The Hastings Banner — Thursday, May 6, 2021 — Page 3Main page 3
Hastings school board approves superintendent
contract, facility and equipment purchases
Sophie Bates
Staff Writer
Hastings Superintendent Matt Goebel will
receive a $135,000 salary for 2021-22, under
the first of a three-year contract, approved at
the April 28 Hastings Board of Education
meeting.
The contract, effective April 12 through
June 30, 2023, includes a pay raise each year.
The $135,000 Goebel will receive for his
first year as superintendent will be prorated
since he did not assume the responsibilities of
superintendent officially until April 12.
In the contract’s second year, Goebel’s
salary will increase to $137,500 and for 2022-
23, his salary will increase to $140,000 for
2022-23. In addition to his base salary, Goebel
will receive an annual $4,000 stipend, which
will increase to $6,000 in 2022-23.
The contract is eligible for extension by
one extra year. If during his 2021-22 annual
performance evaluation, Goebel receives a
rating of ‘highly effective’ or ‘effective,’ his
contract will be extended an extra year until
June 30, 2024.
The contract includes annual bonuses, the
amount of which is based off Goebel’s annual
performance evaluation. Goebel would
receive $3,000 if rated ‘highly effective’,
$2,000 if rated ‘effective’ and no bonus if
rated ‘minimally effective’ or ‘ineffective.’
“We’ve got a very competitive and fair
contract,” board of education President Luke
Haywood said. “I’m really pleased with what
we ended up with. I think it’s a competitive
contract and offers some incentive to keep a
superintendent here.”
The board unanimously approved the
contract and afterward erupted into applause.
“I’d like to thank the entire board,” Goebel
said. “This job has been a great job and I love
this community and I love the school district.
I look forward to many years of that. So,
thank you.”
In addition to the superintendent contract,
the board also approved several expenditures
for facility upgrades and equipment.
The board approved a purchase of up to
$28,000 to replace two 1998 maintenance
vehicles with rust and engine issues; $9,
to O.P. Aquatics to replace the pool filter at
the Community Education and Recreation
Center; and $7,745 to Pioneer Athletics for
the purchase of a Crewzer Jr. turf brush, as
requested by the maintenance department.
Additionally, the board approved up to
$66,247 to Straight Line Fencing to replace
portions of fencing at the high school softball
field, the middle school and Central
Elementary. Included in the cost is
Northeastern Elementary, currently the only
building in the district without fencing, which
will receive a six-inch chain-link fence along
the west and northern ends of the playground.
The district also is investing in a new
website, which Goebel said they hope to have
up and running before the upcoming school
year. The website will be easier to navigate
and use via mobile devices and will enable
students to check their grades and
communicate with teachers all on one site.
For the new website, the board approved
$11,900 to Edlio LLC, a website-design
company exclusively for K-12 schools.
The board of education also approved a
second revision to the 2020-21 budget. The
first budget revision was passed in November
2020.
The revision calls for a $380,902 increase
in revenue from local, state and federal
income, amounting to $27.29 million. In the
first budget revision, revenues were estimated
to be $26.9 million.
Expenditures also increased $621,070,
from just over $26 million to $26.63 million.
During his report, Goebel acknowledged
personnel changes among district staff that
have occurred since the March board meeting.
Among those leaving the district are Kelly
Adriason, building secretary at CentralElementary; Tina Bovee, first grade teacher at
Northeastern; Jennifer DeZwaan, food service
snack bar supervisor at the high school;
Kimberly Sweeris, high school math teacher;
Tiffany Speer, health care paraprofessional at
Star Elementary; Kelly Tobias, administrative
assistant in the administration office; and
Nikki Todd, food service employee at
Southeastern.
Among those hired are: Lawrence
Blessing, substitute paraprofessional; Megan
Deal, JV girls’ soccer coach; Skyler Grego,
community center cardio and weight room
attendant; and Jason Slaughter, middle school
track coach.
In other business, the board:- Held the second hearing for and approved
NEOLA policies. - Approved fee schedule for the Hastings
Performing Arts Center. The schedule includes
and outlines several different rental options
and offers reduced prices for nonprofit
organizations. The PAC will remain free to
use for districct events and groups. - Accepted a $2,807 donation from the
Hastings Education Enrichment Foundation.
The donation included $175 for a subscription
to Scholastic News magazines for first grade
at Northeastern Elementary for the 2021-
school year; $275 for the purchase of novel
sets for Honors English language arts at the
middle school; $191 for the purchase of a
Mightier Program at Northeastern; $241 for
the purchase of a sewing machine for the
Innovation and Design classroom at the
middle school; and $1,950 for the purchase of
STEM materials at Southeastern. - Adopted a Schools of Choice resolution.
