VOLUME 167, No. 18 Thursday, May 6, 2021 PRICE $1.1THE
HASTINGS
Devoted to the Interests of Barry County Since 1856
Farewell to a special man
who served in many ways
Greg Chandler
Staff Writer
More than five months after Charlie
Pullen’s death, the Middleville community
came together Saturday to bid a final farewell
to longtime village president.
More than 150 family, friends, veterans and
others gathered at the Downtown Development
Authority amphitheater to pay tribute to
Pullen, who served for 18 years on the village
council, 11 of those years as president, before
he died Nov. 20, 2020, of complications from
COVID-19. He was 71.
“I knew Charlie for only a few months, but
it was very obvious that he was a special
person,” said Village Manager Patricia Rayl,
who served as master of ceremonies for the
memorial service. “Charlie was a man ofmany talents, all that pointed to a common
focus: Others before self.”
Community leaders, veterans advocates
and family members spoke of Pullen’s love
for his community, for those who served their
country and for his family.
“I looked at my calendar this morning and
it was wrong. It said today is May Day. This
is not May Day, it’s Charlie Pullen Day,” said
longtime village council Trustee Ed
Schellinger, who worked closely with Pullen
on the development of the veterans memorial
about a decade ago.
“He was always for the village and its
citizens. Charlie was instrumental in bringing
the Paul Henry Trail to downtown Middleville,A special day to
celebrate moms
See Editorial on Page 4
County pledges to
help local restaurateurs
See Story on Page 14
Former TK teacher in
murder-for-hire plot?
See Story on Page 10
NEWS
BRIEFS
See NEWS BRIEFS, page 3
Mother’s Day
hot-air balloon
festival planned
FoxView in Nashville will host a hot-
air balloon festival Mother’s Day
Weekend, May 7-9.
Many special-shaped balloons will
launch from the festival grounds at
FoxView, 975 N. Main, twice a day,
weather permitting. Plus, a balloon glow
is planned Friday and Saturday nights.
Other activities will include a car show,
flea market, carnival games, bounce-hous-
es and daily entertainment.
Food trucks and vendors will be ready
to serve, and those attending are encour-
aged to bring their own lawn chairs.
For health and safety, masks are
required to be worn outside, and guests
are asked to maintain social distance.
More information can be found at
nashvilleballoonfest.com/.Fundraiser will help
hospital become
stroke-certified
Spectrum Health Foundation will host
its ninth annual Julep Gala May 15 to
raise funds for Spectrum Health Pennock
so that it can acquire the necessary tools
and training to become a stroke-certified
hospital.
Every 40 seconds, someone in the
United States has a stroke. Every four
minutes, someone dies from a stroke.
The Strides for Stroke Virtual Event is
offering a Kentucky Derby-style celebra-
tion participants can enjoy from the com-
fort of their homes, event organizers said.
An entry fee of $125 per person includes
a 5:30 p.m. virtual happy hour with social
time, pre-race bidding, online auction and
technology support. At 6 p.m., partici-
pants will be welcomed, with hat voting
in the “Best Chapeau Contest” and the
race start. The event will conclude at 7
p.m.
The goal for the gala is $50,000.
Donations will allow for continued
education for hospital and emergency
medical services staff and the necessary
equipment to treat stroke when it hap-
pens, according to event organizers. By
December, Spectrum Health Pennock is
expected to be stroke-certified, and 95
percent of the nursing staff and 90 per-
cent of the EMS team members will be
educated regarding stroke treatment and
prevention.
Stroke care equipment will be pur-
chased in 2022, and trainers will be in
place to educate the community on recog-
nizing the signs of a stroke and adopting
healthy habits to prevent them.
More information is available by call-
ing Tamara Elhart, 616-267-2986, or
emailing tamara.elhart@spectrumhealth.
org.Guides to lead
cerulean warbler
tours
Michigan Audubon will be offering
cerulean warbler guided tours May 13 to- Daily tours will begin at 8 a.m. from
the Otis Farm Bird Sanctuary southwest
of Hastings.
Experienced local guides will lead this
caravan tour to several cerulean warbler
nesting territories within the Barry State
Game Area, where participants may see
numerous other deciduous forest species,
as well.
