| 2 min | from John Hansen |
We began by talking about the prospect for re-opening the schools this fall. There is a big combined public forum/school board meeting (on Zoom) on Monday, August 3 to review the district’s plans which must be submitted to the state by August 17. Everything will depend on how bad the virus is but plans include full opening, virtual classes and combinations of the two. This is going to go down to the wire. It seems clear that the school board and administration are trying to do what is best for parents, students and staff. No easy solutions here.
Clerk Kestenbaum confirmed that there has been a huge increase in absentee voters. This was expected and all is going well at this time. There was a lot of concern about postage and US Mail delivery times but cooperation seems good in that area. Michigan has always had absentee voting so we know how to handle this. It is just the volume that is different.
Caryle Burke reports that the historical society has had a good summer of construction with the completion of the bathrooms at Gordon Hall and the eviction of the bats at the museum.
Other projects around the city include the completion of the re-paving of Hudson Street and the continued progress on the walking trail. The economy has put a hold on the live-work project on Baker between Forest and Grand. It looks like there will be a Dollar Store coming to our town soon.
The Sun Times News is no longer publishing a print edition and the on-line version has not added any new content for quite a while. The Guardian is publishing every other week. These are hard times for small town newspapers.
The next meeting of the Dexter Forum will be on Saturday, August 15 at 8:30 AM
*******Special Bonus Section*******
Karl and I did a little planning for the upcoming Forum sessions as it relates to stump speeches. We think that they are an important part of the Forum but we do not want to be overwhelmed by them either. We still need time to talk about bats and potholes and such. There are lots of contested races on the November ballot so we developed some guidelines.
1. We do not solicit candidates. We wait for them to come to us. In the past, we have been able to accommodate all requests but that might change this fall.2. We will give preference to people in contested races, people who have previously attended a Forum session, and people in races that most of us can vote in. (Our attendees are mostly from the City of Dexter and Webster and Dexter Townships.)3. We may allocate different amounts of time say for school board where we all can vote and city council where only a third or so can vote.4. We will have stump speeches on September 5 and 19 and October 3 and 17.5. We ask that candidates tell us why we should vote for them not why we should not vote for their opponent.
We are trying to make the best of the Zoom situation. The best part of our in-person sessions was the ability to talk one-on-one before and after the meeting with the candidates. We look forward to the return of those days – and everything else, too.
Karl and John
