Work on the new Denmark Township office building is proceeding.
Supervisor Charles Heinlein said there is a list of things to be completed yet. “It is progressing. Things are moving along just fine.”
The township board on Monday also learned the account at Independent Bank that held the money being used to construct the new office building is empty. Any costs from now on will come out of the general fund.
“What we’re trying to do is keep the tax-appropriated money from the residents separate from the state revenue sharing money,” Heinlein said. “Because we wanted to build that hall on state revenue sharing money, not on residents’ money to keep the township going.”
Treasurer Theresa Bauer said the township can keep the account open even with no funds in it. Just as long as the bank isn’t charging the township money just to keep the account open, board member Steve Schwab said. “Some of the banks charge for every bit of money there and pretty soon your money is gone and you owe them.”
“Yeah, we’ll have to watch that too,” Heinlein said. “A lot of this stuff will all shake out once that thing is completed in the back and we get the final billings on it.”
Moving into the new office, however, will make the existing township hall expendable. So the township isn’t planning to spend money on the upkeep of the landscape.
“I don’t want to spend a whole lot of time or a whole lot of effort on the grass and stuff that is out here,” Heinlein said, “because I think a lot of that will be torn up anyway when we have to take care of this building. So it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to do a lot of landscaping only to have it all torn up anyway.”
The board also:
- Adjusted the budget for the board of review ($50), office supplies ($50), and ditch-at-large ($3,447.41). Heinlein said the overrun in office supplies is due to trying to keep the township hall going and stocking the new office building at the same time. The cleaning of the Lotter Drain was the source of the ditch-at-large fund overrun.
- Learned nearly all of the township’s taxpayers got their taxes paid on time. Bauer said there were a few delinquents.
“Probably the same ones who are there every year,” Heinlein said.
“I guess I don’t know,” she said.
“You’ll know next year,” Heinlein said.
- Will host a cemetery cleanup day at 8 a.m. May 15. Reese High School students will work on the cemetery from 9:30-11:30 a.m. April 13. The township will provide lunch.
- Learned the next planning commission meeting is 6 p.m. April 19. Among the topics to be addressed will be solar energy. The township already has an ordinance governing it, Heinlein said, “but it is good if everybody stays on top of it.”
- Approved a zoning permit for Gavin Nickel for a fence.
- Is having issues again at the M-15/M-46 sewer lift station. “We’ll have to address them,” Heinlein said. “People just don’t get it, what they can put down into those pumping stations. We’ll work with it. We have to work with it.”
- Is looking at adding a generator at each sewer pumping station, “so we wouldn’t have to tote around our big generator,” Heinlein said. He said smaller generator units probably would suffice. Heinlein said he is working with Deputy Steve Anderson, the Tuscola County emergency services director, on applying for a state grant to cover all or part of the cost.
- Will be looking for someone who can cut the brush down around the sewer lagoon.
