Township Board - Regular Meeting

Welcome, board, and welcome members of the public who came tonight. Appreciate you being here. We are going to call this meeting to order at this time with the Georgetown Township Board of Trustees. And we'd like to begin always with a prayer of dedication for guidance. And so we'll look to Eugene tonight.

Thank you, Jim. Okay. Thank you, Lord, for bringing us together tonight. Lord, we ask for guidance and wisdom as we go through this agenda and meeting that we have. We ask you, Lord, to continue to be with our township, with our employees, Lord, and the hard work that they do. We ask that you just continue to guide them, also our firefighters. And please, Lord, keep them safe. They can go home to their families. Lord, we thank you for this beautiful day that we had today. And we thank you for your many blessings bestowed upon all of us. And we just love you, Jesus. Amen. Amen. Thank you.

I stand for our Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, you may be seated. I'll ask our clerk to announce the rule.

They're all present.

Wonderful. And how about a motion to approve tonight's agenda? So moved.

Support?

It was supported. Any questions, concerns? Hearing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Our agenda is approved tonight. So we thought we would squeeze in, we saw Representative Slott here tonight, and he'd like a chance to just give us an update from Lansing. We'll squeeze him in on the front end here if we can. Appreciate you coming.

I appreciate that you'd be willing to squeeze me in at the beginning, so thank you for doing that. No problem. In Lansing, been really light in having to be there. There's just not been much call to be there based on what's going on with first the primary election, then other stuff happening. This last weekend, I'm sure most of you guys were aware that the nominating convention happened for the Republican Party, and so that took a bunch of the air out of and time out of things. Probably from my experience, that was probably the nicest, most friendly, congenial statewide nominating convention I've been to in all the years that I've been in the political world, which was way more fun to walk away from that because I feel like, oh, maybe there's a different kind of face that's being put on the party, which is a good thing. There are several things that are out there, though, that you guys might be interested in. One is, and they're related to, well, the first two are related to the citizen petition drives. There's a drive to, it's called Money Out of Politics, so MLP. And the goal is to keep large organizations from being able to put money in to try and influence elections. Specifically though, it details that it would be any organization that has a government contract that has $250,000 in revenue or more in a year. Or... utilities so consumers energy day and it includes because it's the the contract kind of stuff so blue cross blue shield would be affected and what would happen is there if this goes if the petition drive goes through is that there would be You'd have, so I just lost words here. So you'd have the inability for those organizations to be able to put money into political things. So anything that could smack us politics, they would not be able to put money into it. Interestingly, it does not include unions or any of those kind of things, so we're wondering why and what's happening with the whole process. It would be interesting, it's a freedom of speech thing for me, so let's just say that Gary works for... DTE. He would not be able to give money, even personally, to anybody that's doing political stuff. So he wouldn't be able to write a check to any of you. And we just think that's a freedom of speech issue, and it will be contested, I'm sure. There's also a citizen-only voting... the ballot proposal that's out there. And the ballot review committee is saying, oh, they don't have enough signatures to be able to put that on the ballot. And they're talking seven signatures out of 700,000 that they collected that they're short, seven valid signatures. So we're questioning how does that all fall and who's doing it. There will definitely be lawsuits related to this when it comes out, just based on the way that we believe it's going to fall. PA 233 continues to be in the news. That's where the township zoning and planning is set aside by three people in Lansing who can decide where a solar field goes, where a wind turbine system gets set up, where a data center gets set up. And so we're concerned about that as well. We'll continue to work on trying to find a way to take that out. It was that PA-233 was put in place when it was a Democrat trifecta. So they had the legislature, the executive branch, and they pushed it through. And obviously that's making an impact in Zeeland Township, Jamestown Township, as close as your doors, next door neighbors. anyway those just a couple updates and we're back in session again tomorrow so i'll be in lansing happy to answer any questions now or later questions i have two what's your thoughts on opening up the constitution for states Um, I, I think there's some really valid reasons. We've got some, we've put a lot of stuff in place over the years that has changed the flavor of some of that constitutional language. Um, so that part is good. There's, um, some concerns about what gets opened up and how much, and do you want everything open at, at any given time? So there's still questions about how are we going to do that and how, how best does it work?

second question is and i predicted this about a year ago my fear is that and i've seen that the state is getting together with u of m for a data center and if that's the case will they be able to circumvent where data centers go because you know as well as i do colleges and schools can do whatever they want to they do not go by zoning they don't go by building code they go by state so i'm curious if that's a loophole that data centers are going to be able to use by partnering up with a college or a university and build a data center under education?

