

Right. What do you think about celebrating Diwali as a city with the community? Because I've been trying for a long time. In fact, actually, I had A meeting with the mayor. But unfortunately, that didn't happen. So, see, as a Hindu, it's not a Hindu festival. It's like a Christmas in India. Everybody celebrates Diwali. And people from India, they want to celebrate with a community, not just by themselves. They want to celebrate at large, everything, with everything, as a, you know, sweets, food and everything. Share the food, share the sweets, share their culture. And my plan is, I think I would like to do on a Diwali day in city hall or community center where bring all the community together. And that's the plan. What do you think about that?

I think it's a great idea because here's something that people, we take for granted. St Patrick's Day is an Irish holiday. We're not all Irish, but we can all celebrate it. We can all enjoy it. We all wear green that day. And Halloween, all cultures celebrate Halloween. I don't even know what the national origin of that is. But no, be great. And it would be a great way to push this cultural divide and bring us together. Because why can't we learn about the celebration and enjoy it and put lights up there like fireworks? Who doesn't want to like fireworks?

Right? Exactly, Exactly. Hopefully, I think pretty soon we should be able to celebrate with the rest of the community and try. And that's what I'm looking for. I think hopefully we can do it. Apart from the education, the safety and everything, end of the day, who don't want to save the money. So people feel like Troy is probably one of the highest in taxes. What do you think about it and how we can tackle that?

Well, you know, some of these guys don't want to tell you that Troy's taxes are low, but they're saying the rate is low, but our property value is high. So we pay a lot of taxes. I pay a lot of taxes. I'm sure you pay a lot of taxes. People don't mind paying taxes if they feel like their money is spent honestly, transparently and put to good use. And I'm not so sure that Troy is as transparent as it could be. You know, I see different things that go on and, you know, they produce these brilliant budgets, but they don't really dive in. They just put numbers on the face. And then we're all supposed to say, well, that's good enough. Troy's budget is enormous. We're talking 200 plus million dollars. And yet here they are again, this cycle, asking for more. And the question is, can you do better with what you have? As a business owner myself, And I know you have multiple businesses, you always look inward first, right?

That's right.

You can change your profit margins by simply changing some of your expenses rather than trying to start a new product line. And I think that's part of the problem in this city is a lot of the leadership has never owned a business or never been in business and they simply work their jobs and then they come to council and then they get the tax money and they send it to these different departments and nobody really questions anything. And I think questioning things is very important. And that's what I want to do. I want to tear that budget apart. I want to go through line by line. I want to see the expenses that aren't showing there. Whenever it says other, I want to know what that is. You can't spend a million dollars on other and expect us to take it on its face.

Right, right, right. Last but not least, I see so many yard signs about the proposal. Can you tell me a little bit about it?

Yeah. So the ballot proposal is the bond issue. The bond issue is $137 million. 75 million to fund a new library, a new building, and then 62 million between parks, fire, police, and I think that was it. But I'm the only candidate running right now that's against this bond. And I've been challenging them on it before they even got the language ready for the ballot. I think we can do better. First of all, this is a horrible time to borrow money. Interest rates are at an all time high, at least in our lifetime. So even if the city has a AAA bond rating, we're 4.5%. So over 20 years, we're talking over $70 million in money that leaves the taxpayers pockets in Troy and goes to Wall street bankers. That money is better served in this community than paid in interest. So that bothers me. First of all, we could maybe figure out a way to shave that money off of the budget and save it as opposed to borrowing. So borrowing is a bad idea right now. Maybe two years ago it would make more sense or two years from now, but right now it's a bad idea. So then you have the library question. Of course. I love the library. I take my kids to the library. We were there yesterday. Honestly, I feel like it's a great library. It serves my needs. We go there, my kids can get the books they need. They sometimes work on the computer or whatever. It has everything you need. The question is the building problematic? So some would try and sell us that the building is falling apart. I've Heard that over and over again. However, there's nothing in this bond proposal that spells out how they're going to tear it down, where the money's coming from, when. So a demo on a building that size is over a million dollars. It has to be abated. It has to be separated, all this. And they didn't account for that, which means they're not tearing it down because there's no money for it. And in fact, in a budget session, the city council said that they're likely to, if the library bond passes, build a new library and move the city's clerk's office in there, remodel the whole building. So it's a fallacy to say that that building is falling apart. So sometimes they hear that and now they change their tune, that they say it's functionally obsolete for a library. Okay, well, it's been a library for over 50 years. It seems to have served us well. Municipal buildings are not supposed to be disposable. They're supposed to be built for the long term. We have libraries in New York and Detroit that are hundreds of years old, and we appreciate that. Could this library be remodeled? I feel like it could. Is that the only option? No. I told council and the mayor. I was like, you know, we have empty buildings up and down, big, deep.

