Re-organized township reduces panel size

Talk about it

The new Mitchell Township Board continued re-organization efforts last week in a special meeting at the Carnegie Resource Center.

The first order of business was to reduce the number of supervisors from five to three.

Chairman Mark Schilling said it was assumed that when the county commissioners appointed five members to the new board that all officers would be voting members.

But that’s not the case, said Schilling, who recently learned from Deene Dayton, director of local government assistance with the state Department of Legislative Audit, that township boards are composed of five officers, only three of whom are voting supervisors. Each township’s board also has a clerk and treasurer, both of whom are non-voting positions.

Treasurer Stuart Barns and Clerk Karen Pooley voluntarily surrendered their voting status. The three voting supervisors will be Schilling, Chad Van Laecken and Jack Docken. By law, two supervisors constitute a quorum.

Terms of office are typically for one year, but Mitchell Township is starting from scratch, so longer initial terms will be required.

That means Schilling’s initial term of office will be for three years.

“At the end of the first year, one of our supervisors’ terms of office will be up, but we don’t know who that will be at this point,” Schilling said. Another supervisor’s term will be up in two years, and Schilling must surrender his seat or run for re-election at the end of three years. The annual election rotation will be in place by that time, he said.

Mitchell Township was reestablished by voters in April, eight years after the township was disbanded.

The remainder of last week’s meeting, the board discussed the condition of township roads and the bid-letting process for procuring gravel.

Potential bidders Doug Miiller, of Miiller Gravel in Ethan, and David Schladweiler, co-owner of Dixie Veurink Trucking, of Mitchell, gave the board background information on gravel quality and road repair.

Van Laecken said, “We want to know what it’s going to take to make good roads in our township.”

Schladweiler said it is important to order gravel that has sufficient binding material but not so much that it will make roads slick when wet or difficult to maintain.

Schilling said that Highway Superintendent Rusty Weinberg will be used as a resource on the gravel issue.

The board agreed that the township will continue to contract with the Davison County Highway Department to shape and maintain roads and to place gravel on about 10 miles of township roads.

The board unanimously voted to assemble bidding documents and to publicly advertise and take bids for gravel. Bids will be opened at 6 p.m. July 1 at the Carnegie Resource Center prior to the next township meeting.

Board members said they have not accepted a proposal that was presented at a previous meeting by Burt Wilson and Dean Strand of the Mitchell Rural Fire Association.

The association wants the new township to pay $31,740 to maintain its membership when the current agreement ends Dec. 31.

That amount includes $17,260 for the township’s share of a new brush fire rig.

The fire association was unable to pry the funds from the Davison County commissioners in 2009 when the township was considered an unincorporated part of the county.

The commissioners said the fire association received the $3,500 that was allocated for fire protection and remaining funds were restricted to road construction and maintenance.

The squabble was partly responsible for the eventual re-establishment of the township earlier this year.

The $31,740 figure includes $17,260 for the fire truck; $5,490 for the 2009 fire levy, payable in 2010 ($8,990 minus the $3,500 already paid) and $8,990 for the fire association’s 2010 levy, payable in 2011.

Schilling said the township board will discuss the proposal further at future meetings, but he said the township will get no useable revenue from tax levies until 2011.

Davison County is holding $564,324 that the new township can draw upon for road repair and maintenance; the money can’t be used for other purposes.

Schilling said the board is still working to determine just how much money the township will need to cover its expenses. Once that is determined, the township board will have two years to set its tax levies to the appropriate level.

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