So the answer is, I believe you're right, that there is a possibility of making that happen. With the advent of PA233, they probably can do it maybe even under better cover than they would have by themselves. They can do it now with this PA233, which will help them and enable them to make that happen.

That was my fear. I said right away, that's... That's going to be what's going to happen. I see in the news U of M is already targeting it.

You open the door and something's going to stick its head in there, right?

Well, the problem has been the schools can do whatever they want. They don't even follow zoning laws. They don't even follow setbacks. They do whatever they want. They're not under any township organization. You look at even our old local schools. They don't build according to setbacks. They've got buildings too close to the road. They just do what they want, and they don't have any oversight. So if they don't have oversight and the data centers figure that out, they can turn around and say, we'll call an education and we can do that. And they can circumvent property taxes too. So that's something to watch.

Brad, a question on that ballot initiative regarding voting. You said, you know, they're saying that they had fallen seven short. I'm presuming they submitted many more over whatever the requirement was, and the state is saying, hey, we've examined and knocked out these certain signatures to the point where it's just below the threshold. Is that correct?

That is correct.

So the litigation that would be ongoing, is it intended... to be, would it be accelerated such that there'd be a decision one way or another before it's too late for the November general election?

Yes, you're absolutely correct. That would be the goal. You'd put it out there and try and get directly into the state's Supreme Court work at it from the top, because you have to get there really quickly.

Yeah, and if somehow that didn't happen, that is, it didn't go quickly enough, it was specifically targeted for this election cycle meaning you'd have to start over again if you tried to do it for the following cycle right that is you are absolutely correct okay they turned in roughly 725 000 signatures they needed 480. okay so they're saying that 245 000 of those signatures are invalid slightly more than that correct okay

And that number is significantly different than some of the other proposals that have come along in the past where they've, you know, so the question is, is it right, is it fair?

Okay, meaning is it right or is it fair as to which signatures are valid or is it right or is it fair as to what the actual proposal is?

No, it's that the signatures would be valid. Okay.

I mean, over here, you'd think it would be almost mathematical in the sense of these are the rules and either complies with those rules or it doesn't.

Right, but that complying with the rules would make sense if the ones before this all dovetailed into what you're seeing now. That's not how it is. The ones before this had much more leniency than what's happening with this.

You know, what's really interesting about that, Brad, and I'm sure it's being argued, but that's the exact opposite of what's happening with voting generally, meaning we've relaxed the rules since COVID to where certain things are allowed to be examined again, that signature isn't just right or you missed something, you can correct your ballot. It's all been in the direction of either leniency or corrective action. This would seem to mitigate the opposite direction. You're absolutely correct. We'll watch that. Anybody else? Hearing none, we appreciate that.

Thanks for having me on first.

All right, item six on our agenda tonight is communication letters and reports, which have been received for information. And item seven, I look to the general public to hear public comment on the items of tonight's agenda, of which it's a shorter agenda than most. So we've got an item regarding the master plan. We've got an item regarding assessing. And so is there anyone here tonight who's looking to speak to those particular items? If not, you'll get another opportunity here toward the end of the meeting to speak to whatever you wish. Welcome to Step Forward. Yes, sir.

Hey, my name is Kevin Houtsinger, 2669 Tamarack Drive. I just wanted to get some clarification or I guess put it on record in the video. I just had concerns. I am not an attorney by any means, but I did notice that one of the land uses for future and current land use is explicitly church. And I agree that probably most of the township would only ever attend a church, but I kind of feel that that's a little bit specific and could kind of maybe set the township up for some legal ramifications potentially if another religious institution that doesn't call itself a church wanted to come in. I also noticed that that's also used in the zoning ordinance specifically, so I would Kind of think that that could also get looked at by legal counsel just to make sure that no one's being set up to potentially have the township be sued over any type of religious freedoms or anything like that. Thanks.

