Tan janitor keeps job
BEULAH (April 1) — A janitor at the county jail gets to keep his job but must serve probation after admitting he stole electricity from Benzie County so he could darken his skin on a tanning bed.
Alan Ernest Blattner, 56, of Frankfort, recently pleaded guilty to misdemeanor embezzlement under $200, was ordered to pay fines and costs, and must serve probation for one year.
Blattner took electricity from the county to use a tanning bed somehow installed in a county janitors' office from 2004 through 2006, according to the charges.
"It was misdemeanor embezzlement and it was for electricity, so it was pretty much a minor thing," said county Administrator Chuck Clarke on why he and Sheriff Robert Blank decided not to fire Blattner.
Public to have input on pedestrian tunnel
TRAVERSE CITY (April 2) — Elmwood Township planning commissioners will seek public comment on zoning ordinance changes that could allow a developer to construct a pedestrian tunnel under M-22.
Ron Walters and West Bay Partners LLC proposed an $8 million to $10 million development along the busy M-22 corridor in Greilickville. Plans call for building 29 yacht-sized boat slips in the bay, along with developing commercial and residential properties on the west side of the highway.
The current zoning ordinance requires that parking be located on the same side of the road as the proposed land use. The developers want to instead construct a pedestrian underpass beneath M-22 to link the marina to parking and properties across the road.
Aviation program partners up
TRAVERSE CITY (April 3) — Northwestern Michigan College's aviation program will fly in formation with three other community colleges and Western Michigan University to share equipment, purchase materials in bulk together and promote aviation careers.
Officials from the five flight schools — including Delta College near Bay City, Jackson Community College and Lansing Community College — signed an agreement to form an association named Fly Team Michigan!
Together, the five programs have at least 950 students.
"It's a cool little project," said NMC Vice President Marguerite Cotto, who oversees the aviation program.
Plaintiff rebuked; law was still violated
BEULAH (April 3) — Benzie County commissioners time and again violated open government laws over the past few years, a judge ruled.
But Judge James Batzer also found the violations largely were technical and during a court hearing he lectured the citizen who brought the lawsuit, Eric VanDussen, about crying wolf whenever he perceived governmental misconduct.
VanDussen and county officials have been at odds for about six years, when he filed the first of three lawsuits citing county violations of the state Open Meetings and Freedom of Information acts. Those laws prohibit governments from conducting public business in private.
"I will agree with you that sometimes there are public officers ... who do things out of an improper motive," Batzer told VanDussen. "But also overwhelmingly it is my experience that government employees and officers are conscientious people who try to do their jobs."
Open Space ordinance revised
TRAVERSE CITY (April 4) — A new version of a proposed Traverse City park use ordinance would exempt the National Cherry Festival, the city's hallmark summer event.
The festival would be allowed use of the bayfront Open Space for up to nine consecutive days and is spared from other ordinance provisions that regulate the number and nuisance of events held on city parks.
The parks and recreation board unanimously asked the city commission to adopt the rules this year, but commissioners stalled after business groups complained it was too restrictive and could hinder tourism.
A major change to the proposal is the exemption of the Cherry Festival. "The Cherry Festival is not like any venue that comes to town," Executive Director Tom Menzel said.
Lighthouse to undergo renovation
CHEBOYGAN (April 4) — Terry Pepper climbed several sets of winding stairs, his hand dragging along a dusty banister.
When he reached the top of the Cheboygan River Front Range Lighthouse, he pointed to where a red light shines toward Lake Huron to help direct ships into the Cheboygan River channel.
"We're going to restore the main lighthouse as it was in 1910," Pepper said.
He's executive director of the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association in Mackinaw City, which took over the Cheboygan lighthouse in June 2004 under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act. The site is ready for $250,000 worth of renovations, which will begin this month and continue into next year.
Setting the stage for changes
TRAVERSE CITY (April 5) — The National Cherry Festival could welcome major changes that shake up the look of the 80-year-old celebration.
The most notable difference at the event could be a plan to shift the stage at the bayfront Open Space so musicians and their music face the Grand Traverse Bay. Festival Executive Director Tom Menzel said turning the stage so its back is to Grandview Parkway is just one way to show the festival's "good faith" effort to address residents' noise complaints.
