Hidden Meeting Notes

Trustee Wayne Dockett: "I'm not impressed by what we have. I believe we should start over again without the Attorney. That's my opinion. I wanted to say that in closed session but if we're not going to have a closed session I'll say it in open session. Neither one of these people have the education. Well, the guy has it but the other one doesn't even have any of the things that we asked for on the resumes but I don't see why we'd spend time figuring out who we're gonna hire... That's my opinion."

With that bombshell, Dockett led the Board into a discussion of whether they could vote immediately. Zelenock said that the Township labor attorney had advised voting in a posted meeting where the vote was publicly noticed and on the Agenda. Beliger retorted "Are we certain that we can't vote tonight?"

The ten minute discussion can be watched here.

Meeting Documents:

Since the Township Meetings have devolved into Theatre, I have decided to treat them as Theatre. When David Gordon posts his meeting report, we'll post it. Until then, here's a Jim Nelson Perspective/Review:

The May 23rd special meeting was very special. Trustee Dockett arrived on time and promptly sat down in the audience seats. Trustee Otto walked in late and sat down in the Chairperson's seat. Supervisor Chockley had notified beforehand that she would be out of town. Trustee Janet Chick was missing, but with notice. Treasurer Lenore Zelenock was also missing, with car problems we later learned. She arrived later, in time to consider all of the 7:00PM meeting Agenda items.

When Wayne Dockett sat down in the audience he faced three Boardmembers who could not convene a meeting. A quorum requires four. The planned closed session would have required five. So the Special meeting never began. Now for the ugly details: Trustee Otto, the Chairperson in Chockley's absence, didn't leave her chair or walk the thirty feet to implore or politick Dockett into rejoining the Board. Instead, she spent most of the half hour reserved for the meeting playing with her phone. Bear in mind that this is a Trustee who's constantly lecturing people about her vast and wonderful leadership skills. Otto sat there until after 7:00 PM playing with her phone.

Five minutes after the regular 7:00 PM meeting was to begin, in what actually was an example of leadership, or more simply, initiative, Trustee Beliger rose from her chair and walked over to Trustee Dockett. Wayne was still seated in the audience. Beliger asked Dockett to rejoin the meeting. Dockett agreed. Meanwhile, Trustee Otto had moved to the audience section to speak with Andy Lakato, whose ambitious non motorized path fundraising efforts we later learned had raised about 25% of the needed $6500.00 cash.

At 7:08 PM Township Clerk Kathy Manley keyed her mic to request Otto's presence to chair the meeting.

Dockett took this as an opportunity to backstab Supervisor Chockley, promising that now everyone would see how a meeting should be run. Township Clerk Manley countered, saying that the length of meetings is determined by the size of the agenda. Relentless in his toadying for Otto, Dockett denied this, saying it's all about the person.

Dockett's toadying is ironic in that Trustee Otto and her sidekick, Janet Chick, have spent years denigrating Dockett behind his back and even laughing in his face. It's hard to forget their eye-rolls and condescending smirking during Dockett's occasional episodes of confusion. Or their earnest dismissal of Dockett's frequent requests for fiscal openness, planning, and honesty on the part of the fled Township manager, Howard Fink. They willfully worshipped the Fink Fantasy.

Watch individual Agenda Items discussed using our LiveAgenda:

5-23-2017 Northfield Township Board of Trustees Regular and Closed Session LiveAgenda

You can also watch the old fashioned way, from start to end using a scrubber (that thingy which allows you to move forward and backward in an online video. Scrubbing is what that movement is called in the editing profession.)

5-23-2017 Northfield Township Board 6:30PM Special Non-meeting

5-23-2017 Northfield Township Board 7:00PM regular meeting

Meeting Documents:

5-23-2017 Northfield Township Board of Trustees meeting Agendas (for the 6:30 PM special meeting and 7:00 PM regular meeting)
5-23-2017 Northfield Township Board of Trustees meeting packet (converted to searchable text)

Compare the candidate answers to Moderator and Boardmember questions side by side. Click the candidate names below the question to view their answers on VideoNorthfield. This fabulous 21st century technology is a Northfield Neighborhood Today exclusive feature.

