A Community News Organ

Archive for November, 2011|Monthly archive page

Park and Rec Xmas Tree Sale, on Now!

In Breaking, Culture Bluffs, Open Season on November 30, 2011 at 4:28 pm

P&R prez Art Melendez wants to sell you a Fraser fir or ten.

Come one, come all, and get the best tree deal in the county. Save money on gas and know that what you do spend is going to support Elberta’s beautification and recreation initiatives. Park and Rec is selling Fraser firs and Scotch pine trees between the post office and Lane Plumbing on M-22. You can’t miss it in the daytime. And it looks quite pretty lit up at night.

Did you know that Park and Rec doesn’t get any money from the Village general fund/your taxes? Park and Rec pays for all its projects through its own fundraising efforts. Projects like the new Dog Park by the community building on First Street, new playground equipment for Tots Park, paint and signage, holiday lights and decorations, and any of the other cool new ideas they’re coming up with to bring good times to the Village.

Park and Rec members and civilians are pulling volunteer sales shifts Monday through Friday from 4 pm to 7 pm and Saturday and Sunday 1 pm to 7 pm. Frazer firs are $35 and Scotch pines are $25. Thanks so much to Russ Mix for donating the use of his lot, to Laura Manville for coming up with this awesome idea, to Jen Wilkins for the signage, and, as usual, to Ken Bonney for knowing where to get the trees and, well, pretty much everything else that was needed. Sale goes until they’re gone. Get ‘em while they’re cold and green!

Note of Clarification on the Management of This Publication!

In Alert Reader, Breaking, GOOD NEWS on November 21, 2011 at 5:27 pm

By Emily Votruba

My friend Andrea Claire Maio was interviewed for an IPR segment that aired today, about her TV show project, Back to Your Senses, for which she is seeking funding through a new crowdsource fund-raising site called Mobcaster. My personal view is that Andrea’s project is really exciting, and I’m happy for her that she got this great radio exposure today. (Read more about Back to Your Senses here, if you like!) I’m also grateful to her for mentioning our newspaper on the segment. She cares about this paper and the cause of local journalism a lot.

Unfortunately, the IPR reporter who interviewed her inserted a rather huge factual error into his report. He said that I, Emily Votruba, earn an income from being the managing editor of the Alert. This information did not come from Andrea, who knows that is not true.

So I thought I’d go ahead and take this opportunity to clarify how the Alert works. Back in December 2010, a group of people met in the Elberta Library to discuss what we wanted in a local newspaper. Clearly many people in our Village felt a need for a newspaper—the turnout was fantastic. About fifty people of all ages showed up to discuss the possibilities and begin framing the structure of the Elberta Alert, the name we decided on as a group. It’s true I called that meeting and facilitated it, but from start to finish, the Alert has been a truly collaborative project (as most great things are). Because I wanted to help the newspaper to succeed, grow, and be a “real” newspaper someday, and I also wanted to protect myself and the other volunteers from lawsuits, I went ahead and did the responsible thing and set up an LLC (I paid the fee) and made myself managing director. (This information has always been out in the open, by the way, and is printed on the masthead of the paper.) But I do not now, nor have I ever, drawn a cent of income from the Elberta Alert, and no one else does either. I, for one, hope that someday we actually can generate some revenue for the editorial team, contributors, and for Village community projects. But for now we’re just barely covering our print costs each month.

Our team has just put out our ninth issue. The fact that this publication has been able to pay for itself, through ads, donations, T-shirt sales, and subscriptions, is a testament, I think, to several things. One, the desire of the residents and businesses in our community (and donors and subscribers from afar!) for deeply local media, in which we tell our own stories as engagingly and as accurately as possible. Two, the tremendous effort of all the Alert volunteers and contributors, including myself, who work on this project for absolutely no pay.  The Alert is truly a labor of love. The Alert, in a way, is succeeding because it never has tried to make money.

There are several unfortunate ironies to the error on IPR today. One is that Andrea Maio’s project is all about “leaving the safety of what you know, for the sake of what you love.” Andrea herself has done that. She’s trying to make a go of life in Northern Michigan, here in the place she loves, though it’s awfully hard sometimes. The stories that Andrea hopes to tell, about people pursuing the deep pleasure of work they love and care about, in spite of uncertainty and even hardship, is the story of the Alert. We don’t know if this story has a happy ending. We only know that it has an extremely joyful and exciting middle.

Thanks for reading.

Early Morning Fire Claims Three on Pautz Road

In Breaking on November 16, 2011 at 1:00 pm

A fire completely destroyed the home of Chris Luedtke and his wife, Linda, this morning, beginning with an explosion at 7:30 a.m., according to Brian McGillivary writing on the Record-Eagle website. The Luedtkes and their 17-year-old son are confirmed dead.

Update: As of Tuesday, November 22, the Benzie County Sheriff’s department had confirmed they believe the son, Christopher’s, death was a homicide and the fire was set intentionally. The Record Eagle has been posting regular updates, including one today (Wednesday), and we encourage you to look there.

The Alert team is deeply saddened by the loss of the Luedtke family, and we wish them strength and the secure knowledge that their community is behind them 100 percent and here to help. The Alert likely won’t be doing any original reporting on the case itself, but we will be putting together a tribute to the family for the next issue.

Abandoned by the System

In On and off the Apron, Politics, Sunset on November 15, 2011 at 1:08 pm

The following story appeared in print issue 9 of the Elberta Alert.

By Emily Votruba

Janie Rosum and Kelly Beaton, with Kelly's buck, in better days. Photo courtesy of Janie Rosum.

KELLY BEATON WORKED as a welder for about 11 years at a shop in Honor, until he was laid off. He never had health care coverage as an adult and didn’t care much for going to the doctor. His longtime friend, Janie Rosum, remembers the morning when Kelly mentioned over the breakfast table that he might have a piece of metal in his eye. She took a look and immediately drove him to the ER. The piece of metal had been in his eye for two days.