Hundreds of thousands of square feet, lot of places available.

Why don't we move a new library into a leasehold? That way we're not responsible for the roof. We're not responsible for the parking lot, the mowing, the elevators. You know, that's on somebody else. And we pay a yearly rent, and we can expand or contract the library based on our needs. And they paused for a moment when I brought that up because they knew that was a good idea. And then the response is, well, it's not in city center. And I said, there's a building a quarter mile in either direction.

It doesn't have to be always.

It doesn't have to be in city Center. People drive to it. Nobody's walking to it. There's no houses next door. So I would get that. If there was big apartments and everybody walked to it, then I would understand that. But that's not the case. We drive. So there's options. And then the funding option, a bond is not the only way to fund a project. You know, we can fund it through donations, we can fund it through grants.

Why not?

I mean, there's a lot of different options, but I don't think they've explored those options. And that bothers me. And it bothered me enough to run for city council, honestly, because I felt like I wasn't being heard and the people that I was with weren't being heard, and everything was just shot down immediately because they knew what they wanted and they wanted it no matter what.

Let me ask you this. Did they do any town hall or anything with me?

They're doing lots of town halls now. What you call those sales meetings, Right.

Once you decided it's not a town hall meeting anymore, it's a sales meeting, they decided they want to sell their idea. That's a sales meeting.

I'm not aware of any town halls before they made the decision to make this bond on the ballot.

Correct.

And they had a survey or something a year or two ago that they put out. And from looking at the results, it was a few thousand people, town of almost 89,000 people, and you surveyed less than 10%. That's not a very accurate depiction of the community. So I think they just. They want what they want, and this is the way they're going about it. And of course, the price tag, $75 million, is a lot of money for a library. A few months ago, when they were talking about it was 50 million, and it changed in a few months. And the question is, if this Bond passes on November 4th and the library doesn't start until 2027, is 75 million even the number we're at, or is it going to go higher because construction costs, inflation, you know, time is. Can change everything. So then what do we have? What if we have a $95 million library? Do they have to come back for more? So there's a lot of questions. I would say the best thing with this bond is to reject it, send it back, have them come up with some better plans.

That's right. That's right.

Strategize better and maybe don't bundle it. I know a lot of people have been mad at this bundling of the library, with the fire, with the plan police, with the roads and the parks. They would have rather seen multiple bond votes. You know, I choose the library. I choose fire. I don't want the parks, you know, instead of bundling it all together, because that's what they do in Washington. And it makes everybody mad when they have these omnibus funding bills and they fill it with as much stuff as they can. And of course, you want certain things to pass, so then you have to take everything. And people are mad about that. I've talked to a lot of people, and that right there has sold them on A no. So I don't know why the city chose that. A marketing firm told them to do it. I think you throw a fire in there and people can't say no.

Right.

And I love the fire department. I was just there at the open house. Our fire department is beautiful. We have six stations, beautiful trucks and everything. And of course, they're well funded. And if they need more resources, they need more resources. But it doesn't need to be bundled with everything we're doing on this bond here.

You know, personally, personally, between myself and my partner, we pay close to half a million dollars just in tri as a tax. It's a hardened money. It's not money doesn't come. Money doesn't go on the trees. It's a hardened money. And like me, I mean, all the residents in Troy, it's not. Money doesn't come. So they're hard working, you know, their money. I think money should be spent wisely. They're not against. None of us are against spending the money, but it has to spend wisely.

