The Hastings Banner — Thursday, March 7, 2024 — Page 3Right out of the gates, those changes are
minimal.
The Barry County Planning Commission
earlier this month re-drew its planning and
zoning maps for Maple Grove and Castleton
townships, this time including the Village of
Nashville.
“For now, we essentially took their map,
and with their assistance just converted it into
our nomenclature,” McManus said. “We’re
going to start re-writing our entire zoning
ordinance here in the next couple of weeks
and we’ll look at Nashville in more detail as
we move forward with it and see if we have
to do anything with it.”
“What we’re going to do over the next
couple of weeks, we’re going to go into
Nashville and kind of do what is called a
baseline evaluation,” McManus added.
With a new body overseeing zoning
enforcement, some residents might be wor-
ried that they’ll be flagged for certain viola-
tions that had previously been overlooked or
ignored. An example is a residential home
that maintains certain animals on the property
even though it’s not zoned for it.
McManus said that anything that has been
deemed legal up to March 1 will be grandfa-
thered in and allowed. Unless a resident is
facing a pending complaint, they need not
worry.
“The village had zoning. If there were no
active complaints against a homeowner and
they were not enforcing an issue and we have
no documentation then we have no choice but
to assume that was legal,” McManus said.
“Because it was never thought of as illegal.”
“If there are existing complaints within the
village regarding any use, then we are going
to take those because those (issues) are not
legally in place and we’ll start enforcing
those,” McManus added. “We’ll go forward
from March first and anything that comes in
new we would start enforcing. But if it’s
there, and it’s been legally there, it’s not
something we’re going to go in... we have no
intention of going in there and shutting every-
thing down immediately.”
During the 30 years that McManus has
served as planning director and zoning
administrator, he has seen his department
absorb these duties for three municipalities to
go with the territories his department already
manages – Baltimore Township in 1997, the
Village of Woodland a couple of years ago
and now the Village of Nashville.
Taking on the duties in Nashville should be
fairly seamless, per McManus, as his depart-
ment already operates in Maple Grove and
Castleton townships.
“To go from Maple Grove to Castleton,
we had to go through Nashville. Now we’ll
just stop and look around Nashville,”
McManus said with a chuckle. “I was
already doing soil erosion for all the juris-
dictions so I was typically in the community
anyway. So, no, we don’t have to hire any-
one; our staff can handle this because we’re
here every day of the week.By design, this new arrangement should
also expedite the process of applying for per-
mits while submitted complaints will be acted
upon typically within two days.
McManus’s department can initiate a
complaint in two different ways. One is
when the department receives a complaint
from a resident. The planning and zoning
department will document the complaint, do
an investigation and see if there is an
enforcement opportunity.
A complaint can also be initiated if a mem-
ber of the department is driving through the
village and can clearly spot a violation from
the roadway.
“We generally wait for a complaint,”
McManus said.
“Most of the things we deal with can typi-
cally be resolved with a notification,” he
added. “Whenever we do enforcement, we
always send notices out in advance. You’re
not going to see us show up or take some-
thing. We’re going to send you a notice,
advise you that there could potentially be a
violation. We talk to the people and try to
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“If there were no active complaints against a
homeowner and (the village) was not enforcing an
issue and we have no documentation then we
have no choice but to assume that was legal.
Because it was never thought of as illegal.”
— Jim McManus, Planning Director/
Zoning Administrator, Barry CountyCrossing guards warn busy intersection
endangers kids; Solutions prove challenging
Hunter McLaren
Staff Writer
While waiting to make a turn at the inter-
section of Broadway Avenue and Green
Street, Tom Patterson saw an oncoming vehi-
cle make a left turn without slowing down.
The driver must not have looked, either,
because they nearly hit crossing guard Sandy
Rogers and the pedestrians he was helping
across the street.
“If I didn’t hit the horn, they would have
gotten hit,” Patterson said. “As fast as that car
was going, it wouldn’t have ended up very
well.”
Patterson, a parent of two Hastings stu-
dents who was already volunteering at the
district, was inspired to take action. He
applied to become a crossing guard through
the school and completed the necessary train-
ing with the Hastings Police Department.
“I felt something had to be done, because
it’s not very safe,” Patterson said. “You only
got one set of eyes and you’re trying to watch
all these cars moving.”
Patterson has since joined Rogers, and the
two stop traffic before and after school for
students trying to cross the busy intersection.