The festival features nightly concerts from the bayfront stage.
The festival also is investigating the use of new technology to direct noise away from residential areas.
Financial support from the city could be requested to help pay for any water and electricity work required to accommodate the new stage placement, Menzel said.
Another major change Menzel discussed is renewing the festival's recycling program. The event nixed its recycling tent several years ago to save funds.
Garbage truck loses passenger
MANCELONA (April 5) — A man who was hurt falling out of a moving garbage truck apparently was trying to open and re-close the passenger side door.
The accident happened on Mancelona Road, a few miles east of the Antrim County village.
Kalkaska resident Joshua Dimon, a 22-year-old employee of American Waste Management, was riding in the passenger seat when he fell out of the truck onto the paved road surface, said Antrim County Undersheriff Dan Bean.
The garbage truck was traveling at about 55 mph and Dimon was not belted in, Bean said.
Dimon remained hospitalized at Munson Medical Center, where he was being treated for an ankle injury and cuts on his head, Bean said. He is expected to make a full recovery.
Budget woes hit arts programs
TRAVERSE CITY (April 6) — The Old Town Playhouse, Traverse City's community theater is one of a host of area arts and culture agencies to learn that grants awarded by the state will be delayed, or, agencies fear, permanently suspended.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm halted payment of all state grants in response to Michigan's fiscal troubles.
The Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs awarded 300 grants last fall for a total of $10.1 million. The council paid out only 25.8 percent of the grants thus far, leaving about $7.5 million on hold. Some agencies received partial payment of grants promised to them in September, but were warned not to expect a check for the remainder anytime soon.
The council's Executive Director John Bracey said the grant "moratorium" comes after the council suffered years of budget slashes, reducing it from a 2002 high of $26 million.
"Arts and culture in the state have been taking it on the chin for six years in a row," he said.
Probe of jail thefts proves fruitless
TRAVERSE CITY (April 7) — State police concluded an investigation into thefts of $16,000 from the Grand Traverse County Jail's commissary fund.
The result: No clear suspect and no idea where the money went.
State police Detective Sgt. Mark Henschell of the 7th District headquarters recently finished interviewing potential suspects and will meet with the county prosecutor within the next two weeks.
Henschell, who has been investigating the crime since August 2005, said he is confident a jail employee stole the money, but is frustrated he can't prove the thief's identity.
From December 2003 to January 2005, $16,120 worth of deposits to the jail's commissary fund vanished before making it into the account. Inmates use the money in the form of credits to buy items from a jail store.
Park Service details management plan
EMPIRE (April 8) — The first time Dusty Shultz worked on a management plan that would define the future of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, opposition crashed down like thunder on Lake Michigan.
This time, midway through a process that began a year ago and is scheduled to conclude late next year, there apparently are no storm clouds in sight.
"I think what's making the difference is we are really going out of our way to be as transparent as possible," Shultz said.
The National Park Service published "Newsletter 4," a detailed look at three management plan alternatives drawn up after about 200 people made comments about what they want to see in the park that covers 71,199 acres and includes 65 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline, including 30 miles on North Manitou and South Manitou islands and 35 miles on the mainland.
The alternatives include one that would concentrate on conservation, another that would emphasize recreation, and a third that would attempt to concentrate use of the park to central areas.
Harbor to get a new master
TRAVERSE CITY (April 9) — Elmwood Township board members could appoint a new face to run the township marina for the 2007 season.
The board will vote to hire a harbormaster and assistant harbormaster to take the helm when the marina opens.
The township's personnel committee interviewed four applicants for the positions and recommended two candidates. Current harbormaster Fred Leddy did not make the cut.
Supervisor Derith Smith contends fellow township officials don't want to rehire Leddy because he enforces marina regulations.
The panel voted 2-1, with clerk Connie Preston opposed, to hire Peter Moon as harbormaster and Mark Benedict as assistant harbormaster.
Dura Automotive plant up for sale
MANCELONA (April 10) — Dura Automotive will sell its Mancelona manufacturing site, leaving the fate of 200-plus workers there uncertain.