All tours will meet at the Otis Farm
Bird Sanctuary, 3560 Havens Road,
Hastings.
Pre-registration is required and may be
accessed at michiganaudubon.org.
The tours are offered for free as part of
Help wanted: A worker
to go down the drain
Rebecca Pierce
Editor
The job description is straightforward:
Clear drainage ditches of brush, debris, trees
and other obstructions.
The physical requirements of the job are
clear: Walk long distances on uneven
territory and swampy, muddy sites while
carrying equipment and tools. Climb up and
down trenches. Lift objects weighing up to
200 pounds. Carry and operate a chainsaw
to cut trees and branches. Stoop, kneel,
crouch and crawl. Lift, drag and hook chains
to remove debris. Pull on trees so they fall in
the right direction.
Load and unload clay and plastic tile and
concrete structures. Dig ditches with a
shovel. Move logs in water or on banks of
drains. Work outside around heavy
equipment in all types of weather.
Loud noise and exposure to dust,
environmental allergens, pesticides,
herbicides and other chemicals are among
the many hazards.
Also, applicants should be comfortable
working in water up to chest-high.
Drain Commissioner Jim Dull was backbefore the county board Tuesday – after
receiving the county’s pledge of full faith
and credit on a $2.2 million Cloverdale
Drain project last week – to seek additional
hours for a maintenance worker.
Maintaining drains in a lake-rich county
are a challenge rife with problems and
perils, Barry County commissioners agreed
Tuesday.
After about 30 minutes of discussion, the
board agreed to recommend changing the
current special part-time drain maintenance
position from 19 hours a week to a regular
part-time employee working up to 35 hours
a week. The vote was 6-1 with Commissioner
Dave Jackson as the lone dissenter.
The increased cost in this year’s budget
was estimated at $11,654.
In making the request for additional
hours, Dull described the challenges they’re
facing.
His predecessor started and finished three
drain projects in eight years, he said.
“Mandatorily, once we get a petition, we
have to act on it. We’ve received 17. FourCzarnecki says goodbye;
will step down Friday
Sophie Bates
Staff Writer
During winter break 2016, then-adjunct
professor at Davenport University Jerry
Czarnecki was looking for a career change.
The math teacher, raised in Wayland, had
recently left Kelloggsville High School in
Wyoming after 25 years of teaching. He’d
excelled in that career, having been a finalist
for Michigan Teacher of the Year in 2011; but
he wanted to explore his talents and test his
capabilities.
“It was one of the things where I was just
curious what else was out there. If I could do
something other than be a teacher,” Czarnecki
recalled.
At first, he thought becoming a college
professor might be enough of change. It
wasn’t.
He decided to step away from education
altogether, but only if he found the right posi-
tion.
On a whim, he decided to see if the City of
Hastings had any job openings, and it did. It
was a position Czarnecki was interested
enough in to prompt him to leave education
behind and set out on a new adventure.
“I was on Christmas break, just sitting in
the library just kind of looking through web-sites and different things for jobs that were
available that might fit my skill set,” he said.
“And I clicked on [the city’s] website, there
was a job for the economic and community
development director, and I spent 15 cents to
print out my resume and cover letter and
walked it over to city hall. I filled out a small
application right there and it was about a
month later, I got a call.
“I had interest in that position because I
wasn’t going to jump from education unless it
was going to be was something that I thought
I was going to be interested in. So that’s what
attracted me to actually make the decision to
leave education.”
Czarnecki was hired in as Hastings’ com-
munity development director Feb. 27, 2017,
beginning his four-year stint with the City of
Hastings, which will draw to a close Friday
when he steps down as city manager.
Community development director turned
out to be an almost perfect position for him.
He found economic development intriguing,
and ever a people person, he enjoyed interact-
ing with Hastings citizens and developing
community relations.
“I was interested in the economic develop-Committee rejects proposed Culver’s restaurant driveway
Greg Chandler
Staff Writer
A new Culver’s fast-food restaurant just
west of the Hastings city limits will not have
a driveway off of M-37 and M-43.
The M-37 Corridor Committee Friday
unanimously rejected a request by project
developers for a right-in, right-out driveway
for the new restaurant, to be built at the
southeast corner of M-37/M-43 and Green
Street in Rutland Charter Township. The
committee said the proposed drive did not fit
the M-37 access management plan.