Kelly wasn’t the type to ask for help from anyone. By the time he left the welding shop, he was feeling the damage done to his lungs on the job. When his unemployment ran out this past summer, he was already quite ill, but he kept working, picking up odd jobs here and there, mostly on construction sites.

Kelly was 50 years old and had never been part of the welfare or Medicaid system. He never married, never had children, and had few material things—no assets to speak of. He lived on Bigley Street in Elberta, in a trailer in his friend’s yard. One day in early September this year, he woke up with a terrible headache, the kind he couldn’t ignore. Janie took him to the ER. Janie feels that if Kelly had had any kind of health coverage and any regular medical attention, his illness would have been discovered long ago, perhaps in time for it to be successfully treated. As it was, on September 8, Kelly was diagnosed with four types of cancer—lung, liver, brain, and lymph node—at stage IV.

A couple of days later, Janie says, she gathered all of Kelly’s financial information and medical reports and headed down to the Benzie Government Office to apply for Medicaid for Kelly. What came next was a month and a half of unreturned phone calls and desperate measures that ultimately found Janie, bereaved of her friend, standing at the post office holding the first medical bill, for $23,000.

Janie is retired on disability herself and was Kelly’s sole caregiver from the time he got sick. Kelly’s parents are both alive but elderly and unwell, still mourning the death of Kelly’s younger sister ten months ago, and struggling to deal with that financial burden. Kelly moved into Janie’s house in Frankfort and she had his mail forwarded there. Unable to work and with no other income source, Kelly was forced to rely on Janie for everything. She used her own Bridge card to get him the nutritional supplements he needed as his weight plummeted by 60 pounds injust a few weeks. She drove him to doctor’s appointments, to the ER when he was struggling to breathe; to radiation treatments and chemo, and she paid for his nebulizer herself.

For weeks, Munson wouldn’t admit Kelly because he lacked insurance and had not been approved for Medicaid. He spent a night there once and was sent home the next day; nothing more could be done, they said. That visit alone cost over $10,000. All the while, Janie waited to hear back from DHS about Kelly’s Medicaid application. Janie says she had to fight to get Kelly the $12 oxygen tanks his doctor had ordered, several times paying for them herself. She says DHS would only approve one tank at a time, and one tank was not enough to last Kelly the trip to Traverse City and back. “A lot of the time I was making a mad dash to get him either back to the hospital or back to get another oxygen tank.” Finally, Janie says, the people at Biederman Cancer Center at Munson called the Prescription Shop after Kelly’s first radiation treatment and arranged for his oxygen-tank orders to come through.

Janie held a benefit spaghetti dinner for Kelly at the Mayfair Tavern on October 5, which raised $1,100. That money, so deeply appreciated, alas didn’t go very far. “We had to borrow money from everyone we knew. Ten pills was a hundred dollars,” Janie says.

At the beginning of October, Janie says, a couple of weeks after she first brought Kelly’s materials to Benzie’s DHS office, Kelly got a letter from his DHS caseworker, Andrew Lamb, denying him Medicaid. Janie says she’ll never forget how angry she felt when she opened that letter. The stated reasons according to Janie were that “he wasn’t under 21, he had no children living at
home, and they did not find that he was disabled.” Weak, breathless, in pain, and with an official stage IV cancer diagnosis, Kelly Beaton was not able-bodied by any reasonable definition. The man who had worked hard his whole life had at last reached the point where he could work no more. But the DHS offices in Benzie and Lansing apparently needed more convincing.

Janie continued to call DHS, demanding that they review Kelly’s case. “[The automated message] said if it’s an emergency, press this number. I pressed that number every time.” But she couldn’t get anyone to talk to her. Finally, at the beginning of October, she showed up at the Benzie County Government Office and refused to leave without a meeting.

“I kind of had to make a sneak attack. I casually walked in with the file and asked the first lady in the window if Andy Lamb was in his office. She told me he was and that I should call him from the extension phone on the wall. He didn’t answer. I walked back up to the window and told a gentleman there, ‘I know he’s in the building. This is an urgent situation, and I am not leaving until he comes out of his office and comes toe to toe, face-to-face with me.’” Janie says the caseworker finally came out and seemed not to know who she was. “And I said, ‘You know who I am, and you know the reason I’m here.’ And he opens up the file and he looks like it’s all new news to him. And I said, ‘What happened to his folder? I brought in a complete file weeks ago. Why can’t you get this through and make it happen?’ Then he opens up the first page and says, ‘Oh, this man is very ill.’ And I said, Really? No, this man is dying. And then he said, ‘Oh this is an emergency, I’ll take it right back and do something with it.’”

Days later, Janie received another letter saying Kelly had been denied. Somehow, he met none of the eligibility requirements.

Kelly was finally admitted to Munson at the end of October, for three days. During that time, a hospital social worker got DHS Benzie on the phone to find out why Kelly had been denied Medicaid. According to Janie the DHS rep gave the social worker “every excuse under the sun”—that Kelly’s paperwork was incomplete, that it hadn’t beensubmitted in a timely manner; that “he didn’t have an active case.” “I took everything to Andy Lamb weeks ago, the doctors orders and financial information, the chemo and radiation records…” She had watched him look at the file.

On October 27, at 1 pm, Kelly Beaton entered hospice care at Munson. He died at 6 pm. According to Janie he was in hospice for about two hours when the financial representative from Munson appeared, asking her how his bills were going to be paid.

♦      ♦      ♦      ♦      ♦      ♦      ♦      ♦      ♦

The denial of aid for Kelly, and the difficulty Janie and others in our community have had getting responses from caseworkers at DHS, have fueled rumors of staff and budget cuts at DHS, along with the suspicion that federal Medicaid money is somehow being dammed up at the state level. “It’s federal money,” Janie said. “[Michigan DHS has] no right to withhold it.”

I placed four calls in as many days to Andrew Lamb and supervisor Lois Kiehl, and got a voicemail message from Kiehl saying it was against DHS policy to talk to the press, and referring me to Benzie–Manistee DHS director Kristine Lagios, who returned my call promptly. According to Lagios, the Benzie staff has not only not been cut, but she has actually increased it during her tenure.

