The Sun and News, Saturday, June 19, 2021/ Page 3Board salary increases in Yankee Springs pass in 3-2 vote
Greg Chandler
Staff Writer
Elected officials in Yankee
Springs Township will get a
raise when the new fiscal
year begins next month.
On a narrow 3-2 vote at a
special meeting Tuesday
afternoon, the township
board approved a 3 percent
across the board increase that
will go into effect July 1.
Board members did not
receive a raise a year ago.
“The cost of living
increase was 1.6 [percent]
for last year, had there been
one, and it’s 1.3 [percent] for
this year,” Township Clerk
Mike Cunningham said.
Township Supervisor Rob
Heethuis’ annual salary will
increase from $25,499 to
$26,244 under the increase.
Cunningham will be paid
$27,715, up from $26,929.
Treasurer Deb Mousseau’s
salary will be identical to
Heethuis’ at $26,244, up
from $25,499.
Trustees Larry Knowles
and Dave VanHouten each
will be paid $4,214, up from
$4,095.
Cunningham said the
increase will not have a sig-
nificant effect on the town-
ship budget for the 2021-
fiscal year.
“The impact on the overall
budget, even at 3 percent, it
adds about $5,500 to the total
budget,” he said. “No one’s
getting rich off this.”
Knowles did a comparison
of salaries from Yankee
Springs with similar elected
officials in Thornapple
Township and Rutland
Charter Township, whosepopulation is comparable to
Yankee Springs.
“The only ones in the
township that are [overpaid]
are the trustees,” Knowles
said, pointing out that trust-
ees’ salaries in Yankee
Springs are more than double
those in Thornapple and
Rutland townships.
Knowles voted against
raising the board members’
salaries, but said he favored
raising salaries for deputy
positions in the clerk and
treasurer offices.
“I know they’re doing an
awful lot of work here,” he
said.
VanHouten favored the
increase because of rising
inflation rates.
“I didn’t look at it like we
were trying to make it up [for
no raise last year],” he said.“I looked at, like, what is
reality? To me, reality is our
inflation rate right now is
about 5 percent ... I don’t
feel bad at all when we start
looking at [increases] of 3 or
4 percent, just to stay even
with what inflation is going
to be this year.”
Mousseau favored raising
salaries for office employees
but opposed raises for the
board.
“Everyone here [in the
office], not the board, I think
should get two years’ worth
of cost of living raises,
because they didn’t get it last
year,” she said. “The board- it’s our first year in office.
I don’t know how [a raise]
sits with our taxpayers.”
In the end, Heethuis,
Cunningham and VanHouten
voted in favor of raising the
board salaries, while
Knowles and Mousseau said
no.
The board also reviewed
the proposed 2021-22 budget
and set a public hearing on
the budget for 6 p.m. Tuesday
at the township hall, 284 N.
Briggs Road.
The budget proposal calls
for general fund expendi-
tures of more than $1.47 mil-
lion, including the use of
$300,000 from fund balance
that has already been set
aside for renovation work at
the township hall. Several
options for the project are
being considered, with a pos-
sible decision next month.
The township hall funding
is part of $350,000 of fund-
ing set aside for capital out-
lay in the budget proposal.
Another $281,400 is plannedfor public safety, primarily
for the operation of the town-
ship fire station. About
$360,000 is proposed for
general government opera-
tions, including elected offic-
es, the assessor’s office and
cemetery upkeep. Public
works, primarily consisting
of road improvements and
recycling, would receive
$146,000, and $130,
would go toward recreation
and culture.
The township board last
year adopted a $1.11 million
budget. The budget has since
gone through several amend-
ments, most notably the
$300,000 additional from
fund balance for the town-
ship hall project, which has
not yet been spent and will
carry over into the new fiscal
year.Area man saves boy from drowning
James Gemmell
Contributing Writer
Jason Boersma and his
family had a vacation in
April they likely won’t soon
forget.
Boersma, 43, of Gaines
Township, helped save the
life of a 4-year-old boy who
was found unconscious at the
bottom of an indoor/outdoor
swimming pool at a ski resort
in Breckenridge, Colo.
For his efforts, Boersma
was awarded a special plaque
at the Gaines Township
Board of Trustees meeting
June 14. Handing the plaque
to Boersma and reading a
statement of recognition was
Breckenridge Assistant
Police Chief Deric Gress.
Ironically, Boersma and
Gress both have Michigan
roots.
Gress, who once worked
for the Ypsilanti Police
Department, made the
announcement on behalf of
Breckenbridge Police Chief
Jim Baird, who had previ-
ously served as police chief
in Ann Arbor.
The boy’s first name is
Thao. His last name was not
released. He and his family
live in Georgia and also were
visiting Breckenridge Ski
Resort at the Grand Colorado
Peak 8 on a vacation, Gress
said.
Gress said Thao and his
siblings were swimming in
the pool under the supervi-
sion of two babysitters their
parents had hired for a fami-
ly-fun day.
“The boy went down the
waterslide and into the water
a little too deep,” Gress said.
