WHITEHALL — Whitehall city council member and mayoral candidate Tom Ziemer criticized what he views as excessive spending on the in-progress pocket park in downtown Whitehall during Tuesday's regular council meeting.
Ziemer said he'd received correspondence from city manager Dan Tavernier regarding the pocket park that day, which led to him airing his frustrations. The pocket park is slated to be in the alley between the Bell's Furniture storefront and CatchMark Technologies.
According to Ziemer, the cost of the pocket park, which was projected in the $160-180,000 range when it was first proposed, has ballooned to over $379,000, most of which is construction costs. He said a good deal of the additional cost has been due to the addition of a bathroom as part of the park. Part of the cost Ziemer outlined in his remarks was the bathroom kit, which cost $51,900 even though he feels it resembles an "outhouse."
"This kind of spending, in my opinion, is absolutely shameful," Ziemer said, when the city is in need of road repairs and other things.
Ziemer further said that in previous correspondences with prior city manager Scott Huebler, the latter said the pocket park project was coming in under budget, but that Huebler had at a later point conceded he didn't know what that budget was.
Much of Ziemer's frustrations originate from the pocket park being funded by the Tax Increment Finance Authority, of which most of the council, including Ziemer, has no part.
Mayor Steven Salter, who is running against Ziemer for mayor, did not directly address his complaints, but did share his recent experience at a Michigan Municipal League conference he attended in Grand Rapids, which included discussions of "place making," referring to the home being the first place, a job being the second, and public gathering spaces the third. He added that he feels the pocket park is a good example of a public gathering place that will do good for the city.
In city business, the council unanimously approved the $50,002 purchase of a snowblower from Spartan Distributors after tabling the issue at the previous meeting. Tavernier said at the time that he wanted to take a closer look at the machine before the council approved the purchase and said Tuesday that after checking other possibilities, this model was the best choice.
There was some discussion about the 48-inch width of the snowblower being a potential issue on city sidewalks, but Department of Public Works foreman Don Bond said the majority of them are five feet wide, so the blower will have plenty of space to operate. City records indicate the previous snowblower saw over 170 hours of use last winter.
"It's the proper tool for the job," Bond said.
The council also unanimously approved a $56,347 bid from UIS SCADA, a firm in Dexter, to provide an electrical monitoring system for city water. The system will determine how much water needs to be pumped to keep the water towers full while also meeting city demand. Council member Jeff Holmstrom expressed surprise at how wide the gap was between the cheapest and most expensive bids; multiple bids were nearly $100,000 higher than the UIS SCADA bid.
Police chief Brandon Mahoney shared a summary of the 522 police reports filed during the city's summer season, which he said he and Tavernier agreed would be a good idea. The 522 reports, he said, were slightly higher than any of the previous three summers. The council, too, expressed approval of seeing a rundown of police department activities and were supportive of the idea that such a report could be presented quarterly. Mahoney said if the reports were helpful to the city, he would be glad to continue providing them.
During the meeting, Holmstrom reminded city residents that leaf pickup will begin Oct. 27. He added that many hunters have applied for deer management area hunting permits since the DMAs were approved at the previous council meeting.
Another Oct. 27 event, reminded council member Tanya Cabala, is the White Lake Senior Center dinner, an event paid for by the senior millage. Seniors will receive a free meal in an event designed to build community and companionship for area seniors. According to fellow council member Debi Hillebrand, the millage specified seniors as those 60 years of age and above.