Thanks for coming. Anyone else? all right seeing none we'll close that initial public comment period item number eight on your agenda tonight is your consent agenda is there a motion to approve tonight's uh fairly short consent agenda some more support hey any comments all in favor say aye aye opposed passes item nine then master plan update and i thank you that we've got tanya here from wayman works tonight the olive area is that how i say the last name tanya is that okay Yeah, say my last name, maybe you can get me back. Okay, well, that's perfect, actually. You grew up in Granville, though. Yeah, there you go. Thank you, Tanya, for being here. As this board well knows, we spent considerable time this past meeting running through the master plan as it had been presented to us by the Planning Commission. It went back to the Planning Commission with the various comments that were made, both verbally and in writing. I know Ryan worked on this, I know Manette worked on this, I know Tanya worked on this, I know the Planning Commission worked on this as well in their meeting this past Wednesday and they have submitted and you've seen it as links in your agenda tonight, an updated version. And so tonight what we expect will happen is that there'll be a master plan resolution that we'll vote upon so that the next steps in the process can occur and we can bring this to a conclusion. And I want Tanya in a moment to be able to talk about at a 30,000 foot view, this is what remains to be done and here's when it becomes official assuming all goes as planned. So with that in mind, I'll simply make the comment that I went through, after you all went through and did the work you did to see that the things that were discussed this past meeting that were forwarded to the Planning Commission were incorporated. And from my review, point by point, they all seem to be incorporated. So I don't see an omission in that respect. And I appreciate that. And I wanna say further on the record, I said it last week, but Tanya, you weren't here, how much we appreciate the amount of time that you and the Planning Commission and Ryan in particular has spent on this process for now 18 months. And that's just a whole lot of time and hours you know, public input and debate and discussion and we had a couple of joint meetings as you know with you and just there's a lot, a lot, a lot that went into this process this time. We don't anticipate that every time but it had been a couple of decades and so it was a very significant undertaking. I just want to say on the record again how much we appreciate the time and the effort you put in. Gary, you're the only one who was on both sides so I arguably might say maybe between you and Ryan, No. Post time, I don't know.

Ryan did a whole lot more than I did. Okay, all right. I just cheerleaded Ryan. That's all I did.

gave him an edible i had him on the back and said good job good job ryan good job so we we thank you and there's a there's a lot of creativity and thought that's going in this there are some changes that we call somewhat material to what previous master plan was but we felt like confined within the goals as they're shared among the leadership of the township and i want to say i think i said this last meeting as well but There's not a one person on this planning commission or on this particular board right here, our Georgetown board, who has anything but the desire to see this township succeed and be a place that they love to call their home because that's where we live, right? And so I think motivation wise in all, it's just been strong for the township across both boards. And that doesn't mean, as we all know, that doesn't mean unanimity, but it does mean that we're coming from the same place of desire to make things better for our residents. So I appreciate that fact and that we can reach a consensus that doesn't give everybody everything they wished, but results in a good collaboration that we can all feel like has advanced the township and this important document that helps to guide future policy. I want to say one more thing also. I think I misspoke somewhat in the last meeting in terms of how I represented Josiah Sammy's view of when I was talking about some of the more rural areas and the wish to protect some of that for green space and for, you know, buffer and just beauty and all the rest. And if I misspoke in that way, I apologize because he and I would say the Planning Commission as a whole, and of course Tony spent a lot of time with him on this, Every one of them would say we love and appreciate the fact that we don't want one kind of thing happening everywhere. And I know for a fact, for example, Josiah, that he appreciates the buffering, the, you know, open natural space and farmland and rural residential and some of those things. And so I didn't want to pit it as one view or another, but I think it's really something that is a shared view and sometimes it's more on how do you express it. and what else do you offset that with? And I feel like the Planning Commission believes they've offset that strength that's come out of this master plan related to our value of farmland and rural residential with new creative type of opportunities in different pockets within the township for what we might wanna see happen in the future with development and the like. And so I do think there's a, There's a trade-off there, right, that I'd say most probably fall some on each side, even if they favor more one side than another. So I just wanted to make that clear in case I misspoke last time. So the floor is open among ourselves. If there's anything more that wasn't said before that you want to say, now's a good time to do so, after which we'll have Tanya just briefly address sort of what would happen next, and then we could have a roll call vote.

Well, I'll just say, which I said at the last meeting, but Tanya wasn't there. I appreciated her work. And I felt that you didn't come agenda-driven, which I really appreciated. We asked questions. If you didn't have an answer, I'll find out. You came back. You did that. And I think you did a really good job. I appreciated your work on it. So, yeah.

