The Sun and News, Saturday, October 16, 2021/ Page 3WELCH, continued from page 1
atively impacts other people
- I think it’s impacting all of
us,” Welch said.
“It’s the same thing at the
road commission. The com-
ments get worse, constantly.
The angry people get worse.
Everything is moving in that
direction and at warp speed.
To have calming influences
on the board, to have people
with experience dealing with
that kind of stuff, I think
would help you.”
Welch, who also chairs the
Yankee Springs Township
Zoning Board of Appeals,
said he is used to dealing with
angry people, both through
his job and through the zon-
ing board.
“Disagreements are going
to happen,” he said. “I think
working through those [dis-
agreements] professionally
and considering multiple opin-
ions and differing views is part
of everyday life. It’s a necessi-
ty. You need to be able to
accept opposing views, you
need to be able to listen and
consistently be able to work
through those in a com-
mon-sensical way, to come to
a solution that not everybody’s
happy with, but people can
understand. I think that’s what
most people want ... As long
as they know you’re listening
and that you care, that general-
ly goes a long way to working
through those situations.”
Welch, 38, has been with
the road commission since- Prior to that, he was a
construction project manager
at Kentwood Excavating for
five years. He said his past
construction experience also
can be a benefit to the board
and district as it continues to
deal with growth.
After nearly three hours of
interviews, the board nar-
rowed the field to its top
three candidates: Welch,
Allison Hinton and Chris
Noah. Hinton is community
outreach director for the
YMCA of Barry County and
Noah is a family medicine
specialist with Middleville
Family Practice.
From there, each board
member gave their top two
choices, with two points for a
first choice and one for sec-
ond choice. Welch was the
top choice of four of the six
board members for eight
points.
“I appreciate his passion
for the district and wanting to
be here, as well as his experi-
ence with the road commis-
sion,” board vice president
Jeff Dickman said of Welch.
“There’s a lot of correlation to
what we’ve experienced here
lately [and] what he’s experi-
encing. I think he’s got a good
understanding of the role of
the board.”
“I believe the road com-
mission background, with our
ever-growing community,
will be beneficial to this board
moving forward. I liked when
he said he was listening and
advocating. I appreciated
that,” board member Krissy
Hooson said.
Dickman, Hooson, board
president Matt Powers and
board member David Smith
named Welch their top selec-
tion. Board secretary Alexis
Snyder and board member
Anne Hamming chose Hinton
as their first selection. Hinton
was a second choice of two
other board members, adding
up to a total of six points.
“She has a depth of experi-
ence that I think will serve us
very well, to be able to hit the
ground running,” Hamming
said. “I was particularly
struck by her ease, how
poised she was, how at ease
she was interacting with us.
She did not seem nervous.”Hinton has worked closely
with all four school districts
in Barry County to develop
and bring to life the B. Bus
Mobile Library, a school bus
converted into a library on
wheels. She also launched a
program to provide 4,
meals and 4,000 snacks to
local schools after they were
shut down in 2020 because of
the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I have been very con-
cerned about the state of our
community and feel that we
need to find common ground,”
Hinton said in her interview.
“We all have different beliefs,
different ways we raise our
children, how we teach our
children. We need to find a
way to come together.”
Hamming said she felt that
Hinton would fill the hole left
by Cove’s resignation.“We lost someone who was
deeply engaged in the com-
munity, who had the heart to
serve and the drive to serve,”
Hamming said. “I want that
back. I want that back on this
board. It’s an important piece
that none of the rest of us can
fill.”
Hinton was a second choice
of two other board members,
adding up to a total of six
points.
A total of nine candidates
applied for the board opening.
Two of the candidates,
Richard Hamilton and Brenda
Hess, withdrew their nomina-
tions prior to Tuesday’s inter-
views.
Also interviewing for the
position were Andrew
Parsons, a surgeon at
Spectrum Health Pennock
Hospital; Carrie Sandborn, afamily medicine physician
and instructor at Western
Michigan University;
Douglas Nagel, executive
vice president of employee
benefits at HUB International;
and Katie Stanton, a stay-at-
home mother of two TK stu-
dents and substitute teacher.
Welch also has been a vol-
unteer baseball coach with
the Thornapple Area Parks
and Recreation Commission,
has coached youth football
and basketball and currently
is a line coach for the junior
varsity and varsity football at
Thornapple Kellogg High
School.
A native of the Detroit
area, Welch attended Ferris
State University and earned a
bachelor’s degree in manage-
ment from Western Michigan
University in 2008.(269) 795-
121 E. Main Street
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THE ROOMTHE ROOM
James Gemmell
Contributing Writer
Middleville Village leaders
are scrambling to make
arrangements for public hear-
ings next month, after receiv-
ing several last-minute appli-
cations from vendors to open
marijuana-based businesses.
The village received five
applications for special land
use designations Oct. 6, which
was the last day requests could
be filed in order to be taken up
at the planning commission’s
November meeting.