“That’s a bad rumor,” Lagios said. She explained that in October 2010 there were 6 assistant payments workers, 2 administrative support personnel, and a supervisor on staff at the Benzie office. Now the office is “at capacity,” she said, with 7 assistant payments workers, 1 migrant-program worker, 1 adult services worker, 4 children’s services workers, 2 administrative support staff, and two supervisors, for a total of 17. Some of these staff were brought from Manistee because Lagios perceived a need for them in our area.

Lagios wouldn’t comment on Kelly’s case specifically, citing confidentiality rules. “If it’s a case that qualifies, you would not be denied Medicaid,” Lagios said. “For example if you’re pregnant and meet the policy guidelines.” Different Medicaid programs have different eligibility rules, she said. As for cuts to Medicaid, Lagios knew of none currently, but did say there has been an “asset change” in the Food Assistance Program (FAP). She wouldn’t tell me what the asset change was, instead referring me to the state DHS website, where I found the following: “Asset Limit: Effective October 1, 2011 there is an asset limit for FAP groups.”

There was no elaboration on the limit or any links, so I called the number given under “Food Assistance Program Questions, call 1-855-ASK-MICH (1-855-275-6424).” After 30 minutes a rep answered. I identified myself as a member of the press and asked what the asset limit was for FAP groups. The rep directed me back to the Michigan DHS website, to “the Policies and Procedures page,” where she said I could download a booklet of information. I said, “Can’t you just tell me what the asset limit is?” She again referred me to the website. I said, “Is it different for different people or something?” She hung up on me.

A dense, small-font page on the DHS site lists administrative handbooks. I found the Bridges Eligibility Manual and clicked on it. A pdf appeared with a 5-page table of contents. On the website it says if you click on a table of contents item you’ll be taken to a page with information. None of the links I clicked on worked. I had no better luck finding the Medicaid eligibility requirements. I’m by no means the sharpest person on the planet, but I did graduate from a decent university. I can imagine a lot of people having trouble navigating this site, which the agency seems to rely on to “get the word out.” Sometimes you just really want to talk to a person.

A former executive of a health-related foundation in the state of Michigan, who did not wish to be named, said: “It’s really sad, but they almost always deny you Medicaid the first time you apply, no matter what. It’s not a policy, but it’s just the way the system goes. We always used to advise people, just reapply, reapply. And if necessary, get legal counsel.”

But Kelly Beaton did not have the luxury of time.

On the day before he died, Janie says, she opened a letter from DHS notifying Kelly that he would be receiving a Bridge card and $120 cash assistance per month. She was outraged. “I told Andy Lamb, ‘Dead people don’t eat much.’

“Medicaid was the most crucial thing,” she said, “because he didn’t want to leave us with that burden. But they didn’t give him that dignity in death.” Janie has had her own health problems. “I’m a diabetic heart patient. I damn near died. Kelly was there for me when I was sickest. It’s like with some of the elderly people I’ve taken care of—the runaround you get. It wasn’t [DHS’s] best friend, so what do they care?”

“Policy is not determined by the workers,” Lagios wrote in an e-mail. “Every case is treated the same and policy is followed
in making eligibility determinations. Disability determinations for Medicaid are not made locally. A packet is sent to Lansing and the determination is made by the Medical Review Team.”

Lagios said that if anyone has difficulty reaching their caseworker, they should contact the worker’s supervisor, at 231-882- 1330. “We’d like people to know that they can always check their case status online, and starting in January, you can apply for all assistance programs online.” Computer kiosks where people can check their benefits will eventually be put out in various areas, she noted.

The DHS website states: “Michigan has many health care programs available to children, families, and adults who meet certain eligibility requirements. The goal of these health care programs is to ensure that essential health care services are made available to those who otherwise would not have the financial resources to purchase them.” Michigan is not meeting that goal. If indeed Kelly Beaton’s case did not fall within any of the health care programs the state provides, we need a new program—one for mature single people who work their whole lives, pay their taxes, and then fall on very hard times. It can happen to any of us. And more and more often now, it does.

“Kelly was a strong-hearted man,” Janie says. “He’d do anything for his friends. He suffered more as he was dying because he was leaving behind these payments. My last promise to Kelly was that I would walk to the ends of this earth to make sure this verdict of denial was overturned. And I will never quit,” Janie said.

“I told him, ‘It’s all right, honey. You’ve already walked a lot of miles for me. I can do this for you.’” Ψ

Plan B… October Council Meeting Report

In Politics on November 15, 2011 at 12:41 am

By Emily Votruba

October 20, 2011

MARCIA STOBIE, district 3 county commissioner, said they’ve hired a county administrator, Chris Olson. “He’s from Bear Lake,” Marcia said, “so he knows about losing to Benzie Central and Frankfort.” The county is negotiating with three unions over changes to municipal worker health care packages mandated by Public Act 54 and State Senate bill no. 7. Employees may have to bear 100% of the increase in health insurance costs. The commission has offered Tom Longenbach his old job as equalization officer, and he’ll start November 14. Benzie has a little over a million dollars in EDC money and TC has about $2 million. Lansing is mandating that those funds be combined to cover one large 10-county EDC, from the Mackinac Bridge to Manistee. “This was federal money but because there were so many strings attached it was hard to lend it out,” Marcia said. (The Garden Theater received an EDC loan.) The commission reappointed Marcia LaTour to the Maples board.

Lee Blahnik of Furnace Ave. spoke on the continuing speeding problem on 168. He said he went to the sheriff’s office, the county road commission, and local law enforcement, and has looked into temporary speedbumps and active speed monitors à la the Summer Assembly’s. “Rather than the guy who can’t or won’t do anything, I’m looking for the guy that will.” Reg asked Marcia to take the concern to the county commission. Jonathan Drury suggested pedestrian crossing areas with hi-viz cones in the road, à la Frankfort’s. Reg said once we take over 168 we’ll take steps. Matt Stapleton said he’d be happy to sit down with Lee and Jon and anyone else to look at possible solutions. Council will reexamine the terms of Two Porta-John services, in the wake of complaints. The September bills were approved. Receipts were $33,326.36. Expenditures were: accounting, $57,070.44; payroll, $11,089.61; Parks & Rec expenses: $1,161.39. Total expenditures: $69,321.44.