I had a chance to talk to Ryan this morning, and just very... casual and I said that was probably the most productive meeting we as a board collaborated that I've ever participated in it was done incredibly well and Ryan had shared with me that Manette had said the same thing that as she watched it she thought it was incredibly productive And you alluded to this before, Jim, that every five years, sometimes it's almost, I don't say rubber stamp, but very few changes are made. And this was much more significant. And the world is changing. The power in Lansing has changed dramatically, where they pulled power away from local municipalities. And I think this is a way to address that. And in five years, another board, things can shift. But I thought it was done incredibly well. And I felt very comfortable. I think everyone else did. Yes, Shawn?

We covered a lot of ground last time. So I feel very comfortable with all the work that everybody has done, especially behind the scenes and all your efforts. So thank you. Kudos.

Excuse me. Do we have a copy now that has the changes on it? Okay. Do we have it on there?

Can I speak to that, though?

Everything that we have written down, the yellow things, will be changed. I guess just my own satisfaction, just to see it, just to see what the wording was or whatever. Other than that, I have no problem.

It wasn't one of the attachments in the links here as I went through it. It was an August 18 version, which was a day before their meeting on the 19th, which then out of that came like a page of additional. So the combination thereof, you're right, we've not seen that final last integration. And maybe we could even say and understand for the record, so to speak, that assuming this were to be advanced or it's, I think the resolution, correct me if I'm wrong, Kelly, but it's more or less, you know, it is our intent, right? It's our intent to do thus and such. It's not the final vote.

Right, there's still a lot of steps to take.

Yeah, so that if there was something that got missed... you can clean that up, right? Don't anticipate it, but we can do that, yeah.

We've all said it a few different ways, but I'll just, I think, clarify my feelings on it. and selfishly take a little bit of credit because I feel like this was something that was really important to me, to use a reputable company to do a master plan this go-around. It wasn't my sole decision, but I pushed really hard for it because you can see through the data that we are reaching the end of our growth boom. That's not to say that we don't still have yet a lot of growth and development on the horizon, but we're slowing down a bit and so we're really at this interesting crux of we still feel like we're in this growth mindset but the reality is we're kind of shifting into a slower and steadier growth and now it becomes even more important for us to curate that and exactly where we want the last bits of developable land to be. And I do feel like it was important to work with a company like Williams and Works. Tony did a great job. I just think that it really captured what was important to our board, what was important to the planning commission. lot of compromise and really good discussion by both parties and I'm I use this phrase a lot we deserve nice things and this is a wonderful master plan that will I think really guide the future of our township moving forward so thank you for all of your work everybody Ryan and Tanya and Planning Commission I really appreciate it well put

This would be a good time, Tanya, if you want to come forward and just address it. Again, a high-level view, it gets published to whom, and then when do we actually officially go, okay, it's adopted.

The wrong file, but I know that we have addressed all the edits. So I will make sure that Ryan and Justin get that final draft that the Planning Commission and the Board have gone back and forth about and collaborated on. So I'll just say that. SO FROM HERE, AFTER TONIGHT'S MEETING, THERE IS A FORMAL 63-DAY REVIEW PERIOD THAT THE PLAN MUST GO THROUGH TO MEET THE MICHIGAN PLANNING ENABLING ACT. AND THAT ALLOWS ANY MEMBER OF YOUR COMMUNITY, ANYBODY, AS WELL AS YOUR NEIGHBORING COMMUNITIES, YOUR ADJACENT COMMUNITIES, YOU KNOW, UTILITIES, MDOT, THERE'S A SPECIFIC LIST OF AGENCIES THAT GET A FORMAL LETTER THAT SAYS THE DRAFT PLAN IS OUT FOR REVIEW. At that point, then, the public is welcome to provide comments. We will also be having an open house that I will be later coordinating with Justin and Ryan to make sure that the public has not only just, you know, an opportunity because it's online, but we will have an open house where people can come and talk to us and view and ask questions specifically. During that 63-day review period, comments may come in. Usually they don't. if there is that's that's great um brian and i will and justin will address those if there's anything like significant um or to note we will kind of uh or go through those and um let the planning commission know and and whatnot i don't anticipate anything however you know you never know um and the comments will be coming to the township uh from that after the 63-day review period closes um then it goes the draft plan then goes to uh public hearing during the planning commission And the Planning Commission recommends that the draft plan become the approved plan by the Township Board. And then the Township Board would then approve, adopt the final master plan. Again, if there's any comments that come in from the public that are substantial, we'll go through that. That may warrant further discussion, and if we need to make adjustments, we'll kind of do that at the end or after the 63-day review period. But at this point, all the hard work has been done. It may take, you know, in 63 days, we also like to give a little cushion and buffer because of mail and all that sort of stuff. So it's really like roughly, you know, five, six months from now, which sounds like a long time, but because of everything, it's just process really at this point. Again, though the public will have opportunity for public comment and for them to weigh in as well as what they see on the plan. Once the final plan is adopted, it's your current master plan and away you guys go for the next five years. And the master plan process of the document itself is complete, but then it's actually on to implementing the plan, which is the real work.

