You Have Power- Change The Inverness Township Board

Howard Beale was the news anchor in the 70’s movie Network who ranted and raved. His ravings, “I’m mad as hell” gained viewers and some think little else. Spoiler alert, if you have never viewed the movie, news anchor Beale directs his viewers to open their windows and call out, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore”. The ensuing call of frustration voiced by thousands is a memorable movie moment because it embodies the daily and varied frustrations we all deal with.   

Like Howard Beale’s viewers, many of us in Cheboygan County are mad, angry or simply frustrated beyond words. Many things frustrated Beale’s viewers and we all have daily frustrations in life. Pastor, theologian, and government critic Reinhold Niebuhr penned the oft-quoted Serenity Prayer. Said simply, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

Most of us do not look to the government to solve all of our problems. As often as not, the government is the problem.  Politicians and the bureaucrats we employ to supply those government services society has determined are essential to our well being are our employees. We, the people they serve, pay their salaries, wages, and benefits.

The elected County Commissioners, Cheboygan City Council, and Township Boards work for each of us. It is not a simple job. We all have different needs, priorities, political positions, and we each place different demands on our local government bodies. Cheboygan County residents have a wide diversity of incomes, housing, education, and perceived needs. I know some young and even older people who struggle every day to keep a roof over their own or their family’s head. Retirees who have located here may have different needs but higher expectations. Some retirees look forward to a utopian and not utilitarian retirement. One group knows a pile of firewood or a few tires in the yard is an asset worth saving, while the other group sees anything except a neatly manicured lawn as blight requiring an ordinance. 

Many of our Cheboygan County wage earners now commute every day to Gaylord, Petoskey, or other communities that have experienced more growth in retail, healthcare, and the coveted manufacturing and industrial jobs that pay a living wage. Some of those driving a 60, 70, or 80-mile round-trip daily to that end of the rainbow job will eventually pull up roots and move closer to that place of employment.  I have lived in boom and bust one-industry towns where the inevitable downturn occurs and some pundit posts a roadside sign-Will the last person out please shut off the lights. Cheboygan County has too many natural assets to have the lights turned off. That does not mean we can continue to allow a regressive Inverness Township Board, to dim the lights, pull the shades, and hide from outside developers willing to invest millions of dollars here and create hundreds of new of jobs. 

Cheboygan County approved the Meijer site plan in February 2015. Inverness Township Supervisor Ron Neuman was then quoted, “The township wants the project to happen and was working diligently to get water to the site”. If three years of virtual inactivity is Mr Neuman’s definition of “working diligently”, what is his definition of a slacker? It only requires three board members to approve any motion before the board. Five apathetic people in Inverness Township have thwarted needed growth in this county for three years and they should equally share the blame.

Click on this link for the step-by-step procedure to implement a recall election. 

Recall the Inverness Five-NOW!

Meijers has since invested millions of dollars opening stores in Alpena, Sault Ste. Marie, Escanaba, Marquette, and other progressive communities offering new shopping and employment opportunities. The time for Inverness residents to accept apathy and practice serenity is over. Your fellow Cheboygan County residents cannot carry your water. As an Inverness resident, only you can exercise your right to recall the “Inverness Five” and elect some new and progressive board members. The law excludes the first and last year of a 4 year-term, allowing only calendar years 2018 and 2019 to exercise a recall election. Are there enough people in Inverness Township with the “wisdom to know the difference?” Exercising that wisdom to do something new will take courage. 

Inverness Voters Are Nailing Shut The Cheboygan Coffin

Almost two full years after Meijer received Cheboygan County site plan approval, by a 3-2 vote, the Inverness Township Board voted in February 2017 to approve moving forward with negotiations of a 425 agreement between the township and the City of Cheboygan for the Meijer property.

Crisman Jones, Properties and Real Estate Manager for Meijer, stated in an email it is Meijer’s preference to go with the 425 agreement.

Inverness Township Supervisor Ron Neuman, “With that being said, I would entertain a motion to go ahead and start negotiations with the city on a 425 agreement and move forward with this project.”

Another year has passed and the Meijer project has moved farther away. 

Five dysfunctional people, the Inverness Township Board, have by their actions created a defacto moratorium on a big box developer. The Inverness Five have prevented an investment of millions of dollars in Cheboygan County and the several hundred new jobs that a Meijer store would create.