The last Lifesaving Station rental this year is Thanksgiving weekend, and DPW Ken Bonney asked if council wanted the station closed down for the winter. Reg said we need to compare the cost of leaving it open vs. shutting it down and then reopening if there’s another Winter Whine in the Park event, for example. Matt Stapleton asked how often people request to rent the Station during the winter, citing potential revenue. Sharyn Bower said we get very few requests. Ken Holmes suggested the Community Building for winter events. Diane Jenks said, “It’s not big enough and it doesn’t have a kitchen.” Ken Bonney said the beach boardwalks are both put away as of mid-November, and the salt and sand are mixed. A general moment of Ken Bonney love ensued. Reg remarked that the back of the Village Office has been totally revamped where there used to be a lot of trash. Ken Holmes said, “I don’t think we could ask for a better DPW.”

Jinx commended the council for not putting the water board through hell on the water rate increase. Ken Holmes said we still need another licensed operator at the plant. “The flow is down and everybody’s complaining.” Elberta is now generating 22,000 to 27,000 gallons, down from 100,000. Sharyn said the Village sometimes used to pay $8,000 a month for water and sewer. Ken Holmes blames the low flow in part on the high grade drainage system installed with the new 168.

Reg clarified that if Ken Bonney does Park and Rec related work he’s on the Village clock, and his wage is not paidby Park and Rec.

Reg is concerned about the huge amount of algae on the beach this year. He asked Ross Thorsen if some agency can be notified. Ross suggested we document it and will ask around.

Ken Bonney surveyed property owners surrounding the proposed dog park and all rejected the proposal. Reg said the Dog Park Committee should start work on the second choice, the field behind the Community Building. Aubrey Ann Parker, one of the Dog Park organizers, said a public forum would have been helpful so that the community could discuss the issue and its pros and cons for the Village.

Linda Manville asked whether the Village is in compliance with the new state health care contributions rules for public employees. According to treasurer Laura Manville the hard cap allows an average payment of $5,500 per employee for health care; some Village employees get more than this and some less, but we’re under the limit with an annual premium for three employees at $15,901. Linda corresponded with the Michigan Municipal League, who said that because the Village gets revenue sharing (for major and local streets) we need to make sure we remain in compliance, or face penalties. In any event, the law allows us to continue with our current plan until it runs out. Reg said council would examine the issue in August before the plan expires in September. Jinx suggested looking at it during the budget meetings ahead of setting our budget in February. Linda said she would like to see the options and the plan brought before council. Approval of thecurrent health plans came through adoption of the budget, and there was no general discussion of what was best for the employees and taxpayers, she said.

Council spent the remainder of the two-hour meeting discussing the proposed tall grass and weed ordinance. Reg stated his intention to make a decision that night, since it was now the third time council had discussed the issue. “The first month, somebody complained, the second month we reviewed Frankfort’s ordinance and said it was kind of vague, and now we’ve got another ordinance in front of us tonight. This ordinance has been in the Village office for at least two weeks that I know of, and has been
in the Village packet since Monday.” [In fact, the completion of the ordinance was not made known to the public as promised, and this reporter was not notified that the ordinance was available, despite two inquiries. I picked up a copy of the ordinance on the Tuesday before the meeting and immediately posted it online. No notice of public hearing was given in the post office, just in the Record Patriot, and the wording was not otherwise made available to the public.—Ed.]

Linda Manville said that in similar ordinances she found online, the term “turf” was used instead of “grass,” which she suggested was better. “[Turf] is an area of the yard that is predominantly grass but mayhave some weeds growing in it; that to me is offensive. If someone has a natural grass area that is designed and set out as a garden, and it doesn’t obstruct views or interfere with anything, I don’t have a problem with it.” She also pointed out an inaccurate number reference to another law and other wording problems in the ordinance as presented. Reg said council needed to consider preserving individual freedom as well as the problem of enforcement. “[The way this ordinance is worded], I hope you don’t have to have a degree in botany to go by someone’s lawn and figure out what’s a weed and what’s a grass.”

Ken Holmes said, “I’d also consider that a lot of people don’t give one damn what their yard looks like and instead of enhancing their property, their next-door neighbors are fighting a needless battle.” Lengthy, heated public comment ensued, until Matt Stapleton argued successfully that the wording should be revised back to something vaguer, like Frankfort’s; that city also has an appeal process, which the proposed ordinance does not provide for. A public hearing on the new wording will be held at 7 before the regular council meeting on November 17.

SPECIAL WEB-ONLY BONUS … Transcript of public comment on the lawn ordinance

Linda Manville: This was available in the office for a couple of weeks. Was there anything posted in the post office saying we were going to be looking at this?

Sharyn Bower: It’s in the minutes from last meeting that it would be available in the office at least a week before the vote. The minutes were posted, and Emily has a copy.

Emily Votruba: That’s not true. I did not have a copy of the minutes.

Ken Holmes: All you had to do is ask for them.

EV: I actually did ask for a copy of the ordinance repeatedly and did not receive a copy. I sent Sharyn an e-mail about it and got no response and I called and talked to Laura. I got a copy because I went down to the office Tuesday morning [the week of the meeting] and I picked up a copy. The wording of this ordinance was not made publicly known.

Ken Holmes: That is the reason we brought it up now, so come next spring people will know that they’ve at least got to take care of their yard. Some people don’t care about it anyway. And as far as Reggie mentioned…with ordinances, it seems this town is run pretty freely. We have ordinances but they don’t seem to be covered very often. We just went through a new zoning ordinance for almost three years, we’re making a new city map, but if you’re not going to enforce the stuff, why did we spend all the time—why? We have a lot of people spent a lot of hours going over this stuff. There’s no excuse that we can’t keep our ordinance[s] in accordance with any other town.