Let me clarify, when you said that five to six months a moment ago, I envisioned that there would be something probably coming back in front of us in November.

uh that would possibly call the vote on or not so um i'm not going to do the math in my head like after the 63 days but kind of basically at either the end of 2026 early 2027 it kind of depends on you know uh where those 63 days you know plus a week or two buffer on either side and you know when you're when the planning commission meets when the board township i've done that math and that would still fit within this year but then you said something about five or six months So, like, kind of roughly from now, if I tell you four months, you know, and it's five months, then you're going to be, well, Tanya, it was, you said four months.

Yeah. So. My question was, is that something beyond the 63-day and the planning? No, no, no, no, no. That's just giving us the.

Roughly six months from now. All right. Maybe it lands more like four or five months. Maybe it's more like five or six. I'm telling you six to kind of give him just a little bit of cushion.

But my naive to think, you know, 63 days from now is like October 26th. And then let's say they meet for the first meeting for planning commission in November and they go, all right, you know, here's what we're going to do. And then maybe it's too late to get it to our November meeting. So the first meeting in December we look at, I mean, wouldn't it still likely be this year?

I mean, it'd either be like December or January. So when I say like the end of this year, it's only because of the way the calendar falls. And again, like 63 days is the statutory thing, but I'm also looking out for you for any potential future lawsuits. And even though it says 63 days, our kind of our best planning practices, it's 63 days from the time your letter gets received by the municipality. So, you know, unless you drop, you have to drop the, and it's by mail, because the Michigan Planning, so there's minutiae, right? Like, I can talk to you about that minutiae here, no problem. I will work after the meeting is done tonight, and I'm getting the flavor that you would pass the resolution. i will talk with ryan and justin and we'll have a much better understanding of when that actual 63 day period plus a couple weeks and kind of start to look at um you know when the next planning commission would be after that and then when the next township board would meet after that the reason i'm kind of interested in that is it would it would tend to coincide with the end of our moratorium yes that'd be nice right to have that yep i am i'm trying to balance Again, in the future, you could potentially get sued on master plan process, right? And so because of the, we want to make sure you're following the process and not like, if somebody sends out the letter and you don't give them like a full week to get that letter and so on and so forth, just trying to give you a little bit of buffer rather than exactly 63 days and then let's say the letter doesn't get out on time and all that because of u.s mail the town i'm sure justin and ryan will email stuff but again because the michigan planning enabling act was written per like usps you know us mail so um that has been our planning practice and that has stood us by in good stead and that's kind of what you're also hiring us for is to kind of look out for those little kind of gray areas those contingencies not because it's unimportant, but because we are actually trying to keep your best interest and everything kind of the margins clear moving forward so you don't have to worry about, you know, if master plan stuff comes into play and during a development, you know, and go through FOIA, they'll see that they, through this process, we met the Michigan Planning Enabling Act master plan process and we weren't short by a week. And so all of a sudden they got you on a process. So that's what that's about.

Okay. Thank you, Tanya.

All right, thank you guys very much.

