Cliffs Riffs - Stuph n Nonsense

  We have certainly seen our share of flurry lately surrounding the attempt at building a data center next to I-96 in Lowell Township. Meeting halls were flooded with folks, many questions went unanswered or dodged. As an aside, kudos to our community for keeping things rather civil in this day of copious hollering and threats. Well done. I am here to answer the elephant in the room question – Why the huge uptick in demand for data centers all over Michigan and other parts of the country? In case you skipped the title – I am here to tell you that I am the reason for the demand for MORE data centers. Yup – my fault. For those who do not know me, I have tried to live a life with action and concern toward the environment. My mother taught me to avoid waste and to recycle anything that could be recycled. I have ridden a fully electric motorcycle for eight years. My home and business pay Lowell Light and Power a wee bit extra so that our electricity comes from renewable resources. I w...

In Support of Increasing Water and Sewer Rates There has been quite a bit of buzz surrounding the looming increases in our water and sewer rates. As someone who lives in Lowell and owns a business on Main Street and thereby has three water and sewer bills every month, I can understand why people bristle at the thought of paying more for these services. As someone who just finished five years on the City Council, I can understand the need to raise the rates in order to help fund some very long overdue renovation to our infrastructure.   Julie and I made it through the total renovation on Monroe Street last year. The street was completely dug up between Main Street and the cemetery so that water and sewer pipes could be replaced in addition to repaving the road. It is important to remember that the reason Monroe was done before Washington had to do with a massive amount of rainwater/groundwater coming into the system via cracked and broken pipes which resulted in our water trea...

 Originally published in The Lowell Ledger 7.12.23 The Streets of Lowell – USDA Loans, Revenue Sharing, and Marijuana Taxes It is safe to assume that everyone reading this will agree that the streets in Lowell, and most other communities in Michigan, are a mess. Our recent unscientific, purely speculative, hunch based opinion would award Washington street as the most pot-holed stretch of pavement in the City. (My bet is that some other ones might be coming to your mind.) For the sake of this article, how about we pretend that Washington is the worst. Then why the heck is Monroe getting a total make-over before Washington? The USDA provided funding for the Monroe Project. Here are some other questions we can examine today: Why is Lowell borrowing millions of dollars to fix our roads? Does the USDA fund road repairs? What happened to all the money from marijuana sales in Lowell? What is the difference between a storm sewer and a sanitary sewer? And the one that seems to never go away...

  In case you haven’t heard, the City of Lowell received $282,267.20 from the State of Michigan for our portion of State collected excise tax from adult use marijuana sales. This represents about nine percent of our annual general fund budget and the unanticipated high dollar amount was rightly labeled “huge” by City Manager Mike Burns. The total amount received has gone into the local streets fund to help pay for much needed road improvements. Please read that last sentence enough times to commit it to memory. As promised by Burns and the City Council, marijuana revenues are being used for our streets. Please indulge me as we look at a bit of pot history in Lowell. In 2017, the Council considered the question of allowing a medical marijuana facility to open here. Since I had benefitted considerably from edible marijuana following my treatment for throat cancer, I addressed the council as an advocate. They denied the application, citing the upcoming vote on Proposition 18-1 which...

My fellow Lowell citizens, please forgive me for presenting this most unpleasant dose of truth to you. If you love a good mystery like I do, then you must appreciate how sometimes the most serendipitous of events can lead the clever person down the path of discovery. Just such an event happened at the last meeting of the Lowell City Council. Being in my usual semi-concious state, something over my left shoulder struck me as out of place. To the best of my knowledge of geology, Lowell is located in America - what on earth was the Canadian flag doing there? I woke my fellow councilmember Jim from his pre-meeting nap and inquired about the maple leaf. Jim helpfully observed that this flag of a foreign power had been in chambers "for a while now", but then he went on to assure me "it keeps moving closer to the center of the room." When I commented to our Mayor about flying the colors of a rival gang, he broke into song. Wha???? Then I realized he was singing the them...

                           I recently read some articles about the fear of public speaking - holy smokes, I had no idea it ranked up there with trips to the dentist and that an overwhelming majority of people of all ages and stripes would pretty much rather do ANYTHING rather than address a group of people from behind a podium. As a member of the City Council, I am constantly encouraging people to come to the meetings and speak their minds on what ever issue or issues they might be passionate about. When I do this, I am completely serious. I will not speak for the others, but for me feedback from the public - especially residents and tax payers of Lowell - is something I depend on. If you know me, you KNOW I have a lot of opinions on a lot of things. :-)  However, my job on the Council is to reflect the will of the people in Lowell and when you come and address us it helps me to know exactly how you feel,...

Fun Fact - you know you have been hanging out with someone for a long time when you start to think alike. Yesterday my wife Julie and I had very similar thoughts about masks and guns even though we were in two different locations. I was home and she was at the store and the thoughts seem to have occurred at a similar time. Anyway, here is my version. There is a lot of division in my favorite Michigan town about two tools - Guns and Masks . They might seem to be vastly different in materials and proper usage, but my point here is to draw your attention the the similarities. How can a face covering of paper or cloth be similar to a tool designed to ignite gun powder and fling projectiles in space at high speed? I believe there are two common threads in these tools and the people who advocate for their use: Control and Fear . Masks Fear : Those of us who advocate for the wearing of masks in places where face to face interaction is going to occur take a lot of guff from people wh...