What Patterson has seen has shocked him.
“I started using a clicker to keep stats. On
the two days I did it, there were close to 800
cars going through this intersection in the 30
to 40 minutes after school,” he said. “I never
would have thought that many cars would be
coming through here.”
He’s been posting videos on the Hastings
Crossing Guards Facebook page, where he
chronicles some of what he sees everyday.
Often, he sees vehicles cruising through yel-
low or even red lights. Even more frighten-
ing, he often sees vehicles cross in front of or
behind Rogers and himself while they are
helping students cross.
State law requires drivers to wait for cross-
ing guards to exit the intersection before
crossing. Drivers going through the intersec-
tion after it’s only been partially cleared
aren’t only breaking the law, they’re putting
kids’ lives in danger, Patterson said.
Once, a student was coming towards the
intersection on his bike, downhill – with no
brakes. Rogers said it’s common for kids to
cross halfway, only to dart back after realiz-
ing they left something behind. These are
perfect examples of why such extra care must
be taken by drivers, Patterson said.
“Everything I’m doing is trying to edu-
cate,” he said. “It’s not to point fingers.”
Handling traffic at the intersection is a
complex issue. It’s one of the busiest inter-
sections in Hastings, heavily utilized by
semi-truck traffic and travelers passing
through the county. It’s also less than two
blocks from Central Elementary and Hastings
Middle School.
While local law enforcement can, and
does, police the intersection, it’s not easy.
Hastings Deputy Chief Julissa Kelly said thedepartment periodically watches the area,
especially during the back to school season,
but it’s hard to do without making the cross-
ing even more dangerous. There’s no good
place for patrol cars or officers to remain
visible without impeding traffic themselves.
If they do see a traffic violation, it’s often
difficult for them to get their cruiser through
the intersection to catch up with the offender.
In addition to the enforcement challenges,
safety measures at the intersection are tricky
to implement. Because Broadway Avenue is
part of state highway M-37, the Michigan
Department of Transportation has authority
over signage and infrastructure, not the City
of Hastings. Even well-identified problems
take time to solve due to the layers of bureau-
cracy. Lights and signage installed at a school
crossing at South Hanover and Grand Street,located on M-37 south from Green and
Broadway, are the result of years of effort
from HPD. City workers don’t have the
authority to install any signage or safety mea-
sures, and MDOT has to work through a
specific process and its set budget.
“We’ve talked about signage and we’ve
talked about safe places for the officers to
even pull out to make a traffic stop,” Kelly
said. “There’s just so many rules, so many
safety concerns.”
While progress can be slow, Kelly said the
department is always thinking of how to bet-
ter manage traffic at the intersection. While
awareness is an important first step, it only
goes so far – part of what makes the intersec-
tion challenging is because of how much out-
of-county traffic it sees. While community
messaging can help, it’s not likely to reach
drivers from Kalamazoo or Battle Creek, or
long-haul truckers, Kelly said.
Until progress can be made through theofficial channels, Kelly said awareness
about the challenges of the intersection
might help demonstrate its importance to
state authorities.
For Patterson, it feels like an obligation.
With the amount of traffic and students pass-
ing through the intersection each day, he feels
it’s only a matter of time before someone gets
hurt. Something has to change at the intersec-
tion, he said.
“The frustrating thing is, even if we put
signage up, is that going to make a differ-
ence? Maybe to some, but probably not,”
Patterson said. “If we don’t do anything, it’s
still going to be status quo. It’s a numbers
game. Eventually, something bad’s going to
happen.”
“I don’t want to see (Rogers) get hit, or the
kids. I watched these kids grow up now,” he
said. “I’ve seen a whole group from South-
eastern go from kindergarten up to the middle
school. I don’t want to hear that they got hit.”Tom Patterson has been sharing videos to the Hastings Crossing Guards Facebook
page in an effort to raise awareness about dangerous driver behavior at the intersec-
tion of Green Street and Broadway Avenue. (Photo by Hunter McLaren)Crossing guard Sandy Rogers makes an effort to fist bump every pedestrian and
wave to every driver. It helps remind drivers to be safe, but Rogers said he hopes it
can provide a sense of recognition to everyone passing through. (Photo by Hunter
McLaren)Videos posted on the Hastings Crossing Guards Facebook page show vehicles driving through crosswalks while Rogers and
Patterson are stopping traffic, as seen here. (Courtesy photo)
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