[Member of the public who did not identify herself] : I didn’t think it was time for us to speak, but since she did [referring to Emily Votruba]. We all like to be proud of Elberta, but when you’re going down the street, and you have a place that looks like a junkyard, you can’t be proud of your village. We try to be as nice as Frankfort because they look over at us sometimes and say, oh that’s Elberta. we can’t be proud if half of it looks like it’s trashed.

Reg Manville: Can we open this up to public comment then?

Aubrey Parker of Frankfort: I read the ordinance the other day, and I just had a couple of questions about different things that were in there, some things that I thought weren’t clear actually. One thing was the fact that grass is mentioned, but like you [Linda Manville] were saying, it’s fine for people to have native grasses if it’s part of a garden, but the only time the word garden is mentioned [in the proposed ordinance] is in connection with a “flower garden” or it also says food—corn, things like that. So I would say you’d definitely want to have some sort of a section or add in there that you can have native grasses and it doesn’t have to be in a flower garden.

KH: It provides for that in the ordinance, a garden or whatever you want…

AP: Yeah I would just ask that it be changed because the way that it’s worded, it could be interpreted that you’re only allowed to have tall grasses if they are in a flower garden. That’s how I read that. And then also, I was wondering about people’s rights and things. And I haven’t read other ordinances so I don’t know, if this is just standard practice, but it just sort of came as a shock to me that the enforcement officer is allowed to come on your property without your consent and that you can’t molest them or have violence toward them…and then the other problem I had was that if something is damaged on your property while they’re on your property, that the Village isn’t liable. Again, I haven’t read other ordinances, I just read yours today. Those are just things that came as a shock to me. And the last thing was that public health was mentioned a couple of times in there, and I was just wondering what public health has to do with tall grass.

KH: Do you have a sinus problem? Ragweed? My wife can’t hardly stand the smoke in town let alone the weeds. But I’ll get back to people coming on your property. The Village has the right to send their people on your property to investigate whatever needs to be investigated at any time, at reasonable hours. It has nothing to do with this ordinance, really.

RM: Well, I’d like a resolution on this, because this could go on forever.

Marcia Stobie: I just had a question. What is the procedure for adopting an ordinance like this? Do you have to have a public meeting? Is this the public meeting? I know with zoning we have to have a hearing. You don’t?

Sharyn Bower: No.

Marcia Stobie: OK. Just a question.

KH: If it needs to be squeeshed a little bit, fine, but the thing of it is, let’s get it over with, let’s get it done.

EV: Are you going to squeesh it after you’ve adopted this ordinance? You’re going to change the wording after you’ve already approved the wording?

KH: I’m saying it could be. Anything can be amended. It says in this, one portion that did not apply had nothing to do with the rest of it. [presumably referring to Section 10, Severability: "The several provisions of this ordinance are declared to be separate; if any Court shall hold that any section or provision hereof is invalid, such holding shall not affect or impair the validity of any other section or provision of this ordinance."] Read it!

EV: I did read it. Are we still in public comment, or is that closed now?

RM: You can go ahead.

EV: I have a few questions. If a resident—Emily Votruba, southwest corner of Bigley and Washington Avenue—if a resident decides to put up a fence, so that the yard cannot be seen, does that make a difference?

KH: Excuse me, but you need to get a permit to put anything over a four-foot fence on your property—

EV: OK if the fence is within compliance and is OK with the zoning board and everything—

KH: You still have to take care of your yard. You just can’t hide it, you still gotta—

EV: So that was my question. So, behind the fence, if it’s suspected that there’s a violation, the Village agent could still enter the property and remediate the situation according to this ordinance?

RM: Yes. As far as I know we’ve been able to do that in any instance where we feel there might be a problem.

EV: OK. I have a couple other questions. If a resident has a plan for a garden, is it possible, is there any sort of procedure the resident can go through to present this plan to someone and get it approved so that there won’t be any misunderstanding about whether what they’re doing is in violation or not. I mean because this ordinance, because it’s fairly broad and specifies only “gardens,” “vegetable gardens” and “flower gardens,” will there be any sort of committee or something that you can appeal to and say, here is my landscape plan, do I have permission for this landscape plan, will there be any sort of appeal process? Or—whose decision will it be? Who’s the one who says, “This person is in violation.”

KH: Whoever we send to look at it. Our Village employee.

EV: So it’s going to be up to the Village employee to make a determination as to whether somebody’s in compliance or not.

KH: If that’s what the Village wants.

EV: Is that the answer?

RM: Our superintendent enforces our ordinances, so if he sees a violation, he can enforce it.

EV: So it’s up to him to decide whether something’s a garden or not.

RM: If we adopt this ordinance.

EV: OK. So it’s up to the DPW to say, this person’s collection of native grasses is not a garden.

RM: See, this is why, personally, I feel that this ordinance, or any ordinance, trying to regulate what you can grow on your property is going to be hard to enforce. That’s my personal opinion. This can happen. We have people right now with rock gardens on their property, we have people who don’t cut their lawn, we have a whole lot of different properties in our Village that would be in violation with this ordinance. And I think those are the things we have to look at.

Linda Manville: I’d like to make one other comment, Reggie, too, as I mentioned on that other ordinance, MBL 247.61, there’s a reference to a Commissioner of Noxious Weeds—this is the state law. “Appointment…term…removal…report…” One thing that they said in that section is that the Commissioner of Noxious Weeds is to be “qualified.” What’s “qualified”? When I went back and looked at the website today it said he had to be qualified.

RM: Qualified for what?

LM: Qualified to make a determination, I guess. I’m just telling you what I read. I don’t know.

KH: So if you don’t want zoning in Elberta, vote it out. If you want zoning in Elberta let’s get things going.

Diane Jenks: Well, one of the things I’d like to comment on, was the fence issue. If somebody has a yard that they determine is what they want it to be and the Village doesn’t determine it’s what they want it to be, and they comply with all the fencing laws, I don’t…I have a problem saying we want to tell you what’s on the other side of your fence. The thing is, we’re saying, we don’t want to go down the street and look at somebody’s yard that has tall weeds and grass, but what if we’re not? What if we’re going down the street looking at a fence?