My favorite town in Michigan has been party to some very effective use of smoke and mirrors over the last few days. I would like to examine some of it. Before I do that, let me make it clear - this is my opinion and everything put forth here is coming from me and I do not pretend to be speaking for anyone else on the Lowell City Council. First off, no City Council member has the ability to hire or fire anyone who works for the City of Lowell with the exception of the City Manager and City Attorney. We did not fire the police chief. No one fired him, he resigned. Biggest Smoke: The Chief was fired because of the 2nd amendment. Not the case at all.  First of all, the Chief resigned, he was not fired. Yes, he was given the option to resign or face termination, but HE CHOSE TO RESIGN. This is not word play - anyone who knows Steve Bukula knows that he has a very quick mind and is very familiar with the laws on the books. I have seen him address matters of City Codes and O...

When I toured the Lowell Wastewater Treatment plant, Brian and Cody both let me know that "flushable wipes" are NOT something you want to flush down the toilet. They do not break up and they can cause clogs in sewers drains. Fast forward a couple of years and for some reason I decided to conduct an experiment. I purposely chose the Cottonelle wipes because of the wording on their package. "Tested With Plumbers" and the picture of a happy dolphin gave a quick visual impression that maybe things had changed since the guys delivered their warning. In case you cannot read the lower right, here is what it says, "Cottenelle Flushable wipes start to break down immediately after flushing and are septic and sewer safe. For best results flush only one or two at a time." So I took an equal size piece of Angel Soft 2 ply toilet paper and put it into a container of tap water. To simulate a flush, right after I put them in the containers I swirl...

Aided by a pack of sniffer dogs and supported by weaponized military style transport vehicles, 17 members of the West michigan Task Force Dedicated and United in their Directive to End marijuana sales (aka WTF DUDE) surrounded a building on Main Street in sunny, downtown Lowell with firepower, Taco Bell meals, poorly worded subpoenas, and hand cuffs at the ready. When the WTF team battered down the doors at 208 East Main Street, they were greeted by a reportedly massive grow operation utilizing highly sophisticated warming mats and the latest in indoor lighting technology to maximize growth.  "We walked in on an operation that must have been months in the planning and execution stage," reported Staph Sargent Billy "Much" Adoo. "The growing area occupied an estimated nine square feet and it was a pretty impressive set up for a rural community way, way far away from Grand Rapids and genteel society." With the aid of a small pile of Lowell...

I am writing today in response to an editorial from Lowell about accountability from the Lowell City Council. You can read it here:  Accountability Should Be Word of The Year First, there are some very good suggestions here that I will take to heart and do what I can as a City Council member to implement. Secondly, there are a couple of points that are not so easily digested for me and I will attempt to explain why below. First, the suggestions given that might sting a bit, but with which I concur. Those items include: 1. Overall accountability and transparency is something I will strive to increase both personally and engender as a member of the Council. 2. Explanation of a vote. Sad to admit that doing something this simple did not occur to me, but I will do my best to do so in the future. (I did blog about my change of heart regarding tax abatements in which I explained why I voted for the King Milling abatement, but that was after the meeting. Click the link at the bott...

I constantly encourage people to attend City Council meetings (1st & 3rd Mondays at 7 pm at Lowell City Hall) and/or the monthly Coffee With Council (1st Saturday of the month from 8-10am at the Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce building on the Riverwalk). As a City Council member I not only want to hear from you, but I need to hear from you. If you think expressing yourself to me and the rest of the City Council is a waste of time - let me give you some examples of why it is NOT a waste of time or energy. A few weeks ago we had some gentlemen attend a meeting. They are interested in setting up a grow facility for adult use marijuana. The City of Lowell is working to get regulations in place to accommodate such facilities in response to the overwhelming support demonstrated by Lowell voters last year. (Prop 1 passed by a 60/40 majority). I read all the proposed rules, but somehow a portion that dealt with restricting the type of lighting that could be used to grow pot escaped my...

As I have mentioned in prior blog posts, the Unity Investors seem to have a hard time with the sequence of events concerning the southern piece of property they purchased. It is the small piece that has power lines from Lowell Light & Power running across it. They like to give people the impression that they had no knowledge of the power lines when they bought the property. Here are two emails from Todd Schaal which tell a different story. He contacted City Manager Mike Burns on October 15, 2018 with the subject line reading: "Mike, who is the guy at Lowell Light and Power I should talk to re their power lines? Thanks, Todd." The partners closed on the property on November 6th or 7th, 2018 almost 3 weeks after the email. Furthermore, Todd met with Steve Donkersloot and Ryan Teachworth at the Lowell Light and Power offices on October 18th to discuss the power lines. Here is another email from Todd Schaal about the power lines on November 8, a day or two after t...