An artist rendering depicts what the new assisted-living housing complex might look like. (Image provided)Groundbreaking set for $
million assisted-living project
Thornapple Manor, the 161-bed county-
owned skilled-nursing facility three miles east
of Hastings, will host groundbreaking
ceremonies for Harvest Pointe, a new 50-unit
assisted living housing project, at 2 p.m.
Friday, May 21. The public is welcome to
attend.
This complex, which will be built next to
Thornapple Manor at 2950 McKeown Road
in Hastings, is expected to help address some
of the critical housing issues in Barry County
for senior living.
“As part of a larger growth plan, to
include an independent-living campus, we
will be including the infrastructure, which
will be enable additional growth with the
demands of the future for affordable living in
our area,” Thornapple Manor Administrator
Don Haney said.
“Thornapple Manor will be 100 percent
responsible for all debt payments, including
the start-up phase,” he said. “We’ve been
working on this for over two years. We are
extremely excited to start this project and
appreciate the support we have received from
our commissioners and community.”
Harvest Pointe will offer one-bedroom,
one-bedroom deluxe suites and studio units.
With dining services, spa, on-site laundry
services, walking paths, transportation
availability, barber/hair salon, activities,
housekeeping, mail services, on-call nursing
and more, Harvest Pointe will fit the needs of
many, he said.Further information is available by calling
269-945-1326.Hastings City Manager Jerry Czarnecki’s last day on the job is Friday. (File photo)Harvest Pointe, a new 50-unit assisted living housing project, will be built next to
Thornapple Manor at 2950 McKeown Road in Hastings. (Photo by Scott Harmsen)ment part of it. I had a lot of fun doing that.
You know, I enjoy interacting with people. I
liked the position because I was out and about
talking with people and people would share
what they’re thinking about doing, and that
would put a dot in my mind. And then later on
I would be talking with somebody else and
that would create a dot and I would go, ‘Hey,
wait a minute. I can draw a line between these
two dots.’ And that’s how I built some rela-
tionships between people,” Czarnecki said.
“And yeah, that was a lot of fun. I really,
really enjoyed that.”
While he enjoyed the role, it turned out
only to be a pit-stop in Czarnecki’s time with
the city, during which he held five different
positions.
Less than a year later, Jan. 8, 2018,
Czarnecki became the city’s clerk and treasur-
er.
As a former math teacher, he had the know-
how, and it was an opportunity for him to
again test his abilities and learn something
new.
Being tucked away in an office laboring
over numbers wasn’t his favorite position, so
it was a temporary one.
“I didn’t know anything about being the
treasurer, but I’m a big fan of learning and
stretching yourself. So I moved over there,
and that wasn’t the most favorite job that I’ve
had. I enjoyed my time there. I enjoyed the
staff — it’s a great staff in that department,
but it didn’t fit me. I’m more of a people per-
son.”
Shortly after he began the clerk/treasurer
position, former Hastings city manager Jeff
Mansfield announced his retirement. The city
council ultimately voted to have him take the
position as the new city manager.
Czarnecki began to transition out of the
clerk/treasurer position and helped hire Jane
Saurman, Hastings’ current clerk/treasurer.
Czarnecki trained Saurman in the role around
the same time as Mansfield was training
Czarnecki to be the next city manager.
He began the deputy city manager position
in January 2019, but quickly took up a new
role as the interim director of public services
in March 2019.
Czarnecki enjoyed the role — particularly
working with the city’s various departments
— but in July 2019, he again changed jobs
becoming the Hastings city manager.
The uniqueness of the position — and the
fact that he oversaw so many facets of the
city’s operations — made the city manager
position one of Czarnecki’s favorites.
“Not a lot of people have been city manag-
ers. There’s not a lot of people — it’s a pretty
specific job. It’s just all the things you get to
be involved in, because really the city manag-
er is the chief executive officer, but you over-
see so many functions of the city. And ...
there are things that it’s just very, very inter-
esting to be on side of the veil,” Czarnecki
said.
The city manager position was particularly
fitting, Czarnecki said, because it connected
to the same desire to help others that had
prompted Czarnecki to start his career in edu-
cation.
“I always told the students — and my goal
here [at the city] has always been to remove
obstacles that people have in front of them so
that they have the best opportunity to be suc-
cessful. And I think both education and here
you do a lot of those things of ‘how do we
remove some of these obstacles that are not
necessarily the individual’s creation,’” he
said. “The city manager [position], as I men-
tioned, fits right into my goal of trying to
remove obstacles. I’m helping my staff. I’m
trying to remove obstacles so that they can be
as efficient and successful as they can be,
which then in turn benefits the community.
And that, to me, is the biggest thing...
[because] any success here at the city really
needs to be given to the staff and to the lead-
ership because they’re the ones that shoul-
dered in and carried it across the finish line. I
just provided the opportunities and tried to
remove the obstacles.”