Village Assistant Manager
Brian Urquhart said a notice
will be mailed to residents
“shortly” to inform them when
and where the planning com-
mission meeting will be held.
The tentative Nov. 2 meeting
at 7 p.m. in the town hall may
have to be moved, because of
some staff scheduling con-
flicts and the potential number
of attendees at the meeting.
Urquhart, who also is the
planning and zoning admin-
istrator, provided an update
at Tuesday night’s village
council meeting on the time-
line for processing the appli-
cations. He said the site-plan
review committee will look
over the applications before
sending the information to
the planning commission,
which will then hold public
hearings on both the special
land use and site plan for
each application. Afterward,
a decision will be made
whether to approve or deny
the application.
“And then, that can be sub-
mitted with the business-li-
cense application to the vil-
lage clerk, who would assign
it a number. If it’s complete,
it’ll be given to the village
manager for a scoring of the
business license application.
That would occur after our
November planning commis-
sion meeting,” Urquhart said.
All of the applications are
for businesses that would be
on M-37 or the highway com-
mercial district. One of the
five applicants is seeking to
set up two businesses at the
same address – called a co-lo-
cation – for both a medi-
cal-marijuana license and a
recreational-retail license. The
other four applicants would be
for recreational licenses, only.
A pair of recent ordinanc-
es adopted by the village
council allows special land
uses along the M-37 corri-
dor, designated by planners
as the C-1 district.
“You also can have a grow
or processing facility in the
industrials area, which is thenorth side of town,” Village
Patricia Rayl said in an inter-
view after the council meet-
ing.
An ordinance allows the
village to grant up to five
permits.
“Because you can have
recreational and medicinal
retail in the same place, that
theoretically could use up
four of those five permits. We
made sure our ordinances
limit to only two retail spots,”
Rayl said. “So, you could
have a recreational and a
medicinal in one spot, but that
would be two licenses, even
though it’s one retail store.”
The village began looking
into the process for permit-
ting marijuana operations in
January 2019, two months
after Michigan voters passed
Proposal 1 on the November
2018 ballot, adopting the
Michigan Regulation and
Taxation of Marijuana Act.
That established the basic
parameters for marijuana
operations.
The law allows adults 21
and older to possess up to 2.
ounces of cannabis, and to
grow as many as 12 plants at
home.
Urquhart said the village
council held three public-in-
put sessions in January 2019,and then spent more than two
years crafting the ordinances
that were approved during
the summer of 2021. “It’s
taken that long because it’s
extremely complicated, and
there are a lot of strong opin-
ions on both sides.”
The village council passed
an ordinance amendment in
June to authorize and regu-
late marijuana businesses as
special land uses. Marijuana
businesses are not allowed to
set up shop within 1,000 feet
of any lot where there is a
school, a church or a licensed
daycare facility.
Urquhart said village plan-
ners are working on a larger
development conceptual plan
in a major redevelopment area.
One aspect is related to the
operation of a marijuana retail
establishment in a planned unit
development district. The PUD
would be on M-37.
It costs $5,000 to apply for
a license to open a marijua-
na-based business. Rayl said
after the license application is
deemed to be complete, there
is a 21-day process to evaluate
the application and decide
whether to approve or reject it.
“We’re working diligently
to make sure that we give
everybody an even shake,”
Rayl said. “And that is whywe’re having multiple meet-
ings for the site-plan review.
The public hearings. So,
there is no advantage to any-body because the decisions
will be made at a subsequent
meeting after the public
hearings.”Marijuana vendors submit applications to Middleville
Greg Chandler
Staff Writer
The Thornapple Kellogg
Board of Education named
new officers for the remainder
of this year at Monday’s board
meeting.
Matthew Powers, who had
been the board vice president
prior to last month’s resigna-
tion of president Kristen Cove,
was appointed as the new pres-
ident. Powers, who is a teacher
in the Maple Valley Schools,
has served on the TK board
since November 2018.
He read a statement toward
the end of the board meeting,
where he spoke about the com-
ments he had received around
the community in recent
weeks.
“I was overwhelmed by the
support of our amazing TK
community. People talked to
me at church, at restaurants, as
well as the homecoming
parade and festivities,” he said.
Powers later spoke abouthow to repair the divided
nature of the community.
“They asked me to work to
bring our community back
together. Everyone here,
everyone here today has a love
for our schools, students, staff
and the Middleville communi-
ty,” he said. “I encourage
everyone to share that love and
respect as we make our way
through this school year, one
day at a time. Let us keep cel-
ebrating the amazing talents of
our administrators, teachers
and students ... Together, we
are TK Strong.”
Jeff Dickman, who has been
a member of the board since
April 2015, was elected vice
president by his board col-
leagues to replace Powers.
David Smith, the longest-serv-
ing member of the board with
27 years of experience, was
chosen to be treasurer. Alexis
Snyder will retain her current
office of board secretary until
the end of the year.TK selects new school
board officers