Thank you. I want to say before we have the resolution vote, to the public that's here, public input that you're describing, Tanya, is additional public input, meaning there's already been significant public input, probably more than we've had maybe ever. And so much of what you'd see in the master plan itself, the last 75 pages maybe or 50 pages is public input. And so certainly there's been a a terrific opportunity for the public to give input thus far, and there will be one last chance, if you will. All right. Well, this is a roll call vote. And again, we need to have a motion to approve. Let me just pull this up here. And we were given a draft resolution. If someone, whoever is looking to make the motion, uh would like to phrase that here it's it's it's an approval but it's it's an intent to adopt basically so is there someone who'd like to make a motion i'll make a motion to approve a resolution improving the mass draft master plan for distribution asserting the township board's right to adopt such a master plan okay it's been written support supported by kelly okay uh all right everyone had their their say last time this time okay it's a roll call vote uh

Waringa?

Yes.

Schwalm?

Yes.

Grassman? Yes. Beldink?

Yes.

DeWitt?

Yes.

Kelly? Yes. Shapers, yes. All in favor?

All right. Thank you. Item number 10 tonight, interlocal agreement. Is there a motion to approve the interlocal agreement for Ottawa County to approve the designated assessor for the period beginning January 1, 2027?

Don't move.

Support. Support. All right. Discussion among the board. And for the benefit of our public tonight, either watching or here in person, this is not a choice of who we want as our assessor. We have our assessing being conducted by the county. This is more the question of if there were to be a failure of an audit by the state And I think even a second failure, does it take two? Yeah. There has to be somebody to whom you have to get a new assessor. So you either hire one, you have this designated assessor as it has been proposed here, or the state will choose yours. So I think their hope is, tell me, Justin, if I'm right, that every municipality in the county would say yes, you know, Brian Busher would be the person.

Correct.

Be the designated, yeah.

Correct. And has been, right? Correct. Yeah.

So continuing.

Correct. Yeah.

Any questions, concerns? All right, hearing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? All right, it passes. Well, all righty to our second public comment period. As I said, it's a shorter agenda tonight. So this is your opportunity as a member of the public, either speak to the issues we've just gone over or anything that's on your mind.

F1482 Winifred, Facebook isn't always accurate, but if it is, happy birthday, Jim. That's funny. Was it accurate?

It was accurate, yeah. I started my day with a dead battery. It's been getting better.

Happy birthday. Congratulations. Thanks. Appreciate it. We're a light nature here, Justin. I'm very happy with the young men and women working at 8th Street, checking the ID. And the thing to me that is most important that tells me they're doing a great job is when I come in the second time, they go, oh yeah, I know you're good to go. So I don't have to even show the ID there. Great work with the park over there with the basketball court, pickleball and stuff. That looks like it's going outstanding. The geese issue doesn't seem to be as bad at 8th Street Park there, so congratulations to that as well. One thing about budget stuff coming up with fire department issues, again, I DO THINK WE'RE STILL UNDERSTAFFED AT THE FIRE DEPARTMENT. AND IN MY HUMBLE OPINION, MOVING FORWARD, MAYBE INSTEAD OF NOT BUYING LAND, MAYBE SPEND SOME MORE MONEY TO GET SOME MORE PEOPLE WORKING AT THE FIRE DEPARTMENT. I MEAN, THE VERY BASICS OF GOVERNMENT ARE HERE, AND THIS IS AS LOW A LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT AS YOU CAN GET. WE'RE TALKING BUILDING ROADS, WATER, SEWER, FIRE, SAFETY. I'M LOOKING IN THE LIBRARY BUDGET AND THE SENIOR CENTER IS MORE, I BELIEVE, WE'RE RIGHT AT THE SAME AMOUNT WE'RE SPENDING ON THE FIRE DEPARTMENT. AND RIGHT NOW, I BELIEVE WE HAVE TWO PEOPLE MAYBE WORKING EIGHT TO FIVE FULL TIME, WHICH IS IMPROVEMENT. BUT THEY ALSO HAVE TO HANDLE CALLS NOW FOR POTENTIAL MEDICAL EMERGENCIES AS WELL. AND I DON'T KNOW IF YOU'VE SEEN IT, YOU PROBABLY HAVE. THERE'S A VIDEO FROM PROBABLY ABOUT EIGHT YEARS AGO WHERE A HOUSE BURNED DOWN IN GEORGETOWN TOWNSHIP. AND BEFORE THEY COULD EVEN GET THERE, IT WAS ALMOST BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE NEXT TO IT. THEY HAD TO SPRAY IT DOWN. The shingles and stuff are going there. So I don't know how much it would cost to get at least maybe two people at all the stations because, you know, somebody lives over on Kenawa and you have two firefighters maybe at the branch that's down over there on that side there. If they get called, you've got to go through lights, potential traffic. It could be easily 15 minutes before they get there, even with two people working there. And it's very important. that they get there as soon as possible to try to mitigate damages and stuff like that. So that's just something to consider, in my opinion, as the budget comes up. Thank you.