KH: Do you want to look at a fence instead of a yard everyplace you go? Is that what you want in Elberta?

DJ: Well we already have fences and fence ordinances, and if they comply with the fence ordinance, then I don’t see how we can say well you’re complying with that, but beyond that fence…

KH: There’s only a certain portion of your property that you can fence in.

DJ: Well then, that’s the portion of your property that you can have the tall grass in.

KH: You can pull this apart all you want—

DJ: I’m not pulling it apart—

KH: We can discuss it all we want, the whole Village can, but it seems like in this village for some reason or other if there’s an ordinance that comes up that someone doesn’t like, or they want to pick it apart… You use the best of your ability on anything and you gauge that. Just because it says such and such and such there…there’s nobody in this village that’s going to go around someone’s yard and pick it apart. But I do object to places that haven’t been mowed in years.

Linda Manville: Going back to Reggie’s statement about enforcing our ordinances, we have to face that there’s a lot that don’t get enforced, and there’s things that I see around our village that have been there for a long time and nothing’s happened. Will we put ourselves in any kind of liability situation where we deem that someone is in violation and three doors down somebody has something that’s a quarter of an inch taller and we don’t do it. I like to mow my lawn, I mean, I like my yard to look nice, I’m just saying…

KH: Like I said you can pick the yard ordinance apart…

DJ: It would be nice to have the best of both worlds. So that everybody in the village is happy.

KH: Yeah how do you do that?

DJ: Well, build a compliable fence, and grow stuff on the other side of it.

Matt Stapleton: Did you say we have had a lawn ordinance before?

RM: We have junk ordinances.

KH: A lot of this is in our junk ordinance, and we had one heck of a time getting that done…

DJ: The grass isn’t in the junk ordinance.

KH: You should take some time to read it, that junk ordinance…

DJ: I did read it. It didn’t say anything about grass.

Bill Soper: So we don’t have tall grass in the ordinance right now?

RM: The basic thing is we’re trying to create a value system that everybody can live under, and that’s very difficult, because people have different values, that’s all.

Matt Stapleton: These unmaintained residences that you’re referring to, have you had any problems with compliance when you’ve asked them to cut their lawn? Let’s say the lawn hasn’t been cut in two years and it’s obvious it’s not because they’re trying to create some natural…they’ve got two trucks and eight feet of lawn there…and the Village knocks on the door and says, your property looks horrible and number one it could be a violation of the junk ordinance, and number two, we’d like to ask you to mow your lawn. Have we had a lot of that where they’ve said no, I’m not going to cut my lawn?

KH: No, we haven’t had that where they’ve said they won’t do it they just don’t. We have no control of telling anyone to do anything in their yard unless you get an ordinance.

Matt Stapleton: Well, I understand that, I’m just saying, I mean, in the situation you’re referring to, where you have a piece of property…where that approach is taken, have people said no?

KH: No. My biggest problem is when you have people who want to make their neighborhood look nice and you’ve got one sore thumb. In fact your wife has made that comment on that one house, how she doesn’t like it because it looks like nobody’s living in it. That’s another place that’s never taken care of.

Matt Stapleton: Yeah, but I mean, let’s say somebody’s actually living there…if they were asked to maintain it, have we had a lot of refusals. I just didn’t know the history of it.

Sharyn Bower: We’ve had some grass situations before and I’ve been instructed just to write a nice letter…

Matt Stapleton: Did they respond?

SB: Yes. And they mowed their lawn.

KH: We’ve mowed places. And put it on their bill.

Lee Blahnik: I haven’t looked at your lawn ordinance—apparently you don’t have one—and I hope you don’t have issues with my place, but I’m saying, you’ve got a lot of gray area here. You’ve got a lot of gray area. I mean, you can go over here and say this guy’s grass is too high, and you can go over here and say well this guy’s house isn’t quite the way we’d like it to be, and this guy has too many bicycles and toys in their yard. How about old people who maybe can’t get out in their yard, or people who don’t live here in town. These are considerations. There are people who only get here maybe once every two or three weeks, but when they get here, they mow…. You can bash the people as much as you want but, maybe a guy can’t afford to mow his lawn…

KH: How many people in this town can’t afford to take care of their yard?

LB: I don’t know, you tell me.

KH: Very few.

LB: What about the people who don’t live here continuously?

KH: A lot of them have people who take care of it.

DJ: You still have a responsibility…

LB: I agree, but then that needs to be in here… You say there’s no enforcement but well who enforces it? You guys do, right?

EV: Kenny!

LB: All you guys gotta do is go there and say hey mow your lawn and then if the guy doesn’t do it, then you take action.

DJ: That’s in there. They’re told they have 15 or 20 days or whatever before anything’s done.

LB: You’re just causing yourselves problems getting mad when a guy doesn’t mow his lawn. You’re just causing yourselves high blood pressure.

KH: But you see, the whole thing is, we’ve got a big share of people in town that don’t believe in an ordinance at all anyway. And you know it yourself. They think the Village is twisting their arm to clean up or do this or do that. And they resist 100 percent.

LB: I’m just saying get out there and try and work with them a little bit.

RM: Anybody else out there have anything to say?

Liz Padalino, Frankfort: I’ve been in the natural resources conservation field for about five years now and one of the things we always bring up to people we’re talking to is that lawns are pretty harmful environmentally, and so, I’m kind of worried that this would maybe encourage people to mow their lawns, maybe up to the water level, and that could impact the health of our water and Betsie Bay and beyond. So that’s kind of something to think about. Encouraging lawns might not be the best thing, so. And in the wording of the ordinance, maybe it would be good to not focus on lawns so much? And then just, from a personal point of view, I think that the long lawns and the kind of weedy look of Elberta is kind of charming.

