July could be the beginning of a different sort of Independence Day for Downriver residents.
Leonard Mannausa, a 64 year old Brownstown Township resident and candidate for the 23rd distric seat in the state House of Representatives, is rounding up a group of supports to cirulate petitions once again to break from Wayne County.
Mannausa's proposal is to form a new county to be named Erie County. It would potentially be made up of Wayne County communities south of the Rouge River and as far west as Van Buren and Sumpter Townships.
Erie County would potentially have about 500,000 residents.
He proposed a smilar idea in 1991 and 1992, but petition circulators failed by a slim margin to secure the 247,000 signatures needed to put the issue on the ballot.
The Idea had not been widely discussed since then, but Mannausa said he and other organizers involved in the group known as the Patriots for Erie County have not stopped working toward the split.
"It never died," he said. Once again, petition circulators will likely have to get 247,000 signatures to put the question on a ballot, but Mannausa, a retired steelworker, is confident there will be more support this time.
The issue would probably not appear on the November ballot, but a special election could be held in the future, he said.
"Those people look at us and say, 'Who needs you,'" he said regarding Wayne County officials. "After a while, you wonder where you can turn."
Mannausa accused Wayne County officials of thinking only about building new stadiums when issues such as Downriver landfills are important to potential Erie county residents.
"We have no voice in Wayne County," he said.
Labeling the area "The Forgotten Peninsula," he said the county remembers the region only when it is time to collect taxes and dump garbage.
Mannausa has not publicly laid out specific plans about the new county. If Erie County becomes a reality, Mannausa siad it would be up to a county charter commission to take care of details like jails, courts and roads.
He also said the Downriver area Wayne County commissioners such as Edward Boike and William O'Neil would have to run for election again if they wanted to be Erie County commissioners.
Similar movments to break from Wayne County are sprouting up in two other regions.
Some residents of the Grosse Pointe communities and Harper Woods are speaking of a break from Wayne County, Mannausa said.
Anoither potential break would come from Western Wayne county communities, where organizer Jeff Schroder and others are circulating petitions to form Newburgh County.
A possible dispute could arise later as both Erie County and Newburgh County orgizers include Taylor, Belleville, Romulus and Sumpter and Huron townships in their proposals.
"There's no dispute about it as far tas we're concerned," he said.