The Hastings Banner — Thursday, February 15, 2024 — Page 5Hastings to share in $16.3 million of
dividends from Michigan Municipal
League insurance funds
Hunter McLaren
Staff Writer
The City of Hastings will be sharing in
$16.3 million of dividends from its insurance
funds this year.
The dividends come from the Michigan
Municipal League of which Hastings is a
member, with $14 million coming from the
Liability & Property Pool and about $2.3 mil-
lion from the Workers’ Compensation Fund.
The funds will be split among more than
1,300 Michigan cities and municipalities.
Hastings Mayor Dave Tossava currently
serves as a trustee on the MML Workers’
Compensation Fund board. He said the com-
bined dividends are the highest he’s seen in
his seven years of service on the board.
Several factors likely contributed to this
year’s large sum, he said. Workers’ compen-
sation claims were expected by MML trust-
ees to increase during the peak years of the
COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the case
of municipal police and fire departments.
Because the in-person nature of their jobs put
emergency personnel at more risk of con-
tracting COVID, the board was prepared to
make a higher number of payments. Thank-
fully, that never came to fruition.
“The board really thought at that time that
we were going to end up with a lot of claims
because of COVID, but it didn’t happen,” Tos-
sava said. “Through training and then extra
precautions, I think we only had maybe a few
workers’ compensation claims during COVID.”In addition to moving past the hardest chal-
lenges of the pandemic, an increased focus on
worker safety and accident prevention in
Hastings and across the state has helped
lower the amount of claims.
“I think that helps, when your employees
are aware of dangers like that, they act
accordingly, and they know what to expect.
We don’t take any shortcuts, we adhere to all
the rules and regulations all the years I spent
there (at the Hastings Department of Public
Services),” Tossava said. “All this stuff con-
tributes to $16.3 million in dividends because
there are no claims. At the city, we’re going
above and beyond to make sure we’re safe
and I think everybody that belongs to the
Municipal League does the same thing.”Separation of truth and knowledge:
An account of the Democrat Party
Recently the Barry County Republican
Party submitted an article about the vision of
the Republican Party going into 2024 to our
local newspaper. The main “calling” of the
article was to return to God’s ultimate truth so
that we can build our community on the rock,
and not the sand. This of course offends those
who hate the truth, so naturally, the treasurer
of the Democratic Party wrote a letter to the
editor claiming we had no tangible vision.
Instead of entertaining the opinions of those
who support murdering babies and mutilating
children, I’ll take this opportunity to give a
quick history of some of the Democrat’s tan-
gible accomplishments throughout the years.
We can trace the Democrat Party back to
the early annals of our country where they
proudly fought the newly-formed Republican
Party (under Abraham Lincoln) for their right
to own slaves. Of course, they used the
phrase “states’ rights” to disguise their true
intentions of enslaving our fellow man.
Although the Republicans in office eventual-
ly won the Civil War, the Democrats wouldn’t
stop so easily. Six days after the Confederate
army surrendered, John Wilkes Booth, a
Democrat, assassinated President Lincoln.
Lincoln’s vice president, a Democrat named
Andrew Johnson, assumed the presidency.
But Johnson adamantly opposed Lincoln’s
plan to integrate the newly freed slaves into
the South’s economic and social order.
After the Democratic Party failed to defend
slavery and lost the Civil War, they began to
immediately oppose reconstruction. They did
this by founding the Ku Klux Klan, imposing
segregation and perpetrating lynchings. The
Democratic Party was unified in their opposi-
tion to the 13th Amendment, which abolished
slavery; the 14th Amendment, which gave
blacks citizenship; and the 15th Amendment,
which gave blacks the vote. All three passed
only because of universal Republican support.
And when all of their efforts to enslave
blacks, keep them enslaved, and then keep
them from voting had failed, the Democrats
came up with a new strategy: If black people
were going to vote, they might as well vote
for Democrats. As President Lyndon Johnson
was purported to have said about the Civil
Rights Act, “I’ll have them [racial slur] vot-
ing Democrat for two hundred years.”
The Democrat Party is still working hard to
keep its rich and proud reputation. Now they
have targeted the women and children of
America. They proudly shout “women’s
health” or “reproductive rights” using the
same strategy they did during the Civil War.
What they really mean when they say that is
“We want to murder babies!” They are great
at controlling the narrative by reinventing
words like abortion instead of the correct
words like infant genocide.
I admit that they have it hard living in a
world with no objective truth, but it gives the
Democrats the ability to switch gears instant-
ly playing to their advantage. For example,
they love to use the phrase “my body, my
choice” when advocating for the murder of
babies, but when the MRNA shot was being
forced on people, that logic went right out the
window. Now they told us that we were mur-
dering grandma and grandpa if we didn’t get
the shot. Using guilt language such as this
they advocated people not having a choice in
the matter. So much for “my body, my
choice.”
In the state of Michigan, the Democrat-con-
trolled legislator is also continuing to work
towards their tangible goals of socialism.
Whitmer separated the elderly away from
their families at the last stage of their lives;
she invited the Chinese Communist Party to
build environmentally unsound battery plants
in northern Michigan to poison our land and
waterways while they spy and make money
off of Americans who protested their pres-
ence. She turned a blind eye to the will of the
people. Her administration tricked the voters
by twisting what was in the proposals, and
now parents have lost rights when it comes to
the decisions of their minor children.Just this past year, the Democrat-controlled
government passed legislation taking away
the townships’ and counties’ constitutional
rights for local control. They violated the 2nd
amendment by passing laws that infringe on
the rights of the citizens.