“The access management plan has identified
that location as an area where driveways are
not desired,” Michigan Department of
Transportation engineer Kerwin Keen said.
The township planning commission last
month approved a site plan for the new
restaurant, contingent on approval by the
corridor committee of a driveway off the
highway. Commissioners approved a driveway
off of Green Street into the restaurant as part
of the site plan. Commissioners were to meet
last night to consider a special land-use
request for the development.
A traffic study showed that adding a right-
in, right-out driveway off M-37 would not
significantly reduce backups on Green Street
for vehicles waiting to turn left.
“The left-turn distance for the vehiclescoming in off from Green Street, making a
left, with the addition of the right-in, right-out
driveway [off M-37/M-43] would change
from 11 feet without a driveway to 7 feet with
a driveway,” Keen said. “Effectively, the
vehicle is 20 feet long and the model predicts
that the change in queue length will be 4 feet,
so no change – one car, either with the
driveway or without the driveway, onto
M-37.”
Barry County Road Commission officials
contacted MDOT to express concerns about
the length of the backup for vehicles seeking
to turn left off Green Street.
“We do have a little bit of concern with the
northbound or northwest-bound traffic on
Green, turning left onto 37/43. It seems to be
the majority of the traffic turns left there,”
road commission operations director Jake
Welch said. “They generally don’t go straight
on Green Street to go onto Heath Road. That
lane turning left versus the people that are
heading southbound, turning left into the
Culver’s driveway – that’s a little bit of our
concern, as far as you have that who’s getting
into the lane and how quickly are you getting
into the lane, and people getting into the lane
to turn left onto 37 early being in the turn lane
to get into Culver’s.”
The proposed driveway would have been
located between two signalized intersections- one at Green Street and one leading into
Walmart – that are less than 800 feet apart.
Culver’s project manager Mikel Currier
told the committee the traffic study led him to
believe that a driveway off M-37 would
improve the situation on Green Street.
“It can only improve Green Street by
allowing a second entrance, and looking for
the long-term future as this [area along M-37]
continues to develop and become more of a
commercial corridor,” Currier said.
Rutland Township Supervisor Larry Watson
continued to voice opposition to having the
driveway go out onto M-37/M-43.
“This has been my backyard for 51 years. I
know what goes on there, and what could go
on there,” Watson said. “I don’t know,
personally, how it can be safe. A human life
means a lot to me, well over profit or money.
We do want that restaurant sitting at the top of
that hill, but we’ve got to do it safely.”
Culver’s representative Chris McGuire
asked whether it was possible for the speed
limit to be lowered on M-37 from the current
55 miles per hour, given the development in
that area.
MDOT officials said that would be unlikely.
“Speed limits are set statutorily,” Keen
said. “They’re set as the 85th percentile of the
operating speed. We can go and put signs out
there that say anything above 25 miles per
hour. It doesn’t matter, they’re not enforceable.
The law says Michigan State Police, in
cooperation with the Department of
Transportation, will complete a speed study.
They sit out there and observe how fast
vehicles go. The speed limit is set based on
the 85th percentile of those trips.
“So, until the road is squeezed down, lanes
are dropped and [movement] is restricted to a
point where people are going to operate at a
speed less than 55 miles per hour, it’s going to
remain 55 miles per hour.”
County Commissioner Catherine Getty
proposed the committee take a second look at
the access management plan, which was
created in 2004, to take into account some of
the development that has happened along the
M-37 corridor.
Keen welcomed the suggestion.
“What we should all do is take the
opportunity to look at it. It’s very
comprehensive, it’s long, and over the past 20
years, things have happened,” he said. “We
should take the opportunity to look at this and
have some bullet points that we can discuss as
a group and act on intelligently.
“This is the community’s plan. We’re going
to support it as long as it makes sense from a
safety aspect ... It’s your plan. Let’s look at it,
see what we’ve got and see where there’s
areas that need to be addressed.”Barb Pullen accepted the flag after the flag-folding ceremony at Saturday’s tribute to
her husband Charlie, who died Nov. 20. Photo by Scott Harmsen.See CZARNECKI, page 3 See FAREWELL, page 2
See DRAIN, page 2