EV: I have one more question. Since the stated purpose of this ordinance is to secure the public health, safety, and welfare of the residents and property owners of the Village, I would like to request that there be an amendment to the ordinance that would protect the public from the exhaust fumes from power mowers, which use more greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuels than automobiles do and that there be some provision regarding the use of insecticides and herbicides in people’s lawns which are known to be carcinogenic, such that if someone is going to apply Chemlawn or an insecticide or herbicide on their property that they be required to notify their immediate neighbors to that effect, perhaps 24 hours in advance, so that their neighbor can get their pets out of the yard, or whatever else they feel they need to do. Also that there be a provision against noise nuisance, maybe something to the effect that you can’t mow between the hours of 10 pm and 6 am. I just feel like if we’re going to have a public health and safety ordinance, that it should reflect all sides of the lawn care issue.

KH: So far tonight we went through everything except tall grass. Isn’t that something?

EV: I’m sorry, I don’t understand.

KH: You come up with insecticides and mowing times and all that. We just want people to keep their yard tidy. That’s all it amounts to.

EV: It’s much more complicated than that.

DJ: It shouldn’t have to be.

RM: OK.

Bill Soper: Just quickly Reggie. I really don’t see a need for this ordinance. It’s pretty much common sense. If you have a problem with somebody, just go and talk to them.

KH: Never works here in this town. You know.

Bill Soper: Basically all I have to say is I don’t think we need another law to try to enforce, for people to skirt around. And I don’t see—the village is in fairly decent shape, sure there are issues.

RM: I would like a roll call vote on this. Somebody makes a motion, then we go around the table.

DJ: I don’t think we can.

RM: We can’t? We’ve done it in the past.

Matt Stapleton: I’ve got a question for the lady in the back.

AP: Yeah.

Matt Stapleton: How do you maintain your lawn?

AP: That’s a good question. So our grass occasionally gets too long and we do get a notice from Josh Mills and we promptly mow the grass after he tells us to. That happened once this summer I think, and it happened once last summer, and we took care of it the same day we got the e-mail or the phone call or whatever. And that’s partly because, as Liz said, half our backyard is a nice garden that we do have edible plants in, and the rest of it, we don’t like to mow our lawn, or as minimally as possible. We like to keep a low impact on the area.

Matt Stapleton: This ordinance [before council] as you reviewed it, is similar to the one in Frankfort?

RM: No, we had that ordinance in front of us at the last meeting. This one is very different.

Matt Stapleton: Do you feel that the ordinance you have over there impedes on the privacy of your lawn and your decision making?

AP: No because I like the vague wording as opposed to the more strict wording in this one. I like the fact that in the Frankfort one, as Emily was saying, if you want to you can petition the city for a certain garden style, because I asked Josh about this earlier in the year. In your front yard if you’re not going to do A, B, or C, you have to petition the city to do D, E, or F. We haven’t done that, but there’s a way to do that.

Matt Stapleton: And do you feel like, when you’ve been requested to mow your lawn, that that’s a big pain in the rear, or is it just like, OK, the city’s telling me to do something, I’ll be in compliance.

AP: Yeah, we’re compliant. I think that part of that is that in our case, we’re not trying to do—we haven’t planted for example, specific tall native grasses that are meant to be grown tall. If we were to do that, the city would be OK with that, because it fits within A, B, or C.

Matt Stapleton: Do you feel like the ordinance is working for Frankfort? In your opinion.

AP: I think it works to the end that people in the city who made the ordinance want it to. I think that’s true. What I’m saying is, I agree with Liz. I don’t think we should have short lawns. So, but for the way it was intended, which was to keep people’s lawns a certain way, yes, it is working. But I don’t necessarily believe personally that we should have lawns. That we should focus so much time and energy on lawns.

Matt Stapleton: But you think that your city looks nice and that it’s working the way it was intended.

AP: Yes.

Matt Stapleton: Are you going to move, anytime soon? I mean, does the ordinance put you in a position where you don’t want to live there anymore?

AP: No, because it’s vague enough. There are differences between that ordinance and your ordinance that I think are quite substantial.

Matt Stapleton: Thank you. I really appreciate your answers.

KH: We’ve been at this for over an hour now.

RM: Sharyn, how can we take this vote then?

SB: We can’t do a roll call because it doesn’t involve money.

Matt Stapleton: Here’s how it works. You have a motion, then you open it for discussion and then you have a second and then you have a vote and if you don’t have a second then it stays here.

RM: I’d like to try to get this resolved.

Matt Stapleton: I understand but I’m just saying, you don’t have to make it into something it’s not…. I’ll say for the record that I agree with Ken’s comments and those of some people in the front row that we have an obligation to have a community that looks good. It’s good for people coming in, especially looking at property, however, I don’t know that we have to get into … I think vague in this ordinance is not a bad thing. I think vague is a good thing because Ken, what you’re referring to…people not mowing for years, and you can’t take care of that without an ordinance, but I think the benefit of a vague ordinance is that there’s still some creativity in your yard, you still have an opportunity if you don’t want to have the 1984 lawn and have everything perfect that you can still…that it’s still your yard. That’s different than us sending someone over to your yard to make sure it’s perfectly maintained. So I think we can accomplish both if we have it a bit more vague. Vague’s not bad. Because it’s the people who need to have their lawn cut because it looks horrible, and it’s been that way for six months and maybe they need someone to mow their lawn for them because they don’t have a lawn mower and they don’t have any money, the Village can maybe help them out with that. And then, if Emily wants to be creative in her yard and have wild mustard, and it looks nice, then she can do that. I don’t think we have to specify every plant, pesticide, let’s just have something where we have some backing if we do have to knock on a door.

KH: So what are you going to do if they say kiss off?

Matt Stapleton: Did you hear what I said? I think the ordinance is a good thing. It just doesn’t have to be so specific. Apparently it’s working in Frankfort, that’s all. I don’t see why we have to be so much different from there.

KH: If you want to go by the Frankfort ordinance then so be it.

Matt Stapleton: We’re not going to deal with this until the spring, so I don’t see why we couldn’t have the opportunity  to make something that works for everyone.

Linda Manville: I’d like to agree with Matt on that. If this is going to be our first stab at this grass thing, we need to have something where we have the right to say to a resident either mow your lawn, or put up a fence, or get a plan or something. I’d rather start there than put us in a situation where Kenny has to decide that one’s OK but that one’s not OK kind of a deal. I’d rather start out easy. We have enough trouble, so let’s not put a noose around our necks.