In a restructuring plan, the Rochester Hills-based company said it plans to sell the Antrim County plant along with a second Indiana site.
Christina Stenson, a spokeswoman who works for a New York media relations firm hired by Dura, said the sale plan "isn't necessarily negative" news for the plant's 237 employees.
As part of the same restructuring and consolidation plan, four additional plants in the U.S. and Canada are to close completely, Stenson said.
Housing proposal irritates neighbors
TRAVERSE CITY (April 11) — Scott Norris wants to build a housing project where up-and-coming workers like his draftsman son can afford to live.
But his plans for a 100-plus-unit affordable housing project along North Long Lake Road in Garfield Township are drawing complaints over its development density and worries it could drag down neighboring property values.
It's a conflict that pits the region's steep need for lower-income housing against the challenge of finding a location where such housing is welcome.
Norris, owner of Olde World Custom Homes, has worked for months with the Michigan State Housing Development Authority on the Brookside Commons project on a 21.5-acre site near Traverse City West Senior High School.
MHSDA would provide below-market financing for the estimated $12 million project, in exchange for lower rental and purchase rates for income-eligible residents.
But critics of Norris' development charge it's too much housing on too small a site.
Crooked River lock repairs begin
ALANSON (April 11) — Some repairs to the Crooked River lock are under way, though officials believe more work is needed before the lock can open to boaters cruising northern Michigan's Inland Waterway this summer.
Wayne Schloop, Chief of Operations for the Army Corps of Engineers Detroit District, said federal and state officials inspected the lock last month but weren't able to see it operate.
The state Department of Natural Resources had removed and shipped some parts for repair, he said.
Bill Boik, head of the DNR waterways planning unit, said gears are being repaired in a Detroit-area machine shop. Boik said the DNR "didn't get any indication" when repairs would be completed.
Also unclear is who will pay the tab. Schloop, of the Corps, said the state was footing the bill though Boik could not confirm it.
Protesters' arrest attempt fizzles
TRAVERSE CITY (April 12) — What does a nonviolent protester have to do to get arrested in this town?
Acts of civil disobedience at the Traverse City office of Sen. Carl Levin and the Garfield Township office of Sen. Debbie Stabenow ended without incident but also without arrest.
Members of the Traverse City Peace and Justice Community intended to stage peaceful "sit-ins" at the offices. They want Levin and Stabenow to call for an immediate end to funding for the war in Iraq. They also wanted to stage a sit-in at U.S. Rep. Dave Camp's office but the office was closed.
Seven of the protesters planned to stay at Levin's and Stabenow's offices until they were removed by police and taken to jail.
Judge won't sign Incochee deal
TRAVERSE CITY (April 12) — A judge refused to sign off on a settlement reached between the city and developers of a Garfield Township subdivision that was aimed at resolving legal disputes over road access.
Thirteenth Circuit Judge Thomas Power declined to throw his support behind an agreement that called for the city to pay Incochee Woods Development more than $100,000 and for a gate to be constructed at Ramsdell Road to limit access to the project.
Power said he didn't find it appropriate to agree to the settlement.
"I'm not criticizing the merits of the deal," he said.
The city of Traverse City sued developers last year to limit access at Ramsdell, where some residents worried more traffic could create safety problems. That lawsuit was among several related to the project, disputes city commissioners agreed to settle.
Polluted park to remain closed
PETOSKEY (April 13) — A Lake Michigan park near the Bay Harbor resort will remain closed, at minimum, through two more summer seasons.
Environmental regulators told Resort Township officials that East Park will not reopen this year or next, though they cautiously allowed that residents may have their park back in 2009.
"That's assuming that everything goes well, that there's no hitches," said Diana Mally, the federal Environmental Protection Agency official overseeing the shoreline cleanup at the Bay Harbor resort and the adjacent park. "I would say that's on the optimistic side."
CMS Energy Corp., a initial financing partner in the posh resort, is charged with addressing contamination leftover from the land's former use as a cement quarry and plant. East Park is the only public property involved in the cleanup, now projected to cost the company $93 million.
