Happy rainy Monday!
First, on Wednesday there are two meetings. The county commissioners meet at 1:30 in the lower level of the county building and the Tavern meeting is at 6:00pm that evening. The Tavern meeting will be at the Old Place Inn on Main Street in Harrisville. Thanks to Sharon for offering her space since the library was booked! And on Thursday, the voter forum will be at the Greenbush Township Hall at 7:00pm. I sent the information in my last email.
The school board met last Monday. Dan O’Connor, and board members Blohm, Schroeder and Hansen were not present. Tim Lee and Christie Thomas were present. Christie did the superintendent’s report. State money was received for classroom barricades and security for the school (window film, numbered and an assessment for 3D mapping of the campus). Lenny Franklin is the resource officer and has been making his presence known on the school buses. There is a school tutoring grant from MSU and Inspiration Alcona (tutoring four days and dance, soccer, music and art). The boiler project is nearly complete. Tim gave an elementary school update. Family Food night will be on the 18th, there is place-based learning at Knaebe’s, the harbor, Rockport and Starbase in Alpena where the students watched combat readiness training, and Hartwick Pines. The PTO, on the 28th is running the Haunted Trail and on the 3st through Nov 4th will have a book fair. (I wonder what they will be doing as I’m always interested in what books are at the school…..) Middle School/High School updates came from Christie. There are some field trips – there are 1 credit five week course in concrete technology, band went to Clare to the Showcase of Bands. (Is that like battle of the bands in School of Rock? ….one of my favorite movies :)), creative writing, environmental science and Travis Boik is doing a fly tying group to teach self-regulation and conflict management. Those fish must really get into some really big fights! 🙂 Christie gave an update on the ‘houses’, costume contest and door decoration. The cross-country league meet will be at home. The Honor Society will have coffee for Veteran’. The junior Honor Society is doing recycling. The board approved the payables and the minutes. They approved the hiring of Cayli Vansickle partly funded by state mental health. There was a first reading of 7 board policies. They approved the resignation of Lori Gianni effective 11/01. They approved the renewal of the continuous learning plan and learning loss plan. They have the survey results for the strategic plan (I’d love to see these results). Next meeting is November 14th.
That evening the city of Harrisville met. The mayor was absent so Jacqueline Schwanz ran the meeting. The city had some correspondence regarding the mural project – Rachel Jamieson asked the city to consider her son, Timothy for the project. Since the project is a competition, Jacqueline said he was welcome to enter. The city has their clean-up on the 15th and 28th. Bagged leaves and brush should be bundled but only big enough for Tom to pick up. Halloween hours on the 31st are from 5:30pm to 7:30pm. Tom Keerl said the city received a 50/50 matching grant ($150,000.00 from the state and the city) to recap as many streets as they can. Some of the ones he mentioned were Huron, Lake, Church, 3rd, 2nd, Jackson, 8th, Swamp and Mill Creek are on the list (some are only parts of the street, some are all). They will be doing a 1.5 inch overlay. They are not tearing the street out. The council made a motion to spend $12.500 for Huron Engineering to do the preliminary work. A motion was made to accept the resignation of Dave Cook effective 12/31/22. Jacqueline said she had no supporters as of yet for the mural project. The clerk mailed out the absentee ballots and applications for one. There were a couple of quarterly budget adjustments on the fire fund, hoop house repairs, and the ball park. There needs to be some ground water monitoring at the lagoon. No harbor report, planning meeting was the following Wednesday with two open positions on the committee, no airport report and no fire department report. Tree mapping for the city needs to be done. Tom asked if anyone knew a college kid who can identify trees to do it. It cost $3,600.00 to remove the two trees next to Hollyhock Emporium. Bill Thompson gave a report – the road commission got an award for low amount of injuries, library turning to a district is stalled, bridge on 41 opening, ACCOA having problems and county hired Connected Nations for consulting on the broadband. Mike Stone stood during public comment and commended everyone for the baseball game and park. Marcy Redlawsk said she’d like to have windows downtown decorated for Christmas. She asked about electricity at the end of Main Street but Tom Keerl had no answer from Larry’s Electric. Andy Vanderheuel said the ordinance for the food trucks is not online. He also asked about the lighting at the skating rink. Bob Turek brought the city rec center proposal and read it for the council and said he would be at the planning meeting. The county truck has been repairing pot holes. Meeting adjourned.
Bob went to the city planning meeting on Wednesday but there was a note on the door that the meeting was canceled until further notice. 🙁
On Tuesday at 5:30, I went to the public accuracy test on the dominion voting machine we have at the township. I saw how the machine worked and got a personal demonstration from the employee of Election Source since I was the only one there. I really wanted to ask some good questions about what we read about election integrity but I figured he most certainly would not know about any shenanigans the company might pull; he’s a low man on the totem pole. I did ask questions, though. He showed me that the machine worked how it was supposed to, how they test to make sure it does, no modems in it, locked and sealed anything that might be opened…. but I still said I would be more comfortable counting paper ballots. Although he said he would never say the machines were 100% foolproof, he would say the same for hand counting and human error. I said I trusted humans more than machines. 🙂 I drove home for 15 minutes then came back for the township meeting. I was the only one in the audience except Tony Atkinson, the zoning administrator, who came late. For public comment, I just told the board what was going on with pickleball. 🙂 The treasurer said there was $135K in the general fund and $134K in ARPA funds. Tony said there was only 1 land use permit in the last 30 days and things were slowing due to winter coming. No assessor report, no ordinance enforcer. A house on Clemens and Poor Farm is being cleaned up by the occupant. Same with Campbell and Clemens. Sue Calder and Randy Thompson were appointed to the planning board. There is an opening on the board of appeals. The township is looking at updating the zoning ordinance but Duane Dillard is gone until December. The land division act contract will now remain in effect until it is dissolved by either party, instead of expiring on 12/31, unless price or something else from the state changes. October 25th is a county MTA meeting. It looks like the ARPA funds can now be spent however the township wants. They are looking at some roads to fix. Tony put in a request for his road as 1/4 of it has already been done, it’s a seasonal road that is closed although people live on it and tractors have driven past his house and ripped the wires from the poles so he is without power. He would like the board to consider finishing the road. I think it’s Dellar Road but don’t quote me. He gave the board an update on the veteran’s situation in Lincoln. The next meeting will be on Wednesday, November 9th, due to the election. Adjourned at 7:20pm.
I think that’s it for now. We are getting close to the mid-term elections on the 8th. After the ACCOA election, I know some people would like to know how that election is handled…who receives the votes, who counts the votes and how many people are involved in the chain of command. All things we can talk about at the Tavern meeting Wednesday.
And always, thanks for reading my long emails. I try to write a lot so we stay informed. Please let me know if you’d like to be taken off this list; I would be happy to do so.
Evil prevails when good people do nothing….
Lisa
