The View From The Cheap Seats Feb. 2019

The View From The Cheap Seats

February 2019 Edition

For those 2,694-and-some-odd Township residents who missed Monday’s Township Board meeting, here’s what’s going on:

First, and most important, I had the distinct and much anticipated honor of appointing Ms. Naomi Carr to replace David “Fuzz” Miller on our Board of Trustees for the Township.  David was snatched from us in the prime of life here recently, and we miss him; but let me tell you, we could have looked every day for the next 200 years and not found a better Trustee! 

Naomi started attending the Planning Committee meetings in late 2016 participating as a Volunteer Ordinance Engineer, working to develop and revise our Township Ordinances.  She attended work groups, meetings with the State of Michigan, training classes, meetings at other townships and networking with others from surrounding townships.  She also attended many of our Township Board meetings and conducted research on a variety of subjects relevant to our efforts.  And she did all of this while working a full time job, raising and working show horses and handling a position in her industry trade association. 

Suffice it to say there is no other person in this Township who has worked harder, longer or more consistently, or made more significant contributions to our way of life; above all else, Naomi has earned this appointment!  I, for one, look very much forward to working with her!  Be sure to welcome her aboard the next time you see her…

Second, after discussing this off and on for about three months, a motion was made to change the Township Board of Trustees’ meeting start time to 6:00 PM (1800 for you military types) from the current 7:30 PM.  Hopefully, this will help motivate some of those 2,694-and-some-odd Township residents to get to one of these meetings every once in a while.

Third, Assessor Dishaw submitted the yearly assessing report: 275 site inspections were done in 2018; the CPI for 2019 is 1.024; the agricultural and residential classes’ assessments were increased, the commercial and industrial classes’ assessments decreased; March Board of Review will be March 12 and 13. Change notices to be mailed by February 19th.

Fourth, we are switching our phone and internet service over to WOW from Frontier as soon as they can make it happen.  This is going to improve service, add another phone line, give us better internet service and save us money!  What’s not to like?

Fifth, we’ve hired and approved a new Plumbing Inspector for work in the Township!  We no longer need to use the County of the State for plumbing inspections which will improve service, speed up the inspection process and save a bundle of money!  Do you see a theme here?

Sixth, the board approved funding to create a simplified, single document permit form to roll all of our permits into one, simple permit.  This will speed up, ease and organize the process and should save us considerable time and money.  I can’t understand why we didn’t do this 10 years ago.

Seventh, we voted to approve a procedure to add links to our website for community oriented businesses such as health care, senior services, rehab resources, etc.,  and we established that all minutes from all meetings during any given month would  be located on the website as a combined PDF for that month.  You can see what we’re doing here:  https://concordtownshipmi.org/board-minutes/  and if you are one of those 2,694-and-some-odd Township residents who missed January’s meetings, you will find them here: https://concordtownshipmi.org/wp-content/uploads/January-2019-All.pdf

Finally, with Naomi’s appointment to the Trustee position, prudence dictated that she also be appointed to one of the open positions on the Planning Committee, and Jim Bush, also a Trustee moved over to assume responsibilities on the Fire Board with the blessings of all relevant.

So there you have it!  Any questions, concerns, comments, or criticisms?  Drop us a not – or –  better yet – come to a meeting!

‘till next time

Al