April snowfall is most on record
TRAVERSE CITY (April 14) — Don't tell Neva Marconeri about selling ice to the Eskimos — she's been living it every day for a month now.
Marconeri has run the Dairy Queen along U.S. 131 in Mancelona since March 1961. This spring will be one to remember, for all the wrong reasons.
"It's probably one of the worst," Marconeri said.
She's not alone in her struggles, as the record-breaking, extended winter weather that shoved its way more than three weeks into spring effectively chilled outdoor activity around northern Michigan.
Record April snowfall, measuring more than 17 inches in Traverse City, impacted a variety of seasonal operations from ice cream stores to syrup-making sugar shacks to local golf courses, slicing into the region's springtime economy and posing a threat to farmers' growing season.
Districts could face further budget cuts
TRAVERSE CITY (April 14) — Northern Michigan school districts could lose thousands of dollars in state aid if legislators remain deadlocked on a solution to the state's budget woes.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm is prepared to cut funding by $90 to $125 per student if the budget crisis continues, state budget director Robert Emerson warned in a letter to school officials.
Districts were slated to receive a minimum of $7,085 per student in the fiscal year that ends June 30.
Some school superintendents said there's no way to make the budget cuts balance out this year.
Jeff Liedel leads Vanderbilt Area Schools, where a $125-per-pupil cut would slash $27,500 from the district's $1.9 million annual budget.
"We really can't do any layoffs at this point, six weeks from the end of the year. So it basically will just be added to our deficit. Next year we'll have to find a way to make more cuts, whether that's our music program or another teacher," Liedel said.
Property values tumble
BAY HARBOR (April 15) — This posh community's resort-wide assessed property values fell by 10 percent over the past year, and dragged down the city of Petoskey's estimated assessed worth by half as much.
Petoskey was the only area of Emmet County to see an overall decrease in assessed value this year, according to a recent county equalization report. The drop was largely thanks to the decrease at Bay Harbor, which accounts for more than 50 percent of the city's tax base.
What the figures reflect — a flagging economy or a needed "correction" to over-inflated values — is a subject of disagreement. Assessing is "not a hard science," said City Assessor John Gehres, who used sales figures from April 2004 to March 2006 to assign the new values.
"Based on the data that I collected, it looked like (the resort) deserved a decrease. They've had sales that show that property selling for a lot less," Gehres said.
Chris Etienne, sales director for Bay Harbor Properties, estimated about $40 million in sales in the exclusive Little Traverse Bay resort in 2006, an increase, she said, of about $4 million over 2005.
OM teams show off at state finals
TRAVERSE CITY (April 15) — The Traverse City Central High School campus and buildings at Northwestern Michigan College buzzed with activity as over 1,000 students competing on 155 teams from around the state vied for spots in the Odyssey of the Mind world finals to be held this year at Michigan State University.
At the state finals in Traverse City, OM coach Steven Winowiecki hoped to repeat a win last year that got his team an invitation to the world finals in Iowa.
Maureen DeYoung, a former principal at Grand Traverse Area Catholic Schools' Holy Angels Elementary who has a daughter on Winowiecki's team, said she pushed to jump start an OM program at her school, and parents willing to give their time are what a school needs to get one established.
"It really takes parents stepping up to the plate to do it and we've been blessed with the number of parents we've had in the past six years," DeYoung said.
City ponders workplace smoking ban
TRAVERSE CITY (April 16) — Smokers who light up in a workplace here could soon be under fire.
The city commission is scheduled to introduce a smoke-free ordinance. The rule would snuff out smoking inside work sites, public places and business cars within the city limits. It exempts food service establishments, private homes and cars and tobacco specialty stores.
The proposal is cheered by smoke-free supporters who say secondhand smoke exposure is a serious health risk.
City commissioners first asked Grand Traverse County to adopt county-wide rules, but the county board refused. City commissioners could vote to enact the rule on May 7. The ordinance would take effect 90 days after adoption.
Some of the region's largest employers said the ordinance would have little impact at their work sites.
Facelift on tap for I-75
INDIAN RIVER (April 17) — Northern Michigan's arterial freeway is getting a $6.5 million face-lift on a nearly five-mile-long patch of rough and bumpy concrete.