Thanks, Sean.

Thanks, Sean.

My name is Nancy Parker, and my last name is spelled P as in Paul, O-C-H-R-O-N. I live at 6402 36th Avenue. First of all, I'd like to thank the EMTs. I personally had to call 9-1-1 on 8-8 and along with the Ottawa County Sheriff's Department and the EMTs, that program is working. And secondly, I would like to start, I've been kind of away from things due to a family emergency, but my concerns have to do with the speeds in the township we i mean mind you the baldwin area is is is quite a concern since there have been several fatalities but over by where we live at 36th and port sheldon and allward school is there we we don't even have a speed limit on 36th avenue once once you cross in from hudsonville into georgetown township there's not even a speed limit sign there and uh um i'm just afraid that we need to kind of revisit and i don't know if the road commission has something to do with it or is this something of a concern within our own township community because People aren't paying attention. They're driving faster than even, I mean, I was even shocked to see that the postage fee limit between 28th Avenue and 20th on Rosewood is 50 miles an hour. and that's a very heavily residential area with a lot of children i mean there's rosewood schools right over there if my memory serves me correct so i just wanted to make a comment to see if there's anything being considered about that because i think the speeds in our township are too high thank you thank you thank you anyone else

Evan Houtsinger, 2669 Tamarack Drive. After the meeting two weeks ago, I kind of felt like Justin kind of got a little bit of a short end of the stick with the whole water billing fiasco, whatever that might have been, Facebook. I just kind of wanted to say that I feel like he's pretty awesome from everything that I've seen when he went over the budget at that meeting and just his communication and that he's open to answering questions um and that i think it's pretty clear that he's here to serve the public and not to serve himself um so i feel like he kind of got the short end of the stick a little bit at that meeting um so i want to put in a good word for him thanks kevin thank you very nice how much you paying them just wonder what else all right

Going once, twice. We'll close that second public comment period. Item 12, discussion and general information among the board. So looking to my right, I guess.

Anybody else? Just quickly with Nancy's comment about the speed limits, and we're very concerned about that too. Farther down on Rosewood, I believe it was 50-55, and we got the local, excuse me, our local representatives involved and basically the Michigan State Police decide and they monitor it and then the problem is as they monitor it, other sections then may get kicked up and unfortunately, we have very little power on that type of thing and that's why you see many, many communities where it jumps up And it's scary how fast the cars are going. But locally, we have very little authority at all.

One of the things we'll appreciate, too, in the new budget is there's discussion we'll have to consider about adding an additional deputy with a traffic focus. And then we're looking at other possibilities beyond that, whether it be another deputy or whether it be some form of overtime. Those who are hopeful of more policing in that respect, I think they're gonna have their wish with that, I think, with that budget, so we'll see.

I have noticed in the last couple months, there's more police presence in Georgetown than there's been in a while. I get around the township a lot, and I have jobs going from Grand Haven to Jamestown, and I've seen more presence lately in Georgetown Township than I've had in a year. I don't know if the new quadrant system you guys got going is working. That's the reason why. But I have seen more presence, which is good. Because that's key. Presence is key.

By the way, Sheriff DeBoer will be at our next meeting, I believe. Is that right? Yeah, next meeting.

I just wanted to say one thing. I didn't want to say it at the last meeting because I think the emotions were running high over that meeting. Facebook debacle and the the water billing issue, but I just want to say for the record a friendly reminder that Facebook is not an accurate place to get your news that the township board is Easily available and accessible via email all of our emails are on the website I point that out because the Facebook posts will get hundreds of comments and I don't have a single email from a resident And eight people will public comment here at a meeting, but yet Facebook generates hundreds of comments. And I just want to make clear that Facebook is not the source of truth, that there are seven members here, plus Justin, plus other staff people. Our job is to serve the community, and we want to be able to do that. And so I would just encourage people to... It takes just as long to write an email to the board as it does to make a post on Facebook. So I just think that we should encourage folks to do a better job of coming to the source of truth. We're all here and able to speak to any of the issues that might come up. And I know that we're all willing to do that. So just wanted to put that out there.

