October 14th and 28th, 2021

 October 14th 2021
 
Great meeting tonight, there was a whole lot of discussion and things covered.
1. Sewer Rate Increase
-Deb and her deputy have met w several others about this issue, the city of Battle Creek claims they've "never done anything like this before" but is working to refund all excess charges.
-several residents attended the meeting to speak out about this specific issue citing concerns about WHY the increase when other townships are paying far less while also having garbage services included in their lower payments.
2. Wage Study
-Wage study to assess current salaries compared to other townships of similar sizes/pop., some research had been done and discovered that previous info was wrong, cited wages for certain areas had been terribly skewed (claimed 12k/yr but actually 70k?)
-Study including just the township would be 12.5k, but including police dept would be 18k. Vote was held and then 12.5k study was approved by the board.
3. ADP Payroll services
-Takes the burden of doing this work off of the township, outsourcing the job to a third party which is more proficient in the service.
-Rachelle said she didn't want this, as she's already backed up enough by transitioning to a new bank (Southwest to Huntington?) and doesn't want to deal w even more work for the time being.
-A resident spoke up in favor of ADP services, claiming that in the past she has consulted them and they do good work. She also said shame on Rachelle for being too lazy/incompetent to want to implement the change and that, as the township treasurer, she should be doing a better job but isn't.
4. Proposed change to office hours
-Jim Mead suggested several different changes to office hours, opening and closing later on Wednesdays while also being open for a small portion of Fridays.
-Perhaps staggering lunchtimes so that there is always at least some people in offices, instead of everybody taking 12-1 lunch breaks
-Resident complaining that most of the township staff doesn't actually show up to work that early or stay that late to begin with
5. DDA commision
-from M66 to I94, section of business owners/operators to run a commision to dealw signage and sidewalks/bike paths in the area?
6. Additional news
-Dick Brown claims to be getting multiple calls about the smell of weed. If you have any real complaints, call the township number... not individual trustees. Otherwise it's going to be assumed that he's just whining himself.
-Next month's meeting will be held Nov 10th, Wednesday as the 11th is a holiday.
-Dec 9th will be the last board meeting of the year.

October 28th, 2021
 
Another Board meeting this morning, only 45 minutes long so not a whole lot to discuss.
The board voted on a plan to match up to 2% for an optional retirement savings for township employees. Everybody voted yes except Jim Mead, who votes no on everything anyway.
ARPA $$$ for the county, about 1.2mil divided into two payments that is granted to the community to spend on, if it isn't spent they owe that $$ back:
-Water/sewer system
-Broadband utilities
-Lost Govt revenue
-repairing negative economic impact
Considering the water/sewer system already has a separate fund allocated to handling all of that, they decided the other three should get priority, and of those 3 things that improving Broadband internet amongst all residents in the area is vital to ensuring that everybody has the means to access the internet which is becoming more and more imperative to living in the 21st century.
Some discussions regarding renting out the RiteAid building next door to the township for additional space... perhaps room for more offices or the police/fire dept?
More talk about Zaharions and their excess of cars in the lot? Perhaps they are going to start being ticketed for every car over the limit, though I'm not certain about the details regarding this.
Mention of not serving tickets at accidents unless it's blatantly obvious who was at fault (being drunk, etc.) as it is generally "just adding insult to injury" and isn't entirely necessary.