Road work began on a 4.7-mile stretch of Interstate 75 north of Indian River in Cheboygan County, which officials said has long needed repairs.
"It's just falling apart. We're out there patching every other day or so," said John Nichols, the state road foreman for the Cheboygan County Road Commission.
Nichols said the old concrete is deteriorating at the center line and the joints of the highway.
"Big chunks of concrete will just blow right out, especially after it rains," he said.
The planned highway work includes breaking the existing concrete lanes down to a rubble surface and then repaving. Freeway ramp reconstruction and new guardrails are also part of the state highway project.
Resort water may be hauled off
BAY HARBOR (April 18) — Contaminated water from an extensive shoreline cleanup at Bay Harbor may soon be trucked to Antrim County and pumped deep underground.
CMS Energy officials funding the cleanup at the resort requested that federal regulators allow them to drill a deep injection well in Antrim County's Star Township, near Alba.
CMS spokesman Tim Petrosky said the well, if approved, would replace a similar, non-company well site CMS has used in Johannesburg.
Bacteria enlisted to eat up pollution
TRAVERSE CITY (April 18) — It's taken 25 years and $1.1 million in school funds, but Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School District officials have begun a comprehensive cleanup of groundwater pollution at the Career Tech Center.
And they're using bugs to do so.
TBA is at the start of a one-year pilot study to see if bugs — bacterium — can eat a significant amount of contaminants on the former industrial site. It's one of the first attempts in Michigan to use bio-remediation to clean chlorinated solvents, experts said.
"We're pretty optimistic that we can see some dramatic results in a short period of time," said Art Taddeo of ENSR Corp., an environmental consulting firm from Massachusetts that's doing the work for TBA and A.K. Steel, the former property owner.
The groundwater contamination is from degreasing operations at the former Parsons Corp. plant, plus a small contribution from floor drains at the Career Tech Center that makes TBA-ISD responsible for 40 percent of $5.5 million spent on the site since 1984, of which half is covered by insurance.
Charter section may not apply to project
TRAVERSE CITY (April 19) — A decades-old city charter section that some argue requires public votes on all city projects that use public funds doesn't apply to a proposed West Front Street development, a downstate attorney wrote in an opinion.
The city hired the law firm Miller Canfield to analyze a city charter amendment enacted in 1969 to determine whether it applied and would require voter approval to use brownfield funds in a 145 W. Front St. project by Federated Properties.
Miller Canfield attorney Don Schmidt's answer: The section is "not applicable."
City Attorney W. Peter Doren previously told commissioners the charter section is of "doubtful validity" and did not apply to Federated's plans, but another local attorney, Charles Meyer III, offered an opposing opinion that any publicly financed project should require a vote of the people.
Schmidt determined that the amendment, called Section 28, does not apply because the use of public money in this case was adopted through the Grand Traverse County Brownfield Redevelopment Authority, not the city.
County on board with deck
TRAVERSE CITY (April 19) — Grand Traverse County board members gave their verbal blessing for the county Brownfield Redevelopment Authority to move ahead with construction and ownership of a parking deck on West Front Street.
In March the brownfield authority, appointed by the county board and not answerable to voters, agreed to negotiate a lease purchase agreement with Federated Properties to eventually own a $5.5 million parking deck in Federated's proposed 100-foot-tall building at 145 W. Front St.
Developers and their supporters contend public funding of the parking deck is integral to the project. But city residents in a referendum last August buried a proposal to bond up to $16 million to pay for public parking in Federated's project.
County Commissioner Larry Inman said he thought voters rejected the way the project was handled by the city, not the project itself.
Granholm's order freezes grant money
TRAVERSE CITY (April 20) — An executive order issued by Gov. Jennifer Granholm froze a $1 million state grant to help pay for building demolition and possible environmental cleanup at West Front Street development projects.
The order placed a moratorium on all state grants to persons or entities. Grand Traverse County Brownfield Redevelopment Director Jean Derenzy recently discovered the order included the grant from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to the Grand Traverse County Brownfield Redevelopment Authority for properties at 124, 145, and 305 W. Front St.
