The two main decisions were –

New Clerk

Appoint Karen Reilly as Township Clerk. Reilly served as the elected Clerk 2013-2020 and ran unsuccessfully for Trustee in 2024. To retain her seat and her “massive” salary of about $9,000 (not $90,000) she must prevail in an election in 2026. Officer salaries have not been increased since 1999, when our questionably effective, essentially volunteer, form of government with “part-time” officers was formed. Inflation has been about 2X since 1999. It takes $2 in 2025 to buy what $1 bought in 1999.

While visiting Township hall today I saw Clerk Reilly starting her new duties, a major one being school elections in northern parts of the township in Romeo and Orion School districts.

I’m hoping that Corrin Hearld, currently Election / Accounting Specialist gets serious consideration for the important full-time job of Deputy Clerk. Former Deputy Clerk, Meggan Brown, resigned in August. She was an outstanding Deputy Clerk.

Pay $275,000 for 1/2 of paving / repaving of West Gunn

Paving will be from traffic circle at Adams and to Kern Road. The road is in bad shape and ends before Big Meadow and Kern to turn into dirt road (I can’t bring myself to call them gravel roads. To see a true gravel road go to Indiana, the state with best roads in the nation). With our $2,044,000,000 tax base and our $175,800 taxable valuable at our house, we will pay about $25 towards this project. We’re fine with that. Roads will not improve unless we chip in to the Road Commission.

Other News

Other items were important, but few residents are waiting anxiously to hear about them. I’ll cover them when meeting minutes come out in 10 days or so by making annotated minutes. All decisions were approved 6/0 and it seemed to me that the “elephant in the room” described by resident Reg Brown at the August 12 meeting had left. I hope so.

My new Office 365 Outlook account is resisting sending out to 473 email addresses at once or even if divided up in groups of 45. It delayed for hours and then asked me to resent my password. Anyone have a recommendation for a free email service?