In the previous post below I got exactly one volunteer, a board member. If we can’t form such an organization, we can’t improve in my view. We need three to incorporate at a non-profit. I make one. We need two more minimum on the way to 1% of voters being members or about 170.

In addition to this Citizens Board being advisory; it would be my intention that the Township Board ignores our advice only with great danger, as we will survey township voters to be sure our recommendations have support of a majority. Ignoring what voters want will then lead to replacement by recall or no re-election, depending on seriousness and urgency.

At the time I wrote this, I got this comment:

“Interesting concept. A much simpler approach would be to do what other Charter Townships do and have these Board positions be paid full-time positions. Up until 2000, the Township Supervisor, Clerk & Treasurer were full-time paid positions. Those people serving in these positions at that time wanted to retire, so they had the Board make them part-time positions with minimal pay. Of course our Township was quite smaller in population so this made sense.”

note – Population – Year 2020-20,067, Year 2000 – 13071

I think we should do both things. The Citizens Advisory Board is needed to perform a responsible effective watchdog role. This is necessary and to me is required in “self-government”.

The Oakland Township Sentinel is sent to about 470 email addresses. Also 20 direct subscribers went to our website and arranged to get it (also free) as soon as a post is made. We had 17,028 registered voters in Oakland Township at the time of the November 2024 election. So we reach, at most, about 3% of voters.

If you can help spread the word among your friends and neighbors, it would be appreciated.

It’s easiest for us if they to the website and arrange to subscribe. Our new Outlook in Word 365 “chokes” on 470 emails at once so we divided it up into 13 separate distributions to get it out. We can send two of these at once. That is time consuming, and even with that we can’t feed them too fast. We have to wait until the first batch of about 80 has successfully gone out before sending the next.

If anyone can recommend a good free service for sending mass emails, please contact me. There is lots on-line, but a recommendation would be golden.

Bob Yager at yagerra@comcast.net

At the October 28^th, Board of Trustees meeting, Trustee John Casadei made these 2-minute remarks. See them at minute 1:09:57 on the video. I believe an accurate and complete transcript is below. I wholeheartedly applaud this idea.

Trustee Casadei said –

“I’d like to start on a regular basis an informal open Trustee meeting, to be held the third Monday of every month 3 to 5 PM here in the Board room at Township Hall. The first meeting is scheduled for November 17^th with three of the newer Trustees, myself, Trustee Campbell and Trustee Langlois. I’m hopeful that we will rotate Trustees as their schedules permit.

Having been on the Board of Review for ten years, I thought it was very valuable to have these informal meetings and listen to residents from every corner of the Township. It was informative, educational, and quite honestly, I think it lead to better decisions.

I’m hopeful that this gives residents, business owners, staff, or employees an avenue where they can come in – no video, no podiums, no mikes, no three minute timer, just come in and tell us what is important to them. Get to know us;  we are your neighbors, we are residents. I think the better we communicate and have dialogue between us the better this township will be. So, I’m hopeful that this is the start of something we will do on a regular basis.

This is Trustee John Casadei’s first term as a Trustee. You may recall that this is his 2024 election campaign signs said “Closing Zoning Loopholes”

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?

A lady spoke about water quality concerns during initial public comment at the October 14, 2025 Board meeting. She held up a vial of rusty water. She said she lived in the area of Silverbell and Adams. She did not give her name and apparently no one asked her. She is identified in the minutes like this

IV. Public comment for Items not on the Agenda
Township resident, near Silverbell and Adams.

You can see her on the video here at Agenda 4, minute 4:55 https://videoplayer.telvue.com/player/KGL-y_dHhCluQTy7c6YoVBzzQ5eHj7Lr/media/980758

She was told by Supervisor Robin Buxar to contact Manager Joe Merucci. I want to see if she got her concerns dealt with to her satisfaction.

See the agenda and packet of relevant information here. There may be items that you or your HOA officers (if you have an HOA) want to comment on. See Gunn road repaving proposal on pages 54-55. See Clerk applications from Karen Reilly, Barbara Barber, Nevine Rizk, Carolyn Young on pages 34-53. I had initially applied but today withdrew my application as there are other qualified candidates; which was not a sure thing.

A National Fish and Wildlife Service (NFWS) Grant of $197,000 has been applied for to build a bridge to replace a failing unsafe culvert pipe and protect endangered aquatic species at Fox Nature Preserve.

On 10/14, the Oakland Township Board supported the Parks and Recreation Commission’s (PRC) application. Although PRC is a separately elected, mostly autonomous body under state law, granting agencies invariably want to see support of PRC plans from our Township Board as well.

In my view this is an important project to make the park more usable. Currently the north and south portions are separated by this culvert which has safety warning signs restricting access. I’ve never FOIA’ d the safety report from our insurance company to get details, but I can see a possible drowning hazard for children being sucked into the culvert pipe and trapped under water.

After compliments from Trustee John Cassadei to PRC” s Dr. Ben VanderWeide for saving taxpayer money by pursuing grants, resident John Markel raised the question of our $37,000,000,000,000 national debt and don’t such grants contribute to it.

The facts are – NFWS is a 501C3 non-profit. It’s 2024 annual report shows $544,683,360 of annual revenue, with 41% from federal funding and 59% from other sources. See page 28 at this link –  annual-report-2024-web.pdf

See all   74 pages of application information at this link to the board packet. See pages 50 through 124 753195553.pdf

See the full 9 minute Board discussion on the meeting video at Agenda 6-2, minutes 22:50 to 32:00 at this link: Board of Trustees Meeting – October 14, 2025

This subcommittee will be Trustee Jean Langlois, Treasurer John Giannangeli and Trustee John Cassadei.

An exact charter or purpose for this subcommittee was not formally defined. I assume it will be to make plans for the future.

This may be a good time to communicate your road concerns to this subcommittee. Find their email addresses here: https://oaklandtwpmi.gov/boards-commissions/board-of-trustees/.

Supervisor Buxar had some concerns about the process for choosing the subcommittee members. See the about eight-minute video at Agenda 6-8, minute 42:22 if this interests you. Link- https://videoplayer.telvue.com/player/KGL-y_dHhCluQTy7c6YoVBzzQ5eHj7Lr/media/980758

I am unaware of any formal Board by-laws addressing the process to form a subcommittee. Perhaps Supervisor Buxar needs to suggest some, so the process is defined and does not cause any hard feelings.