FiveCandidates 900w232h

Candidate Introductions:

Moderator Question 1

The Boardmembers have reviewed your resume. The Board would like you to begin by giving an overview of your education and experience as it relates to the Township Manager position and why you're interested in this posistion.

Moderator Question 2

The citizens of Northfield Township are diverse and are very involved in this community with many different perspectives. Have you ever been in a position where two people wanted you to take opposite positions on the same subject. If so, what was the subject? How did you handle it and what was the outcome?

Moderator Question 3

What do you consider to be the biggest challenges and opportunities that Northfield Township is facing?

Moderator Question 4

What do you see as the role of Township Government in keeping the cost of government down while providing essential services to residents?

Moderator Question 5

What specific employment experiences have demonstrated to you that you would be a capable Township Manager?

Moderator Question 6

Think of a job that you held where your goals were not clearly defined. What did you do about it?

Moderator Question 7

Describe a situation working in a group or team where there was interpersonal conflict. How did you approach the conflict and what worked, what didn't work, and how did you manage the outcome?

Moderator Question 8

When you've entered a new workplace in the past, as a manager or supervisor, describe how you've gone about meeting and developing relationships with your new coworkers, supervisors, and reporting staff.

Trustee Questions

Beliger:

Can you give a specific example of when you made a decision that benefited the taxpayers that was contrary to the direction the Board wanted to go?

Lianne Clair

Dockett:

Zelenock:

Chockley:

Manley:

Otto:

Chick:

Candidate Final Statement

Each candidate was given time for a final statement. Updated 5-30 for the two final candidates, Aynes and Clair

Steven Aynes

Ann Capela

Matthew Miller

Lianne Clair

Patrick Jordan

Five potential Township Managers were interviewed over the course of two evenings. The individual interviews can be watched using our LiveAgendas, below. Later today we will produce a matrix allowing you to compare each candidate's answers to the Township Labor Attorney's set of ten questions. After the interviews the Board discussed and approved the purchase of the last two unpurchased Barker Road non motorized path easements at the extortionary price of $20,000 apiece. Andy Lakatos, a Township citizen, approached the Township with an offer to pay the $6500.00 separating the Township's offer from the Landowner's demanded price. The Board voted 4:3 to accept his offer. Lakatos did not actually have the cash. He wanted to give the Township a post dated check. The Treasurer refused that offer. He said he would go door to door to raise the cash among the homes on the west side of US-23. He said that if he could not raise the money from his neighbors that he would pull the money from his retirement account. Trustee Otto advised him to take credit card payments. What he or someone actually did was start a GoFundMe. As of 5 PM, May 23, $951 has been raised. Scroll to the bottom of this page to find the GoFundMe Donor Link.

Trustee Dockett pointed out, repeatedly, that $6500 was not the true cost. Due to the previous Board's promise, the $20,000 paid for each of the last two easements was now the adjusted price of the easements previously transferred to the Township. The two property owners neighboring these last two, and perhaps more, are now owed the difference between $20,000 and the lower prices they were paid. Dockett also pointed out that even that wasn't the true cost, since hundreds of thousands of dollars will now be exiting the Township coffers to replace functioning sidewalk with a more loftily named but identically purposed non motorized path.

Township Treasurer Zelenock said that this should be a lesson. In future a sidewalk could be funded piecemeal, on a pay as you can afford basis, and save enormous amounts of taxpayer money. For example, the recently completed sidewalk extension linking downtown to the Whitmore Lake Tavern area cost only $30,000.

By contrast, the bizarrely financed short stretch of sidewalk by the old high school, the supposedly safety improving sidewalk that forces pedestrians to cross busy Whitmore Lake Road twice in the space of four or five hundred feet, cost about $170,000. As Wayne Dockett so often advised the now fled Township Manager, that is double the manager's original promise.