Well, and you know, you know better than anybody, we just passed a school bond because education's important to this town. So we passed the school bond that was almost half a billion dollars, maybe more. And before that, two years prior, we passed the library operating millage. That was up 60% from the 0.7 mils to the 1.1. So we've already contributed to helping the library. And now they come back and ask for more and more. Everybody's different, but I see a lot of seniors in my sub and around town, and these people are on fixed incomes. You know, the cost of inflation, the cost of everything is going up, and then taxes, you know, we're going to put an undue burden on them for a library. And they already built a library. These people have lived here 40, 50 years.

Right, right.

So we have to think about all the people, not just some of the people. And that's what I want to do on city council, is make sure I represent everybody and equally. And people deserve that. And sadly, as business owners like yourself, myself, anyone who has a business in Troy, just because you have a business here and pay tax here doesn't mean you get a vote. You might live in Madison Heights.

Exactly.

Sterling Heights. And you know, those people are part of our community. We need to represent them as well. And they need to know that they can talk to the council and be heard as well, because they're part of this community whether or not they have a vote.

Thank you very much for sharing your Ideas with us. You have a lot of ideas. I think what I can see is the best candidate for tricount city council. So if somebody wants to reach you, how can they reach you?

Okay. Yeah, so I have a website, TroyToday.com just like the magazine. Well, it's like the magazine they put out, but they didn't have the website. So Troy2daytroytoday.com have my email on there. I've answered every email that somebody sent me.

Excellent, excellent. Do you have a Facebook page, too?

I do. I think it's facebook.com voteniffin okay, excellent. Very simple, very easy to find. And then, yeah, I'd like to communicate with anyone that reaches out. If you reach out to me, I'm gonna write you back, I'm gonna call you back. And it's important. Communication is important.

That's right. That's right. Now, the absentee ballots are already in, but for the people to go and in person voting are how many. What are the options available from now through the November 4th?

Okay, so you can request an absentee ballot. Now, they sent out a bunch a week ago. I think they sent like 20,000 out to people who already requested them or the permanent list. But you have, I think, a couple weeks where you can request them and they'll mail it out.

Okay.

And then, of course, a week prior to election day. Election day is November 4th. A week prior is the early voting. And I think that's at Detroit Community center only.

It was like that.

And then when it comes to election day, November 4th, that's when I like to vote. It feels more patriotic to me. You know, it feels like this is.

The day we're supposed to be. Me too. Me too. I want to go on that day.

Yeah. And so November 4th, you. You have your precincts and you should have got a voter card mailed because they realign the precincts.

Right.

I think there was 36, maybe. Now there's 34 or 35.

Right.

So make sure you're aware of your precinct, where you're going, and make a plan, you know, make it fun. Get your sticker. I always bring my kids. And I would encourage anybody, if you are able to. I know a lot of people work and can't do that, but if you are able to bring your kids so they can see the process, get it in their head, young, that voting isn't just something we do. It isn't just our right. It's our duty.

Duty. Right.

So you bring your kids, they see you vote. They know this is the process early.

On, how important it is for city council. Actually, that's very important. Right.

And this is the funny part. In America, we tend to come out for presidential elections super strong.

Right.

But when it comes to city council and our bond and our local taxes, the voter turnout is horribly low. And it's the opposite. Because this is what impacts your life the most.

That's right.

The people in the room down a mile down there, those seven people, they can make or break decisions and taxes that will affect you directly in your house and what you do and how you spend more than they can in Washington, 1500 miles away.

Okay, Right, right.

So, yeah, these off years are not off years. These are important years. And we need to impress upon a lot of people to do that. Troy has 87, 89,000 people. I think we have, you know, 30, 40,000 voters. The turnout for this election might only be 15,000. So if you're worried about does my vote count? Some people say, does it count? Of course it counts. But I mean, does it matter? It matters more in an election like this than it matters anywhere else. Because percentage wise, your one vote might make or break this election.

Right, right.

So people need to think about that. The law of averages. But yeah. So if you're saying, I don't know if my vote's even worth it this election. Oh, it is. It's very important you come out and vote. And you might. You might be the one that changed everything.

Thank you. Thank you, David. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, everybody. Hello there, everybody in Troy. Make sure you vote. Make sure you vote for Dave Niffin. I think he's the best candidate we can find. And thank you very much for coming to our studio today.

Thank you so much. This was awesome. Your studio here is amazing.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you. Excellent. Excellent. Thank you.