Thanks, Kelly. Well said. I want to mention this past Friday, John and Justin and I attended the Ottawa County Leadership Summit, which was hosted in Allendale, and had all of the, pretty much all of the supervisors or mayors within Ottawa County and several of the Ottawa County officials there, and it was a good discussion. It's just eye-opening sometimes when you hear from other cities and townships who are so busy. Of course, you've got your own responsibility right here. but when you hear from others and you realize some of the things they struggle with, whether it be the things we're obviously aware of in Blendon or in Jamestown where they're kind of having their own battle with some things of land use, water availability, and even to hear a couple of them say, we've got mostly dirt roads yet and we have no budget for roads. It's like, wow, we are pretty blessed that way to go virtually every road with the exception of section of Jackson. right is is paved and on a on a schedule it's like yeah some of those things you maybe take for granted you see wow that's going way back in time to the point where this township would have ever been where some of these are and you realize that there's a lot of building ahead of them that's going to be tough work you know um and it's just nice to be to appreciate you know even though we strive for for bettering things to realize how far things have come so It's a good meeting.

Jim, there was laughter about taxes because all of them, as they collect their taxes, people come in and they say, I am paying so much. And they'll say, but that's going to the schools, and it's going to Ottawa County, and our percentage is well under 10%. And people think we're getting by far the majority of it, and as Gary says frequently, We're 7%, 8%, and all the taxes that are collected for the summer, we don't get any of that. We collect it so they think that this is where the money is at. And I'll have people say to me, we should kick in and help the schools. Yet the schools, I believe, are about 65% or more. 77%. 77%.

Right across the room from me at that meeting was the Howland Township supervisor. Last name Tisla. I wanted to ask him if he's related to Isaac. He probably is. Yes, he's his uncle. He's his uncle, okay. But to sit there, so they're the next largest population center in Ottawa County to us. I think they're around 35-ish, so roughly, don't quote me, but about 20,000 behind us. Is it 18-point-something mills or 21-point-something mills for them? Mills, their rate, you don't remember? Okay, you don't want to get my numbers.

I'll throw my numbers out there. It's close to that.

I'll call it the lower of the two. It was like 18 point something mils. And we're at 2.25. I mean, I understand we're two different municipalities.

The other thing we don't realize in the finance part of it is that because we get no taxes in the summer, the money we collect in the winter has to last us all year. And so you have to have, you have to have a certain amount of backup funds to pay your bills. You know, like if I only paid you once a year, you gotta be able to, you gotta be able to gauge that money all year, which most people can't.

Right.

And, and so you have to have an additional amount of funds to pay your bills until you get paid again. if that's how you're running things. And then you have to depend on the state to share revenue sharing. So there's a lot more behind the scenes when you're doing your budgets. And I appreciate Justin and how he does budgets because I talked to him too. I was like, people don't realize you gotta have either a line of credit or you gotta have the cash available either way and around township display. So.

Yep.

Good point.

Okay, anyone else? I did go to another historical meeting last Thursday. The sign at Rosewood Park was kind of misunderstood. It was supposed to go on the 20th, but I think the email got confused a little bit, so now they're still in the fabrication process, we heard. So we're still hoping to come out here first part of September, and they want to have some kind of little unveiling or something.

I think he's going to work with Justin Randy

On a date on that that that if the board members want to get involved and then when the newsletter comes out for the historical side and I think Georgetown this latest thing I talked about last week with trying to get community involvement with first aid and 9-11 250. If that kind of thing that they're kind of whole program and it's almost gotta read it all because there's quite a few. programs that they institute out there that they'd like people to get involved with. So those should be coming up that you can be able to read and get involved with as you want to and see if you need to.

You know, I love how you promote them and stay involved. Appreciate it. It reminded me that we've got, and you guys remember a week from today, I think 4 p.m., if you can make it, if you choose to make it out to Grand River Park, there's a grand reopening. I don't want to say Grand River. I'm sorry, Rush Creek. Did I say Grand River? Yeah, Rush Creek. What would you call that?

Ribbon cutting.

Ribbon cutting for new improvements. We're going to have bubbles. We're going to have popsicles. It's going to be a great time.

I love it.

I spread the word. Okay, is there a motion to adjourn? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? We're adjourned.