The Annual Audit will be presented tonight.  It's in the meeting packet. 

 

Capri Drive In 360w233h

At this meeting, the PC planned for the last word in retro, Drive-in movie theaters.  Michigan has perhaps six Drive-In theaters left.  At the peak of large car culture, 1972, there were 137.  Below are links to more information about Michigan's Drive-In past:

 

 

 

Val Dresser Flag pic906 crop 360w282h

On tonight's Board Agenda,

  • Township Citizens hit with whopping FOIA fees,
  • Another lowball offer for 75 Barker Road
  • Parks & Rec appointments
  • Discussion with residents of Non-Motorized Path Easements?

The June 9, 2015 change in FOIA policy was discussed in our report, R.I.P. Township Transparency

What do we have a problem with?  Manipulation, Information hoarding, deception by omission, deception by answering questions in the narrowest possible way, deliberately dancing around the unspoken questions unasked by an uncurious Board.

Since we're on the subject of political deception...  a recent article in Nature-Neuroscience explored and partially explained the connection between lying in small ways to lying in big ways.  The Brain Adapts to Dishonesty is the original Journal submission.  How Telling Small Lies Can Make You Stop Caring About Big Ones is the explainer which appeared in the October 24, 2016 Huffington Post. 

Meeting Documents:

 

 

 This is the Northfield Township Fire Department's new flag.  This flag was donated by the family of beloved Township Business owner, Val Dresser.  

Snippets:

Planner Patrick Sloan:

"There's a Trunk or Treat at Northfield Community Park from 2 PM to 5 PM and the reason I bring this up is that we are, McKenna is, working with the Township on a Future Vision Master Plan for the property of Northfield Community Park.  It will be a long process of developing a plan but one of the first steps will be this sunday.  We'll have one of our planners there doing a little bit of public engagement.  There will be a couple of boards where people can write some ideas for future visioning.  There will be a small survey, a handout that people can quickly fill out and give back.  He'll also have a sign-in sheet and a little bit of information about the purpose of the plan, the process going forward, and additional opportunities for public partipation.  So, it won't be the only opportunity for public participation.  There will be a lot of that, but it's one of the first and more significant ones.  So I just want to mention that."

Patrick Sloan:

"We're still trying to get clarification about the impact of the latest Michigan Marijuana legislation.  It doesn't sound like communities need to adopt ordinances prohibiting the uses.  It sounds like communities must adopt an ordinance in order to have the uses.  But it may not hurt for communities to adopt ordinances prohibiting the uses if they want to prohibit them or if they want the uses to adopt regulating ordinances in terms of where, how much, how often, et cetera.  The licensing of the act won't take effect until sometime in late 2017, so communities will have about a year to get their ordinances set and figure out what they want to do.  Hopefully there will be information from groups like the MTA that can advise communities in terms of how they should proceed on a legal basis..."

Finally, this exchange between Commissioner Iaquinto and Planner Sloan, at the end of a riveting 73 minute discussion of ES district outdoor storage, outdoor restaurant seating, and conditional vs permitted uses.

Location, Location, Location [a LiveVideo link]

Commissioner Iaquinto:

"Mr Sloan, I would like to ask you, what communities do you feel have done well and are with their highway commercial?  I mean, I just look at like Genoa Township, which has blossomed.  You know, along the Grand River corridor, which was a properly zoned corridor, you know, to have that kind of development and I mean I look at our North Territorial from the highway through the sections that we have zoned, where we are looking for that similar type of growth, what have those communities put in their zoning ordinances to foster the proper type of development like that?  Have they been restrictive?  Have they been not been been non restrictive?  Have they...?"

Planner Sloan:

"Sometimes it's a just a matter of traffic and what's already there.  And you know the retailer will follow the traffic and base it on traffic counts."

Iaquinto:

"Well yes, but they'll only go to a place if it's properly zoned.  Right?"

