MONTAGUE — The Montague city council approved by a 6-0 vote a Michigan Department of Natural Resources Trust Fund grant application for a planned first phase of a Cullen Fields improvement project at its regular meeting Monday night.
Council member Paul Schultz was not at the meeting, and the council unanimously credited him with an excused absence.
The application will make $100,000 available from the city budget as a cash match for the $400,000 grant, which is a common requirement for DNR grants. The first phase of the project, if the application is successful, would include paving the gravel parking lot next to the fields, adding Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant parking spaces, a storm drain that would prevent water overflow from leaving the park, a set of pickleball courts near the fields, and some parking next to those courts.
Council member Laura LaGuire thanked city manager Jeff Auch and his staff for the work on the proposal and said she appreciates that the city has planned out phases for the improvements to the Cullen Fields area so the entire project does not need to be fully funded from the start for residents to begin seeing results. Auch outlined more plans the city has for improving the park in future phases, including walking trails, a playground structure, canopies adjacent to the fields to create some shade, and a dog park. He said the project could be split into as many as five phases for cost reasons.
The council also approved by a 4-2 vote to allocate $2,500 of its planned $5,000 towards the Fourth of July fireworks, as requested by the fireworks committee. Lisa Kiel and Susan Newhof, who have been on record against the expenditure, dissented. The committee also approved by the same vote to name the boat launch as the site of the fireworks show, allowing it to be closed to public traffic in the middle of the afternoon until 11 p.m. LaGuire said in looking at other potential sites for the show, the only suitable alternative found was the causeway bridge, and for obvious reasons closing it for so much of the day, when it is already closed for the morning parade, was deemed impractical.
The council voted 6-0 to approve mayor Tom Lohman's nomination of Traci Murphy, owner of C's Extreme Ice Cream and Mini-Golf, as a new member of the Downtown Development Authority. Murphy will serve the remainder of the scheduled term through 2026 to replace an unnamed previous business owner who stepped down as they no longer owned a business downtown. Auch noted that the city sought someone who owned a business in the Water Street corridor due to planned construction projects in the area.
The council also voted 6-0 to adopt an amendment to the board of review's poverty exemption which will not allow it to consider "substantial and compelling reasons" to grant a poverty exemption to a homeowner that is not below the federal poverty line. Auch said after looking into the matter that the board was not permitted to do that. A public commenter stated that the state does, though, allow incremental exemptions for those slightly above the poverty line, which the city does not presently do. Auch said he would be working with the county assessor on possibly enacting something similar for city taxpayers.