During his time with the city, he faced chal-
lenges in many shapes and sizes, not least of
all steering the city through the first year of
the COVID-19 pandemic. The biggest chal-
lenge, however, was simply not having
enough time in each of his roles to feel he had
truly mastered the job.
The uncertainty of moving from one posi-
tion to another brought stress and is a source
of melancholy for Czarnecki, who said he
finally feels like he’s hit his stride in the city
manager position, even as he prepares to
leave.
“The thing that challenged me the most wasI was never really in a position long enough to
master it. It was always relearning. Just about
the time you think you’re starting to get in a
little bit of a groove, I would switch to anoth-
er one. The year-and-a-half that I’ve been city
manager is the longest I’ve been in any one
position,” he said. “So that probably was the
biggest challenge. I kept telling my wife when
I moved from one position to the next that it
is going to slow down because eventually I’ll
find my groove. And then I would come home
and say, ‘Guess what? I’m going to be ...’
“I would joke with people and said maybe
I’ll write an autobiography and I’ll title it ‘I
Never Thought I’d ...’ I never thought I’d be
a clerk/treasurer. I never thought I’d be a city
manager.”
Holding so many positions within the city
came with certain benefits, too. It gave
Czarnecki the opportunity to test his abilities
— the reason he left education in the first
place.
“I’ve learned a lot of things about myself,”
he said. “I’ve learned that I am adaptable, that
I can learn new skills. The old saying you
can’t teach an old dog new tricks — I defied
that, and I guess I’ve proven to myself, being
in these positions, that I wasn’t just one-di-
mensional. I could do more than just one
thing. I have sort of some abilities to live in
different world and be successful.”
As he looks forward to a new chapter in his
life, Czarnecki is optimistic — both for the
city and himself. His son, Aaron, recently
graduated from Western Michigan University
and his daughter, Alicia Czarnecki-Pellegrino,
is married and living in Indiana. It’s an oppor-
tunity for Czarnecki and his wife Bridgett —
who will have been married 30 years in June
— to explore a new chapter in their lives.
Spending time with his wife, his high school
sweetheart, is one of Czarnecki’s favorite
activities, and he’s looking forward to doing
more of it.
“We’re in an interesting situation right now,
where our youngest just graduated from col-
lege on Saturday. He has a job down in
Virginia. And our oldest is married and lives
in Indiana. And so my wife and I are looking
for a new adventure, I guess,” he said. “What
we’re finding out right now — because both
of the kids are out of the house — my wife
and I would like to some travelling. A lot of
the travelling is going to see them. Again, I
love spending time with my wife. I’m fortu-
nate that we’ve been married for almost 30
years and I wouldn’t trade one moment of it.”
There are many things Czarnecki said he
will miss about the City of Hastings — for
example, knowing the inside scoop on city
projects —but chief among them are the com-
munity and city employees.
Czarnecki credits each success during his
time as city manager — such as road resurfac-
ing projects, the installation of new play-
ground equipment and upgrades at the waste-
water treatment plant — to city staff.
“One of the biggest things for me, across
the board, is the employees and the staff here
at the City of Hastings are in my mind second
to none. I mean, I really enjoyed working with
the different departments when I was depart-
ment head, but also from where I sit now. The
staff is — they’re amazing. The city should be
proud of what they have working for them,”
Czarnecki said.
His proudest accomplishment, he said, is
the positive relationship between the city, its
staff and its community, which makes
Czarnecki optimistic for whoever comes
along as his replacement.
“There’s a very positive attitude around the
city right now, from community members as
well as employees and that kind of stuff. You
know, I like to think that I have played little
bit of a hand in that,” Czarnecki said. “I love
working here ... this is the coolest job I’ve
ever had. And I just — it’s just time for me to
move on to something else, to give somebody
else an opportunity to continue moving things
forward.”CZARNECKI, continued from page 1
NEWS BRIEFS,
continued from page 1
Michigan Audubon’s education program. A
suggested donation of $10 is optional when
registering and will be used for Otis Farm
Bird Sanctuary improvement projects, includ-
ing habitat restoration work, interpretive sig-
nage, and general improvements to enhance
visitor experience and bird habitat.
Tour sizes will be limited to 15 or fewer
people. Participants are required to wear a
mask and practice social distancing while on
the tour.
Questions regarding Cerulean Warbler
tours may be directed to Lindsay Cain via
email, [email protected], or by
calling 517-580-7364.M-179 to close next week
for casino construction
Starting next Monday morning, 129th
Avenue/M-179 will be closed on the east side
of Gun Lake Casino for one week due to work
for the Gun Lake Casino expansion project.
The casino can still be reached from the
west side, and access to U.S. 131 will remain
open, the Michigan Department of
Transportation said.
A detour will reroute drivers south on 12th
Street, east on 124th Avenue and north on
10 th Street.Call 269-945-
for Hastings
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