October 12th, 2023

 AccessVision: https://www.accessvision.tv/telvue/830155

Agenda: https://emmett.civicweb.net/Portal/MeetingInformation.aspx?Org=Cal&Id=209

[01:14] Public comments:

- Carol Habernick - retired, worked for public safety for 24 years. Referring to Tracy misspelling words and doing a poor job, says she's still proud of her, "big things coming in your direction."

[02:30] - Heather Rocho - "Carol, I was the one who commented on the agenda... " claiming she should have known how to spell her name considering they've been working together. "I'm not going to continue this petty nonsense with you, we're grown adults... what's done in the dark is not done for good... I've found that Emmett township to be about transparent as most townships."

[05:34] - Sarah Stout - "I wanted to comment on... 8.1... and I want to thank the board for following through on your commitment to provide information, it gave context to those of us who had no context on the situations that have come up in the last several months."

[6:16] - Gavin Powell - "I've noticed the agendas for the last few meetings have been a bit more detailed and organized, and I just wanted to remark that I'm glad to see our elected officials starting to put some effort into the things that benefit the public, help us out. I think we've all been through quite the poop storm the last few months and thought some positivity would be nice."

[07:10] Consent Agenda - Supervisor Belles votes no on the consent agenda, commenting "uh... no, it still passes."

[09:00] Monthly Check Register - Dick Brown has a question about an auto repair bill. all vote yes.

Verbal reports -
[12:20] Supervisor Belles -

Also a comment thanking the clerk for all of the FOIAs that have been coming in. 

[16:20] Clerk Myers - 

 

[20:45] Treasurer Sobeski - 

Planning/zoning 

[22:50] Public safety
    -overtime increased from 300 hours last month to 480
    -new hire PSO Rouse
    -retirement of two officers sgt. Crawford and Newman

[25:55] Set wages for position (all yes) $75k - 85k/yr
    -Supervisor Deputy Jacob discusses his use of the information gathered from the wage study last year 

[31:45] Acknowledgement to Newman and Crawford for their years of service. 

[35:45] 10.3 removing John, staff accountant, from the bank accounts. All yes.

[36:30] Early voting agreement, all yes. 

Purchase of public safety gear, all yes. 

[40:30] Public Comments 

"I got a truck, weighs 10k pounds...  drive it up and down the road, never a problem until just recently."

[42:25] Joe Harris: Gives a picture to each of the board members (it's this)
and explains that Jim is being portrayed as the victim, here. "Being that Supervisor Belles hired Mosely before bringing him to the board, she denied [them] the opportunity to properly vet and consider him for hire... putting the township in a liability situation which has cost the township 100s of thousands of dollars... I am looking for the whole picture, not just a camera lense view." Putting the blame on the Supervisor for hiring somebody with an expunged felony charge on their record instead of the Trustee for harassing him. 

[45:50] Shannon Mikuski - "I have two things I wanted to address... Emmett township public safety chooses not to contract w Safe Place from last I knew, I want to know why?... we are the only township that does NOT do that... I have a history of domestic violence, I feel like our public safety dept needs to work as closely as needed with our domestic violence shelters..."

[47:15] Kathy - in reference to Joe Harris "I want to thank you for keeping your cool tonight, you did a great job of keeping a lid on it... I also want to lyk, and you know this already, you are entitled to request as many FOIAs as you like, but you do need to know the attorney has to go over that and it costs the township money... So please, if he would be considerate of the rest of the residents money that when he turns in a FOIA make sure it's an important one and not just... a nit picking."

[48:25] Heather Rocho - I vote, I pay taxes, my voice will be heard at every meeting and you can deal  w it. "we will not always be liked, we will not always be hated. The important thing is that you're doing the job that we asked you to do."

[50:00] Gavin Powell - "The last few months I've been thinking about how important it is to stop, think about what is happening around us. There's been all this talk about transparency but sometimes that's not readily available and you have to just step back and wait for the facts to come out, otherwise you might risk making yourself look foolish for somebody who can't even be bothered to be here tonight.
    You've got all of these strangers from outside the township swarming in here and giving these emotionally charged arguments defending a man before they even know what happened. Are these people looking out for the township and its residents? Perhaps all these people 'investigating' and doing all of this research should maybe mind their business and focus on their own townships."

[51:26] "who hired mr Mosley? It was never voted on... it's against the rules, 100%... I'm not blaming Mr Mead or Mr Cunningham... I'm blaming [Supervisor Belles]"

[53:00] Bob Wells - "ty for approving the laptop purchase for the officers"

[54:00] Teresa Myers - our road is already starting to fall apart, just thought you guys should be aware of it. 

 - we can't hear the speakers at all, where are the microphones? "I got hearing aids and I still can't hear you"

Lonnie Root - question about road construction, road tarring.

[55:50] Board Comments 

Trustee Brown - "lets just forget it. We've done the damage, we've censored him, we've lost our chief. It's time to forget, thank you." In regards to all of the Jim Mead drama.

[57:00] Trustee Juhnke - "I'd like to give Channel 3 a great big onion, since I had to view their report three times this evening. The complete tenor of their reporting was that somebody had done something wrong. idk how in the world we can encourage our young people to abide by and honor the rules and regulations that we have if our news media keeps trying to pick them apart... It's negative. Remember, the first day it's news, the second it's pandering.

[58:00] Supervisor Belles - "I read in the general clerk's portion, she states that she's the only elected official on the board who has done training for their job. I just want to say, matter of fact, all four trustees when they came on, I put them through training. The new treasure has a bachelor's in business, has sat through a couple zooms and he does plan on going through training, he's still brand new. I have two degrees and 20 years of experience, I have sat through trainings and have some completion certificates in my office. I just wanted to clarify that others have done training for their job, as well.

I want to address the fact that doing the code compliance job is not an easy job, and they do not need police records to do their job. It was done for two years without needing police records, or the LEAN system... Other than that I am happy to see so many people. Again congrats to Officer Newman and Crawford, that's quite an achievement."

[1:00:00] Trustee Titus - Appreciates the involvement, wants to reference two of the public comments. The road weight restriction is to reduce wear and tear from semis passing through, not so much the local, but asks for email to give more details on that. Also interested in learning more about Safeplace, what we can do with them.