“The babysitters didn’t
notice right away, and the
boy was under water for four
minutes until someone alert-
ed the babysitters. One of
them finally jumped in and
pulled the unconscious boy
out of the water, and started
CPR. And then, Mr. Boersma
helped out with CPR for sev-
eral minutes, and basically
saved his life.”
Jason Boersma and his
wife, Jill, had been nearby,
along with their daughters
Gabbie, Alexa and Maia. All
of them began praying while
Boersma took over the CPR
duties from the babysitter.
“We just heard a scream
and someone yelled for
CPR,” Boersma recalled.
“We had been facing the
other way, looking out at the
mountain. The girls were
laying out in the sun. And I
ran over and did the CPR for
seven or eight minutes.
“It’s scary when you see a
blue-[faced] boy who is 4
1/2, and his eyes are rolled
back in his head.”
Boersma, who works at
Allied Mechanical Servicesin Grand Rapids, said he has
taken CPR courses about a
dozen times for work and
coaching purposes. Due to
the mechanical nature of his
job, safety is a priority.
“It’s really cool when you
take CPR for work or for a
job. Never in a million years
would you plan on using it,”
he told those in attendance at
the township board meeting.
“But it’s worth paying atten-
tion, because it really does
matter. My wife and kids sat
there and prayed, and God
answered, no doubt about it.”
Days after the life-saving
rescue, Boersma learned that
the little boy had to be put
into an induced coma for a
few days to give his brain
time to rest.
“And when they brought
him out of it,” he added, “I
think he had three days of
physical therapy and three
days of speech therapy. And
he regained his full ability to
speak and walk. He walked
out of [the hospital] 11 days
later.”
As for the two babysitters,
Gress told the township
board, “I may still charge
them for some negligence.”
Gress said the boy is “still
recovering. It’s a slow pro-
cess, but he is doing well.”Thornapple works to protect rare ‘oak opening’ in cemetery
Greg Chandler
Staff Writer
Thornapple Township will
establish a committee to pre-
serve an environmentally
sensitive area within Mount
Hope Cemetery.
The township board
Monday voted to create a
seven-member committee
that will develop a preserva-
tion plan for an oak opening
within the cemetery, which
has been documented as only
one of two such natural fea-
tures of its kind within the
state of Michigan, Township
Supervisor Eric Schaefer
said.
“I think it’s important we
preserve this natural feature
for Thornapple Township,”
said Schaefer, who will be
one of two board members
on the committee, along with
Trustee Kim Selleck.
Also serving on the com-
mittee will be Sarah Nelson,
Randy Eaton, Elaine Denton,
Laura Bouchard and
Catherine Getty, Schaefer
said.
Oak openings are
described by Michigan State
University Extension in its
Michigan natural features
inventory as “fire-dependent
savannas dominated by oaks,
having between 10 and 60
percent canopy, with or with-
out a shrub layer.”
Historically, they were
found in the southern Lower
Peninsula. The ground layer
is composed of species asso-
ciated with both prairie and
forest communities, includ-
ing big bluestem, Indiangrass, switch grass and por-
cupine grass, according to
the MSU Extension docu-
ment.
“I think you have an
extremely special site there,”
said Nelson, who is execu-
tive director of the Barry
Conservation District.
The site has been used for
fire training by Thornapple
Township Emergency
Services in the past, Nelson
said.
“I think it has a lot of offer
the Middleville and
Thornapple Township com-
munity, as well as education-
al opportunities and opportu-
nities for community volun-
teerism. I think [creating this
committee] is a step in the
right direction,” she said.
The committee will devel-op a budget and funding plan
for preservation of the site.
The township board would
have to approve any spend-
ing for the site.
“You’re already managing
the site in some regard or
another, so this is really just a
way to look at the big pic-
ture, to make some more
strategic long-term decisions
on how to manage [the site],”
Nelson said. “There are grant
opportunities for some of
that work. There’s also a lot
of opportunities for the con-
servation district to help with
some of the assessment and
planning.”
The board Monday also
discussed a rate study for the
Duncan Lake Sewer
Authority. The authority has
scheduled a meeting forTuesday, July 6, at which it is
expected to submit a recom-
mendation to the township
board on rates for mainte-
nance of the sewer.
“We picked that date
intentionally to be in advance
of our July board meeting, so
we could bring a recommen-
dation to this board,” Trustee
Curt Campbell said.
The board will meet on
July 8, two days after the
sewer authority meeting.
The study, prepared by
Grand Rapids-based
Progressive AE, recom-
mends a 9-percent increase
in the quarterly sewer service
fee for authority customers,
to $256. It also recommends
a connection fee in the
amount of $11,000 “to cover
reimbursement of forecastedcapital expenses of increased
treatment capacity.”
The sewer system current-
ly has 143 customers, each of
whom pay $235 a quarter for
sewer services. The authority
received revenues of
$134,420 during the 2019-
fiscal year. The current sys-
tem connection fee was
recently raised from $8,
to $25,000, according to
Progressive AE engineer Tim
Bradshaw, who submitted
the rate study.
The Duncan Lake waste-
water collection and treat-
ment facility was built in
1990, according to the
Progressive AE document.CALL FOR SUN & NEWS
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