The moratorium put a hold on the county's request for reimbursement of $35,000 expended by Federated Properties for interior demolition of the old Grand Traverse Auto building at 124 W. Front St.
Federated representative Michael Uzelac said all demolition activities have ceased.
Board rejects cuts to aid programs
TRAVERSE CITY (April 21) — The Grand Traverse County Board of Commissioners nixed any major cuts to health programs that aid women and children as a mean of bailing out the financially troubled health department.
The health department faces a $447,000 deficit for 2007, and administrators cut about $160,000 through reduced labor costs and saved thousands more with dozens of small program cuts, such as no longer staffing a baby tent at the National Cherry Festival.
County Administrator Dennis Aloia told the board there were no areas left to trim. Board members needed to decide whether to make cuts to major programs or plan on increasing the county's general fund contribution.
Environmentalists celebrated
TRAVERSE CITY (April 22) — This time last year, Amy Moehle had never heard of the Northern Michigan Environmental Action Council.
Then a developer eyed some property on Turtle Lake and proposed a 27-home subdivision, a project neighbors feared would destroy the rustic, natural setting around the small lake. Moehle sprung to action.
"I don't actually live on the lake, I just love it," said Moehle, who with her husband David and their daughters, Nadia, 6, and Sonja, 3, live on a lot just away from the lake. "I can see a twinkle in the spring and in the fall when the leaves aren't on the trees."
Moehle won the award for "Environmentalist of the Year" in the volunteer category from NMEAC at its annual awards dinner.
"Basically she stood up when no one else would in defense of this small lake," said Greg Reisig, a NMEAC board member.
Commissioners slam global warming
TRAVERSE CITY (April 22) — Grand Traverse County residents who celebrated Earth Day may want to reflect on the thoughts of three of their elected leaders.
County commissioners Addison "Sonny" Wheelock, Dick Thomas and Margaret Underwood all recently opined on the state of the environment and the concept of global warming.
Among them, the commissioners tied global warming to socialism, suggested sending an e-mail to the sun and pointed out that dinosaurs didn't drive expensive foreign cars.
"I believe the Sierra Club, along with Al Gore, President Carter and the United Nations are socialistic organizations that are trying to change the government of this country, and I am opposed to everything they support or try to (foist) on us to do," Underwood said at a public meeting.
Thomas said he isn't sure there's such a thing as global warming, but if there is, no one's proven humans are at the root of the problem.
"They have recently discovered that the polar ice caps on Mars are shrinking," Thomas said. "So what would cause that on both the Earth and Mars, that would be the sun, so we should e-mail the sun and tell it to cool down a little bit."
Pellet plant would hire 70
GRAYLING (April 23) — A downstate company intends to build a $45 million wood pellet factory in Grayling and hire about 70 workers.
Cascade Pellet Corp. in Ypsilanti wants to buy 55 acres of land in the city's industrial park, according to documents obtained by the Record-Eagle under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act.
Paperwork shows company officials expressed an interest in the site as early as June 2006. They hope to begin construction by fall.
The Grayling site wasn't Cascade's first choice, but officials appear pleased with its potential.
'Boutique' hotel to replace Whiting
TRAVERSE CITY (April 25) — Bob Sutherland of Glen Arbor-based Cherry Republic is purchasing the Whiting Hotel building on East Front Street in downtown Traverse City, where he'll open a new retail store featuring his popular cherry products and apparel, with long-range plans for a boutique hotel to replace the 112-year-old Whiting.
He plans to open a Cherry Republic storefront by Memorial Day weekend in the former Happy Hog motorcyclist accessory shop at 150 E. Front St.
Down the road are plans for a specialty inn upstairs to replace the aging Whiting Hotel, currently used for low-cost alternative housing for Goodwill Industries of Northern Michigan and other agencies.
The current Goodwill lease extends for another 3½ years so no changes are imminent, although he eventually hopes to create a scaled-down inn with less than the 50 rooms than exist in the Whiting.
Design concepts unveiled for bayfront
TRAVERSE CITY (April 25) — Three design concepts for Grandview Parkway and Traverse City's two miles of bayfront were unveiled to an overflow crowd at the last public work session in the "Your Bay, Your Say" planning process.
