Twp. Salaries To Be Decided by Residents
By Amy Polk

For the first time in more than a decade, residents will be able to vote on the salaries of Clark Township officials Saturday, June 30, at an annual meeting. The meeting will be at 10 a.m., and tentatively planned for the new picnic pavilion in the recreation park behind Clark Township Hall in Cedarville. The alternative location for the meeting is Clark Township Hall.

All Clark Township residents, both year-around and seasonal, are invited to participate in discussion about salaries, changing the name of the township, and whether Clark should become a charter township.

Township electors, which includes registered voters and anyone eligible to become a registered voter, will be able to vote on Clark Township Board of Trustees' salaries. According to Michigan statute, that is the only item electors can officially vote on at an annual meeting.

"Advisory" votes will be taken on the charter township and name changing items. These items cannot be officially voted on by residents, however, they can give the board their opinions on whether the board should pursue action.

Clark Township Board of Trustees tentatively set the annual meeting agenda at a May 17 meeting.

Trustees elected last year to revive the annual meeting to give the public the opportunity to vote on salaries, following disagreement over whether elected officials should get raises, and the amount of any raises. The practice of trustees approving their own raises by board resolution has been questioned by some residents, as was the board's establishing a health, dental, and optical insurance benefit package for all full-time Clark Township employees in 2005.

An ad hoc compensation committee recommended in March 2006 that the elected officials receive no more than a 2% increase in salary a year, and also that insurance benefits adopted in 2005 equaled a 22% raise. Trustees subsequently elected to give themselves a 3.38% raise.

Trustees were considering 3% to 5% raises last summer before the budget was adopted, but tabled setting their own raises in favor of letting the public decide at an annual meeting. Supervisor Linda Hudson, Clerk Cathy Nordquist, and Treasurer Katie Carpenter each earn $20,027.28 a year. Trustees Dana Leach and Mike Lofdahl each earn a salary of $2,225.28 and get $75 per board meeting. As a planning commissioner, Mr. Leach is paid $25 per Planning Commission meeting. Mr. Lofdahl, who serves on the Zoning Board of Appeals, receives $25 for each ZBA meeting.

State law mandates that boards set salary by resolution if there is not an annual meeting where the public decides. The current board reports the last time Clark Township had an annual meeting was before the mid-1990s.

At the June 30 meeting, residents can also weigh in on an idea to change Clark Township's name to Les Cheneaux Township, or another name.

Trustees and people in the community have informally discussed renaming the township to better represent the community's identity.

The area is officially known as the Les Cheneaux Islands, and includes the two villages of Hessel and Cedarville.

The school district is also called Les Cheneaux. According to an account in the late Philip McM. Pittman's book, "Les Cheneaux Chronicles," the township was divided into two townships, Cedar and Sherwood, until 1902, when the townships were reunited and named "Clark Township" after J.B. Clark of St. Ignace, who introduced legislation to reunite the townships.

Trustees have mentioned the idea of changing the township's name at previous meetings, and drawn mixed public responses.

Voters will revisit seeking charter township status June 30. The township board briefly considered the idea in 2001.

Clark Township is now a general law township, but is eligible to become a charter township because its population exceeds 2,000 people

Charter township status would require Clark Township to expand its board to seven members to give the public greater representation.

Charter townships can also hire a superintendent to manage daily operations, much like a city manager. Superintendents can oversee township ordinance enforcement and laws, manage township construction and improvement projects, administer township departments, serve as the board representative on all township board committees like road or recreation, among a list of other duties commonly assigned to a city manager.

Unlike the supervisor, a superintendent would not have a vote on the township board.

Charter townships are protected from annexation. They must also publish ordinances before and after they are adopted. Written notice of special meetings in charter townships must be delivered to each member of a board 24 hours before the meeting.