Sloan:

"Right, in some cases, they'll, in some cases if it's not they'll push for a rezoning.  Up in Green Oak, the development off of Lee Road, I believe they pushed for a commercial P.U.D. or something like that, where I believe, I don't know if they amended the Master Plan but that was something that they pursued because of the traffic on 23 and the residential growth in the area.

There are a lot of different factors, some of which many of which are outside of the Township's control.  But some of the ones where you can try to attract growth is to allow flexible types of zoning standards, P.U.D. standards.  You would want to make sure that you're looking at it from the Township's standpoint in terms of what you want out of that.  You want high quality development; you want superior design; you want landscaping; you want nice architectural materials.  You'll want something that is conducive to traffic and fits well with the community.  But then the applicant's also going to want flexibility in land use.  He'll want more density, may want some modifications in parking requirements, things like that.  In many cases it can work well both ways.  You'll just want to make sure that whatever it is that the community wants out of it, in terms of it being nice, that's kind of at the forefront of it, and then get into, ok, what can we do to incentivize development to come in?"


 Documents:

 

Bike Trail at Lyon Township Library 10 11 2016 pic14 720w497h

Agenda Item One is a proposed study of a Bike Trail south from this point, the Eight Mile and Pontiac Trail terminus of the Oakland County trail system.

Snippets:

Wayne Dockett asked for believable cost accounting for the Van Curler acquisition.  Where were the legal bills?  Township Manager Fink laughed off the question.  Township Manager Fink said there were none.  It was covered by retainer, Fink said.  Fink looked at Township Attorney Bradford Maynes, as if asking for confirmation or daring Maynes to contradict him?

Cost Accounting for Dummies 200w120h

 

Maynes stared straight ahead.  Maynes stared at the desk.  Maynes said nothing.  Board members Braun, Chick, Engstrom, Otto, and Thomas watched and said nothing.

Dockett called Fink's cost accounting "Bullshit."

"I don't want you to tell me that there's no charge for an attorney to close a job like that. That's Bullshit."

At that, Fink perked up.  In his prissiest voice he scolded Mr. Dockett, a man twice his age:

"It's not appropriate to swear in public."

You may wonder whether I have evidence that this was Fink's prissiest voice.  I do not.  It was definitely one of his prissier utterances to date.  There may be prissier moments in the offing.  If I seem to harp on this very small moment in time, it is because the scolding was a Red Herring, a ploy to distract from the real issue at hand, Fink's inability to be forthcoming about the actual costs-accounting and the Board's acquiescence.

There are elephants in the Boardroom. 

The Township Attorney bills against the monthly retainer.  He can't do this without tracking his time.  Quarter hour precision is typical in legal billing.  SO Burns knows exactly how much of his time, his legal staff's time, and legal costs went into the Van Curler acquisition.  We have seen itemized legal bills in the past; it is available for the asking.  The only reason we don't know is because Fink has deliberately not asked for the itemization.  Dockett called it correctly.

Most unnoticed of all the elephants:  If so unusual, outsized, and one-time a legal cost were actually entirely covered by the Township Attorney's monthly retainer, then the monthly retainer is too high.

Northfield Township Checks to Paul Burns March thru Sept 2016 800w776hComp

What?  Not very helpful?  The Board's Monthly report of Invoices is even less informative.  Here is the same report on Township checks issued to Paul Burns in hiresolution (750KB)  If this looks easier to read than the financial reports from which the information was copied, the reports issued to the Board in the first packet of every month, it is because I burned a couple of hours finding a way to enhance the contrast.  I could not do it using the standard image processing tools.  Interesting, to say the least.

To be continued

 

 

Meeting Documents:

 

 

 

  1. 9-27-2016 Northfield Township Board of Trustees meeting
  2. 9-21-2016 Northfield Township Planning Commission
  3. 9-13-2016 Northfield Township Board of Trustees
  4. 9-7-2016 Northfield Township Planning Commission and a special meeting of the Township Board
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