City-hired consultants expect to assemble one "preferred plan" for the waterfront in June, said Patrick Doher of JJR. He said the outcome likely will be a "hybrid" of the three schemes — "The Big Move," "String of Pearls," and The "Green Scheme."
The design ideas have been culled from more than a year's worth of community meetings and work done by University of Michigan and Michigan State University students.
Commission votes to settle suit
TRAVERSE CITY (April 26) — City commissioners inked a settlement agreement aimed at ending long-running legal disputes over road access to a Garfield Township subdivision.
Commissioners agreed to settle circuit court cases with Incochee Woods Development, a deal that includes the city purchasing Wayne Street property from developers for $127,822.
"I'm glad it's over," said Commissioner Scott Hardy, just before the board approved the settlement 6-0.
Trout Festival packed with fun
KALKASKA (April 26) — Festival goers will get a chance to demonstrate their singing pipes, catch a $1,000 fish and help a motorcycle club plant pine trees at the National Trout Festival.
The 71-year festival began with an adult fishing contest. Jack's Bait Shop owner Dan Doherty said he's starting to catch some customers, as pike and walleye fishing also opens this weekend.
Log Lake, Big Guernsey and Big Twin lakes each have been stocked with 33 tagged contest trout.
The festival is held at the Kalkaska County Fairgrounds.
Special events include a youth parade, grand parade and a classic car show. Three age divisions will compete karaoke-style for top honors in voice quality and "wow factor" during the second Kalkaska Idol competition.
Project going despite no timeline
PETOSKEY (April 27) — Excavation is complete and utility work is underway for the Petoskey Pointe condominium and hotel project.
But contractors heading the $60 million project slated to take up an entire city block downtown have yet to announce a definite time line for actual construction.
"We don't have anything to report besides the utility work," said John Grezlak of J.M. Olson Corp.
Grezlak said he expected foundation work to begin "shortly," but declined to be more specific.
"Within the next few weeks we should have more information," he said.
Threat disclosed a day later
TRAVERSE CITY (April 28) — Law enforcement and school officials took nearly 24 hours to tell parents, students and the public that a 15-year-old student allegedly discussed a violent attack at Traverse City West High School.
Rumors of an attack plot circulated through campus , but no announcement was made at West, and parents weren't alerted. School officials said they mailed a letter to parents the following day.
School officials acknowledged that counselors may have averted violence during an encounter with a 15-year-old student. Plot rumors made the rounds at West, but the school's mood remained calm, said Jerry Ruskowski, governor of the school's student senate.
"I think that most kids felt pretty safe," he said. "I don't think that there were many kids who were overly concerned."
Dead birds remain on lakeshore
EMPIRE (April 29) — At least one visitor to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore this spring voiced alarm over bird carcasses that litter the beach.
"My wife and I often take walks on the beach," said Christopher Hartman, a semi-retired resident of Beulah. "We went down there and we saw all these dead birds all over the place."
Hartman first saw the carnage last year, when an outbreak of botulism killed an estimated 2,900 birds beginning in August.
Sleeping Bear officials said the source of the type E botulism that killed the birds came from the lake bottom, in the mud where bacteria that causes botulism is found. Aquatic invertebrates pick up the bacteria and fish either ingested the bacteria or the invertebrates. Birds get infected when they eat the fish.
Residents question placement of substation
TRAVERSE CITY (April 30) — Homeowners in Garfield and Long Lake townships are perplexed by their local electric companies' efforts to drop a large, high-voltage electrical substation in the middle of their residential neighborhood.
Wolverine Power Cooperative, in a deal with Traverse City Light and Power, wants to build a $4 million electrical transmission substation off Gray Road in Garfield Township between Cedar Run and Barney Roads.
The substation will interconnect transmission lines controlled by Wolverine for Cherryland Electric Cooperative and Traverse City.
The parcel of land was chosen because it's close to transmission lines. It's completely surrounded by homes in Garfield Township and 30 condominiums across the street in Long Lake Township.
"As it stands, the proposed site is going to affect 40 or more families, but if they moved it just half a mile north it would affect just one family, if that," said neighbor Michael Harrigan.
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