ROTHBURY — The Village of Rothbury council approved a modified contract for the village's Czarny Park improvements, swapping out a fully paved parking lot for a gravel parking lot, at its Tuesday, Oct. 20 meeting.
The vote was 6-0 in favor, with Jim Fekken absent from the meeting.
The original bid for the full project, some of which was funded by a Department of Natural Resources grant and included improvements and updates to the baseball field as well as a bathroom facility, was $564,439. The price did not include playground equipment, which the council said would likely be added later. The switch to a gravel parking lot will save about $43,000. The council discussed possible savings in switching to a vaulted facility that would not include plumbing, but was not interested in that change.
The council also approved the police department's participation in an Oceana County-wide mutual aid agreement. The village had been operating without an agreement with other municipalities for some time, said police chief Ethan Walker. The agreement does not appear to be a requirement to receive aid from other municipalities if necessary, but it spells out what sort of aid participating departments would provide. Walker said he'd asked the county undersheriff's office about it and was told while joining the agreement was not necessary, it is encouraged by the state sheriff's association.
The agreement can be terminated with 30 days notice, and Walker said he was in favor of giving it a try on a trial basis for now. Sheriff Craig Mast's term expires in 2028, so the agreement could be reexamined at that point. Walker said the only disadvantage he saw in participating was that it was possible for personality conflicts with other departments to affect aid, but that did not stop him from favoring participation.
The council also voted 6-0 to eliminate its zoning enforcement contract with Muskegon Township and instead approve an otherwise identical deal with the City of North Muskegon. The move was made because Toby Fredericksen, the zoning compliance director the village planned to work with, recently left Muskegon Township for North Muskegon. The terms of the contract allowed either party to terminate it with 30 days notice.
The council also approved a contract with Grand Haven based-Leverage Marketing for $5,700 per year, plus some hosting fees, to host the village website. The village's deal with CityWebCentral is set to expire in April, and trustee Denise Kurdziel said the fee was significantly less than what she found from other companies.
The new contract will give the village ownership of the website so it does not need to rebuild it should it move to another platform in the future, and would also include the ability to fill out forms online, eliminating the need to print them out and bring them into the village hall.
There was also a $3,500 option in the deal for Leverage to aid the village in a brand refresh that would include a new logo. However, trustee Dylan Zuniga noted that the village could likely pay someone else a lesser fee to provide a similar service. The council was in agreement that the website could use improvements and that it is not used much in its current state.
The council approved its annual $1,110 expense to pay to have the village's holiday lights put up, as well as a $260 notary package for clerk Brandy Williams' village duties; the council had previously been using the still-active package under the name of previous clerk Carol Witzke.
There was a brief discussion about potentially adding a gazebo to the park next to the village hall as a way to increase usage of the park. Kurdziel added that the park's bathroom facilities need improving, and Director of Operations Scott Beishuizen said he will look into soliciting bids to do so.
