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CLINTON TOWNSHIP — The business of the Clinton Township Board of Trustees had to wait nearly two hours to begin on Jan. 8 as trustees battled over old items well into the evening.
Trustees spent about the entire first hour of the meeting rehashing the Dec. 18 meeting’s early voting informational mailer debate. A 3-3 deadlock was highlighted by heated moments between the board’s two factions arguing about the mailer’s content, but Township Clerk Kim Meltzer ultimately circumvented the inaction by finding state grant funds to pay for printing and mailing the flier.
Bringing the discussion back up in January seemed to serve two purposes: to establish board approval of the document in case it was a requirement for grant reimbursement, and for Meltzer and her camp of Democratic Trustee Tammy Patton and Republican Township Supervisor Robert Cannon to further back the document’s content. The former point would ultimately fail as the two camps deadlocked 3-3 again, but representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union and Voters Not Politicians said the document’s content adheres to what the Michigan Constitution requires of it.
“The mailer is in compliance with what the statute says,” said Alli Kelly, an ACLU clerk engagement organizer. “The mailer is at the discretion of the clerk. She’s the one tasked with educating the community.”
That did stop the board’s all-Democrat faction of Trustee Mike Keys, Trustee Julie Matuzak and Treasurer Paul Gieleghem from arguing that the mailer does not adequately inform residents about the Feb. 27 special election for a trustee seat. The special election takes place during a statewide presidential primary that uses partisan ballots. Township residents wishing to vote in the special election will have to choose either party’s primary ticket that includes the trustee election or, if they do not wish to vote in the primary, choose a neutral ballot with only the trustee election.
After discussion about the mailer was finished, trustees spent about 20 more minutes debating the board’s rules of procedure for 2024. The main point of contention from the Keys-Matuzak-Gieleghem camp was that a rule passed in 2023, 16-E, which governs how board vacancies are filled, did not make it into the rules as presented.
“The board did take action to change rule (16-E) and add language that is not represented in this version and is not represented on the (township) website,” Gieleghem said. “I brought it up at the staff meeting, and I informed the clerk’s office that the new policy needs to be updated … I think the appropriate motion in this case is to approve the board rules as amended last year with the addition of rule (16-E) changes.”
The camp of Cannon-Meltzer-Patton provided opposition to this, with Meltzer and Patton largely falling on the side of approving the rules as presented and voting on 16-E as an amendment or tabling the rules discussion for another meeting. Cannon and Deputy Supervisor Dan O’Leary, however, argued the board rules were entirely unnecessary.
“If the vote fails, the world doesn’t come to an end,” O’Leary said. “No majority of towns in this state have board rules.”
A series of two votes were held — one to approve the rules without 16-E and one to approve the rules with 16-E — and both failed 3-3. The first vote failed with Keys, Matuzak and Cannon voting against and the second with Meltzer, Patton and Cannon voting against.
The board proceeded with the rest of the meeting using Robert’s Rules of Order and the township charter as its guidelines.
Barbecue expansion
When the board finally got its disagreements out of the way, it voted unanimously on its remaining items for the evening. One of the first items to generate much discussion was the approval of an expansion at Bad Brad’s BBQ’s 36845 Groesbeck Highway location.
A two-story storage area will be added onto the building along with a new canopy and footing. The expansion will replace a temporary expansion made by the restaurant.
Non-emergency response ordinance
Trustees passed the first reading of an ordinance that would allow the township to set a fee on nonemergency 911 services for residential living facilities. The ordinance aims to bring down the number of calls from assisted living, independent living and nursing home facilities for non-emergency uses of Clinton Township Fire Department equipment and personnel such as transporting patients to non-emergency doctor appointments.
“This is something I did not want to bring forward for a number of years, but the time has come,” Clinton Township Fire Chief Tim Duncan said.
According to Duncan, the department has made 15,000 calls in the past year, taking a toll on the department’s personnel and equipment. The department has tried to get facilities to voluntarily reduce their nonemergency calls to reduce the strain on its resources, but Duncan sees the ordinance as a way to bring any remaining uncooperative facilities in line.
The ordinance will have a second reading at a later meeting before being added to the code of ordinances.
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