Do the electors of Inverness Township have the courage to exercise their rights by recalling the entire township board, each equally guilty, and vote into office new officers who will act expediently to reach an agreement with the City of Cheboygan? 

The decision is yours. The failure of this big box store development will negatively impact the future of Cheboygan County far into the future. It is another nail in the coffin. 

Inverness Township Five

Ronald Neuman

Supervisor

1473 Riggsville Rd.

Cheboygan MI 49721 Phone: (231) 627-3455

Jean Beethem

Clerk

5167 Riggsville Rd.

Cheboygan MI 497219038 Phone: (231) 627-3337

Kathy Spray

Treasurer

7990 South Extension Rd

PO Box 620

Cheboygan MI 49721 Phone: (231) 420-5518 FAX: (231) 627-5517

Tim Borowicz

Trustee

6760 Baier Rd.

Cheboygan MI 497219087 Phone: (231) 627-5925

Bernard Schramm

Trustee

2836 Indian Trail Rd.

Cheboygan MI 497219636 Phone: (231) 627-6977

Click on this link for the step-by-step procedure to implement a recall election. 

Recall the Inverness Five-NOW!

Are Your Tax Dollars Working For You Or Your Leaders?

I have been amused over the years as well compensated part-time elected officials make political hay and congratulate themselves on a few dollars saved while alternately wasting or socking away tens of thousands of dollars annually. Paying winter property taxes in Cheboygan County makes me nostalgic for places and times where a home, business, or property increased in value every year. 

The smallest local tax bite is about 17.5 mills and Tuscarora Township, trying hard to become a failing city, has the biggest bite with 24 mills (A mill is $1 tax per $1,000 taxable value). The Village residents of Wolverine, Mackinaw, and the City of Cheboygan all pay higher taxes with the City at just over 39 mills. Your house with a taxable value of $100,000 in most townships will see an annual tax bill around $2,000 and in the City of Cheboygan with all those city services about $3,900. If you own resort property here, enjoying that cottage a few months a year, you have the pleasure of paying 12 months of property taxes and an additional 18 mills to fund our local schools. No children enrolled and no right to vote. Our educators in Michigan love taxpayers who pay for schools and cannot exercise their right to say no more taxes.      

The City of Cheboygan, Cheboygan County, the County Road Commission, Tuscarora Township, and it seems every local government that has employee pension plans has substantial amounts of unfunded pensions. Some units may have more pensioners than active employees. The big three automotive manufacturers could not compete as fewer employees had to both earn a profit and pay for all those retirees already pensioned out. Government employees never earn a profit. As pension costs and the number of retirees increase, the funding crisis will grow. All of the existing retirees and many of the government employees counting the days to their retirement will enjoy the same defined benefit plans that bankrupted some private industry pension plans. 

While national and cable news fills our heads with allocations and budgets of millions, billions, and trillions; our local townships, villages, cities, and counties are sometimes scrounging now to maintain the status quo when deficits in the thousands create a crisis. Those legacy costs, neglected infrastructure including water, sewer, and roads coupled with inadequate funding to serve developments that could bring new jobs is bad. Mix in an aging population on fixed incomes, add singles and young families working seasonal or multiple part-time jobs and we go from bad to worse. Shrinking student populations, closed schools, and fewer local opportunities for grads will drive more out-migration.

It is a downhill slide and too many Cheboygan County leaders have sat on the speeding toboggan for the last decade as much of the country climbed back from a recession. Our neighbors, Emmet and Otsego County have climbed back up the hill with their February peak unemployment rates now about half of Cheboygan’s 18 to 19%. That is proof of a growing diversity in employment. Many Cheboygan County residents already commute to Gaylord or Petoskey to gain steady year-round work while others have just moved away. 

    

Our local governments have been content to continue that downhill ride.  Our elected leaders and their bureaucracy enjoy the area’s best pay and benefits serving a diminishing number of residents. Government employees starting compensation now exceeds the area’s median income. Elected Township Boards, putting in a few hours or less a month while accomplishing nothing, receive salaries that some residents work all year to earn.  Witness the failed Inverness Township Board that has cost the entire community hundreds of jobs.  These illustrious leaders need to become industrious and actually earn their pay.