The Democrat-controlled federal govern-
ment has also effectively taken away the sov-
ereignty of our nation by leaving the border
open for millions of illegal immigrants. Every-
thing they are doing promotes the culture of
death, the death of our people, our families,
our economy and our Constitutional rights.
Knowing all of this, I have a hard time
wrapping my head around anyone who
would proudly call themselves a Democrat
while at the same time criticizing an article
calling for truth.
To rephrase the intent of the original article,
our pursuit and vision is for truth first. While
Godless endeavors may promise immediate
gratification or material gain, they often lack
the inherent depth and significance found in
moral and virtuous actions. Choosing morali-
ty over meaningless pursuits aligns us with
principles that transcend personal desires,
fostering a sense of interconnectedness and
compassion towards others. Morality serves
as a guiding compass, guiding us towards a
path of integrity, empathy and harmony with-
in ourselves and society. By prioritizing
morality and virtue, we not only uphold fun-
damental ethical values but also contribute to
the betterment of humanity as a whole.
As far as their attack on our “tangible”
goals, the Republicans hold every single
political office in Barry County.Phillip Joseph
DeltonCandidate Trump has a proven
track record of indecency
To the Editor:
I can appreciate how printing this letter in
full may make some people uncomfortable
and I do not have a problem if blanks are
inserted in some words to minimize this dis-
comfort. But remember the problem is not in
the letter. The problem is that the leading
candidate from the Republican Party for
President of the United States made the state-
ments reported and performed the acts
described in this letter.
In a recorded conversation with TV host
Billy Bush, Donald Trump said, “Yeah that’s
her with the gold. I better use some Tic-Tacs
just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m
automatically attracted to beautiful...I just
start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just
kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a
star they let you do it. You can do anything.
Grab them by the [expletive]. You can do
anything.”
This is not fake news. Mr. Trump has
admitted making these comments during a
television interview in 2016. This has been
tossed off by some folks as just “locker room
talk.” But Mr. Trump was a 59-year-old man
when he said those things. And we now know
that, unfortunately, this was not idle talk. And
this is not history. I don’t know if he still
abuses women physically but he certainly
continues to insult and belittle them. And he
continues to lie about it.
Mr. Trump was found legally liable by a jury
of his peers in court for sexually abusing maga-
zine columnist and author E. Jean Carroll in
May of 2023. When he claimed that she was
lying and this never happened and repeatedly
insulted her, he was found liable for defamingher by the same jury. When he continued to lie
about this assault and to make disparaging com-
ments about her after this trial, he was found
liable for defamation by a second jury. The total
penalties levied against Mr. Trump and awarded
to Ms. Carroll ran to $83.3 million.
As former U.S. attorney for the Northern
District of Alabama Joyce White Vance said:
“How do you explain to your kids that you’re
going to give your vote in the presidential
race to a man who forced his fingers into a
woman’s vagina and then lied about it and
about her, and exposed her to public ridicule
and harm?”
Doesn’t honesty and decency matter any-
more?Dr. Kenneth M. Kornheiser
Prairieville TownshipSUBMIT A LETTER TO THE BANNER
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typed
212375
BARRY COUNTY, MICHIGANNOTICE OF ZONING ORDINANCE ADOPTION
BARRY COUNTY, MICHIGAN HEREBY ORDAINS:Pursuant to the provisions of Public Act 110 of 2006, as amended, notice is hereby given
that the Barry County Board of Commissioners has adopted the following Ordinance which
amends the Barry County Zoning Ordinance of 2008, as amended, in the following manner:ORDINANCE NO.: A-1-Zoning map for the village of Nashville/Castleton TownshipThis map is a portion of the Official Zoning Map of the Village of Nashville/Castleton
Township in Barry County, Michigan. All of the above mentioned property is located in Barry
County, Michigan.BARRY COUNTY, MICHIGAN
Date: February 13, 2024David Jackson, Chairperson
Barry County Board of CommissionersCynthia L White,
Barry County ClerkPublished Date: February 15, 2024The above named ordinance becomes effective March 1, 2024. A copy of this ordinance
is available for purchase or inspection in the Barry County Planning Office, 220 West State
Street, Hastings, Michigan 49058 between the hours 8:00 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday through
Friday. Please call (269) 945-1290 for further information.212376
BARRY COUNTY, MICHIGANNOTICE OF ZONING ORDINANCE ADOPTION
BARRY COUNTY, MICHIGAN HEREBY ORDAINS:Pursuant to the provisions of Public Act 110 of 2006, as amended, notice is hereby given
that the Barry County Board of Commissioners has adopted the following Ordinance which
amends the Barry County Zoning Ordinance of 2008, as amended, in the following manner:ORDINANCE NO.: A-2-Zoning map for the village of Nashville/Maple Grove TownshipThis map is a portion of the Official Zoning Map of the Village of Nashville/Maple Grove
Township in Barry County, Michigan. All of the above mentioned property is located in Barry
County, Michigan.BARRY COUNTY, MICHIGANDate: February 13, 2024David Jackson, Chairperson
Barry County Board of CommissionersCynthia L White,
Barry County ClerkPublished Date: February 15, 2024The above named ordinance becomes effective March 1, 2024. A copy of this ordinance
is available for purchase or inspection in the Barry County Planning Office, 220 West State
Street, Hastings, Michigan 49058 between the hours 8:00 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday through
Friday. Please call (269) 945-1290 for further information.Mayor Dave Tossava, pictured here at Monday’s city council meeting, serves on the
Michigan Municipal League Workers’ Compensation Fund. (Photo by Hunter McLaren)