The meeting closed with Trustees Otto and Chick sneering off the requests of residents that the voters be listened to and that lessons be learned from the previous Board's idiosyncratic supervision of the now fled former manager. Chick closed with the fantastic claim that we should all just move forward, that past behavior and decisions should tell us nothing about the character of the Trustees or the quality of their decision making.

But that's a subject for our next Editorial.

Candidates and their resumes, applications, etc, in order of their interviews

Non Motorized Pathway easement documents and the Resolutions supporting their purchase

Fire/Medical Rescue Millage Renewal on Aug. 8 Ballot ...

by David Gordon

Despite heavy spring rains, the township’s Wastewater Treatment Plant met the challenge. “It’s the worst rainfall in the 38 years I’ve been here, but we handled it” [LiveVideo] said WWTP Superintendent Dan Willis. He said no sewage went untreated.

Willis’ statement seems to contradict recent claims by some Trustees that a $3M retention basin was “needed” at the treatment plant to protect the environment. Skeptical residents claim the real motive for the retention basin is to help developers whose projects would link to the sewer system.

The Board approved putting on the Aug. 8 ballot the renewal of the Fire & Medical Rescue Millage that expired with the 2016 levy. Trustee Wayne Dockett voted no.

Dockett attacked Public Safety Director Bill Wagner saying “This guy spends money….can’t keep track of his money….he never stayed within his budget.” [LiveVideo].

Chief Wagner explained that the fire/medical rescue budget is saddled with $100,000/year to pay off part of the debt on the public safety building’s $3.5M cost overruns incurred in 2003. The debt won’t be paid off until 2023.

Interest payments on the $3.5M are about $280,000/year, which is split between the budgets of fire/medical rescue, police and township general fund.

Chief Wagner said without approval of the five-year millage renewal, residents would be without fire or medical rescue services. The millage would raise about $600,000 annually.

The Board approved paying one-third of the $260k cost of replacing the Six Mile culvert known as the Catholic Church-Horseshoe Lake Drain, which is failing.

Water Resources Commissioner Evan Pratt explained that nearly all the land south of Bay City was uninhabitable in the early 1800s until a series of culverts were built to drain the land. [LiveVideo] He explained that everyone in Northfield benefits from all the drains working property…even those outside of one’s special assessment drain district. (link to Pratt’s letter).

Dockett and Trustee Tawn Beliger voted no. They argued that only the residents in the Horseshoe Lake drain district should pay the cost. (link to list of residents on special assessment drain district.)

In other news, the Board approved:

Spending $120,883 this year for dirt road maintenance of clearing drains, grading, dust control and some limestone resurfacing; an increase of $15k.
Spending $24,500 for Master Plan review this year. Most of the effort will be spent to incorporate the waterfront park “North Village” and a new “overall strategic plan” for the entire downtown into the Master Plan.
Treasurer Zelenock’s plan to transfer township “cash savings” into higher-yielding and more secure bank accounts. [LiveVideo] Dockett voted no.
Hiring Randy Kendzorek as a paid, on-call firefighter at $9/hr.
Hiring Benchmark Outdoor Services as a part-time independent contractor for maintenance services. Dockett voted no.
Approved using the “North Village” property surrounding the Post Office for parking at the 4^th of July festivities.

Watch individual Agenda Items with our 5-9-2017 Northfield Township Board meeting LiveAgenda

Meeting Documents:

Page 25 of 47

Wayne Dockett Pans Both Candidates after 2nd Round of Wannabe Managers Interviewed

5-23-2017 Northfield Township Board Meetings

By the Question: Candidate Managers' Answers

Northfield Township Manager Candidates interviewed

Heavy Spring Rains No Problem for WWTP

Fire/Medical Rescue Millage Renewal on Aug. 8 Ballot ...