Beaver Island Michigan

Inquiring minds want to know !!

What is our obligation to the existing township boards if we consolidate Peaine/St. James townships in May ? This is one of the many questions I have regarding the future of my township.

The answer should be readily available now since those who circulated the petition should have researched this before the petition was printed.Please share the answer and, of course, the source for the information.

I do not understand why this effort to merge was rushed to take effect in 2018. Our board members campaigned and were elected to serve until 2020. It seems we should pay them their expected salaries through to the end of their terms. What would be the cost of this settlement for 10 board members? Legally and morally , what do we owe these people?

Thank you for your help.
Donna Stambaugh

Donna,

Great questions!

Kathe

Thank you Donna for having the courage to present a logical question to the moral aspect of township merger.

So we are to have an election to a yes or no to township merger. Then we are to have an election to form a new governing body. Then we have to have an election to pass the new millage. In my research at a low estimate would be $1,000.00 for each election. Another question is what are the attorney fees for the merger?

Another question is will the committee for the merger be compensated. But the most important question is why this proposal was not presented to the township boards and not be open to public debate so property owners who do not vote could have a voice in this proposal.

Will any of this happen before 2020?

Donna, if you read some of the past post from Carol Burton and Ken Taylor, they have determined that the township officials do not need their jobs or the money.

John McCafferty

When questions go unanswered one concludes that she does not merit answers or that the petition circulators do not know the answers. Neither scenario makes me comfortable.

I have heard speculation about the legal fees the consolidation would cost. The figures being discussed are huge. This speculation continues because we do not have information. Certainly the petition circulators would have consulted with attorneys and township experts before they printed the petition. Please let us know what the legal fees are expected to be and, of course, please include your sources

Thank you,
Donna Stambaugh

Talk about putting the cart in front of the horse. WOW!!

John McCafferty

Donna,

These are exactly the kind of questions we all need to be asking. EXCELLENT! Your questions are huge, and I personally never thought about this angle. Many thanks.

Thank you Donna!

I said in a previous post that we were taking jobs from people who used their own time and money to be elected to these positions. They of course believed that they would have the income from those positions until 2020, at least!!

I think who ever it is, that is "perfecting" the numbers for this consolidation should include a severance package for the individuals impacted by this. Of course it could be weeks until we see numbers....

Tracey

I think we all would agree that legal fees will be the largest cost associated with consolidation of the townships. My estimate is 10 to 20 billable hours a week for at least 26 weeks. At $200 an hour, legal fees would range from $52,000 to $104,000.

Of course, it would be helpful to know how much the petitioners have paid in legal fees just to get this on the ballot.

Wow, how could we ever afford to pay that much to attorneys ?

I heard about the website set up about township consolidation. There is a way to contact Angel Welke to get information. I sent her a couple of my questions. I am grateful for any information that she sends my way.

I assume that she will be putting the questions/answers on the website she has made when she answers your questions but if she doesn't could you repost on the form to help get more information out to the public?

Yes, Andy. People are very eager for information.

Will the questions and answers to Angel Welke be presented on a website for all people to view or is it just private E-mailing back and forth?? It would be nice if we could just view a page of all the questions and answers instead of the people having to put the information out to us. Just curious? Thank you Donna for offering your answers to us when you receive them. Sorry just re-read post. I see there is a website. Let us know how it goes Donna and thanks again. The more people asking the better.

John McCafferty

Donna . . .

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Please see https://wkohls.wixsite.com/consolidationinfo for fully-documented facts relating to the impact of township consolidation on property taxes. Many thanks to Jack Gallagher for his help!