Matt Stapleton: We’d have to send Ken to botany school.

KH: We need to have something that’s got teeth in it, that can be taken care of. We need something to go by.

Matt Stapleton: I completely agree. I don’t know if the answer is the opportunity to come together before the next meeting to look at the Frankfort ordinance or bring the Frankfort ordinance, plug that in here with a few changes, but that all will have to be reviewed by the public, and we put [a notice of] a hearing in the news before our meeting. I think it’s possible to get this done at the next meeting without trying to cram the thing through. We’re not going anywhere. Let’s tweak it.

KH: The thing is, something has to be done. This town has been very notable, probably the only one around, that doesn’t adhere to our ordinances.

RM: I would say if you want to table it… We had the Frankfort ordinance in front of us. People didn’t like that. Then we went to this one. I’m still not sure what the vote would be, but we can’t agree on this, but I don’t think this one would pass. We can table it, and bring it up again, but I don’t want to kick this can down the road…

Matt Stapleton: I don’t think we have to. But I think there’s some desire to have a hearing.

Diane Jenks: We have to go through protocol for a public hearing.

SB: We don’t have to; we can pass an ordinance at a regular meetng.

Matt Stapleton: All I’m saying is, how can we do this so we don’t have to spin our wheels—form committee? Have an open meeting?

SB: We can advertise that we’ll have a public hearing before the meeting where we can hear what people have to say.

EV: Is that going to be posted in the post office?

SB: Yes.

Notice was given on Monday, November 14, of a public hearing at 7 pm before the November 17 meeting, to be followed by the regular meeting. According to Sharyn, the Frankfort ordinance and the other, longer ordinance were put in the council members’ packets for review at the meeting.

Election Results for Gilmore Twp

In Politics on November 8, 2011 at 8:46 pm

With 75 votes, Rick Schmitt won Gilmore’s vote for Frankfort–Elberta school board. William Storrer had 19 votes. Lorene Hill-Cota had 6 votes for Benzie Central school board, and Tyson Burch had 0. Matt Stapleton was the 101nd and final voter, scooting into the Elberta Library at about 7:56 p.m. Janet Buck chose a book on Wallis Simpson from the library shelves—the prize given by elections officials for the 100th voter.

Coming Soon: Don’t Trash Your Cash

In Calendar, GOOD NEWS, Green Elbertians on November 8, 2011 at 3:58 pm

At the October 11 Gilmore Township Board meeting, the unstoppable Marlene Wood-Zylstra, Benzie County’s recycling and solid waste coordinator, made a revelatory presentation with a bagful of garbage. And she apparently wowed the County Commissioners as well. Beginning in January, plastics of all numbers (1 through 7) will be recyclable, potentially saving families hundreds of dollars a year in garbage bag fees. At an increased cost to the county (and taxpayers) of just $3 per family per year, the expanded program still falls below the mandated $25 per household cap on recycling costs, at $22 per family per year. Marlene’s $3 garbage bag was full of items that soon won’t have to go there: meat trays and egg cartons; McDonald’s salad containers; pellet fuel, salt, birdseed, and other plastic bags and wrappings; a plastic orange juice jug, often mistakenly thought to be currently recyclable; milk cartons and juice boxes; and plastic plant containers. Only items numbered 1, 2, and 5 are accepted in the current program, and if you make a mistake, Marlene is the one who goes and pulls it out of the bin—otherwise the volume pushes the county over its contracted limit. “[As of January] you don’t have to get your magnifying glass out anymore, because if it’s got a recycling logo, which modern packaging all does, and there’s a number in the middle, we’ll take it,” she said.  As if that weren’t convenient enough, plastic, metal, and paper will all be collected in the same bin, so you only have to sort out your glass. If enough people take advantage of recycling and volume skyrockets, we may go over our contracted limit with the hauling company, American Waste, but they’ve kindly agreed to keep the fee at $3 for the next two years, the remainder of our service agreement. For now, this means fewer $3 garbage bags every week, and fewer trips to the curb.

Redistribution of Turkeys 2011

In Calendar, The Mess Deck on November 8, 2011 at 11:08 am

Once again, the Community Spirit Food Source will facilitate the arrival of turkey dinners into the homes of our neighbors in need for the Thanksgiving holiday. Last year the program handed out 85 spreads, each including a 10- to 12-pound fully cooked turkey, potatoes, dressing, rolls and beans, and each ready to eat—perhaps you know of families or individuals in our area who have no functional kitchen to speak of. You can imagine what a blessing it is to be able to celebrate this American tradition the way most everyone else does.

You can donate one of the abovementioned entire meals for $35. (Alert readers may notice that Glen’s has raised the price by $5 this year.) Give a whole meal or make a contribution in any amount payable to Community Spirit Food Source, dropped or mailed to the following locations:

  • Melanie Herron, 1201 Elm Street, Frankfort 49635
  • Jinx Jenks, Shear Class Salon, 703 Frankfort Ave, Elberta 49628
  • Suz McLaughlin, 670 Crystal Ave. Frankfort 49635

For more information, please call Mel @ 231-352-6833 or Suz @ 231-352-7669 or email mel0138@yahoo.com or stillgrininngkitchens@gmail.com.


More Carbon to or from Your Garden

In Foghorn on November 6, 2011 at 7:26 pm

Ken Bonney, our DPW, would like everyone to know that free wood chips are available from the tree cutting (and replanting) efforts around the Village this fall. Chips may be picked up at the Village Garage. Ken can be reached at 231-651-9626.

Leaves may be dumped at the end of First Street, near the Village Community Building. Please do not dump any plastic or other bags—just the leaves.

Thank you, Ken.

Foghorn: Anniversary

In Calendar, Foghorn on November 4, 2011 at 11:58 am

Today, November 4, Bob and Bernice Beugnot celebrate their 65th wedding anniversary. Bob grew up in Elberta and Bernice in Frankfort. Here’s to their lasting union!

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