Clinton Township Board approves food truck rules, buys police cars

CLINTON TOWNSHIP — The Clinton Township Board of Trustees approved an ordinance allowing food trucks in the community at its July 11 meeting.

Passed unanimously, the approved ordinance features few changes from the draft ordinance presented at the prior meeting. One item in the ordinance that was not changed before the meeting was a requirement for any food truck operating within 300 feet of a “Food Establishment” receiving the written approval of said establishments.

“I think this is a good concept to try and support our brick-and-mortar (businesses),” Trustee Mike Keys said. “But I do worry about (how) we have a lot of neighborhoods that are close to businesses, restaurants and commercial properties, and I wonder if this specific provision could be limited to those private properties.”

While the board concluded the 300 foot requirement was for food trucks operating on commercial property, the ordinance was not revised to reflect this conclusion.

Before the ordinance was approved, the board approved a request to have a food truck at Chippewa Valley’s Big Red Pep Rally on Aug. 22.

 

Police expenses
The board also unanimously approved several purchases for the Clinton Township Police Department.

Two new Special Investigations Unit vehicles — a 2019 Chevrolet truck and a 2020 Ford — were bought for $36,310 and $24,938, and a security gate for the police station’s rear parking lot was approved at a quoted price of s $39,958 from B&B Fence Inc.

A heat pump condenser was purchased for $20,100. The unit is used to remove hot air from the department’s computer server rooms, allowing the servers to operate at an ideal state.

The Police Department and Township Supervisor Robert Cannon considered purchasing the unit an “emergency” due to its critical function, so much that Cannon said he would have approved the purchase if the police directly brought it to him. Despite being an emergency purchase, the department attempted to hold a competitive bid process for the part and installation.

“There was an attempt to obtain some bids and quotes for other units, but it was just too timely and too critical,” Police Chief Dina Caringi said. “In fact, our HVAC guy did have some issues finding this particular one that fits these needs.”

 

Election updates
There were several agenda items throughout the meeting related to the upcoming August and November elections, starting with a presentation by Clerk Kim Meltzer about how to use the Clinton Township election boundaries overview interactive map.

The map allows users to see where a particular address’s precinct, district and other election-related areas are located. For example, the Clinton-Macomb Public Library’s Romeo Plank Road location is in the precinct 19 and votes for congressional District 10, state House District 61, state Senate District 11 and Board of Commissioners District 7, as well as falling under the jurisdiction of Chippewa Valley Schools.

The election boundaries lookup map works similarly but allows users to see the full size of the myriad election boundaries in the township. Users can flip between the local, state and federal district boundaries by clicking on eye-shaped buttons on the right side of the screen, allowing users to see how the boundaries overlap.

The board approved the purchase of cameras for the township’s six absentee ballot drop boxes. Set to be installed by RSI of Armada for just under $21,760, the plan calls for installing four solar-powered cameras in and around each drop box to monitor for any disruptions. Two cameras monitor cars pulling up and away from the box, one camera watches the door of the box from inside and one camera monitors the area to watch for tampering. The township will pay for the camera system with a federal election security grant.

A list of election workers for the August primary was received by the board. The list has around 700 people and Meltzer expects about 350 of them will work the polls. Board members had concerns over the general public being unable to access the list without making a FOIA request, and the list can be found on the Clinton Township website in the agenda packet of the July 11 election commission meeting.