Page 6/The Sun and News, Saturday, January 8, 2022Middleville mother asks for help to find missing teen
Greg Chandler
Staff Writer
A Middleville mother is
desperately seeking her
missing teenage daughter
and she’s asking for help.
Fifteen-year-old Kiara
Baker went missing from
an inpatient care facility in
Detroit Nov. 21 and is
believed to be in the Grand
Rapids area. Her mother,
April Saladino, worries that
her daughter may be vul-
nerable to human traffick-
ing.“We need to find her. She
is not safe on the street. She
is not safe from herself; she
is not safe from whoever is
hiding her,” Saladino said
Wednesday.
Kiara reportedly took a
bus to Grand Rapids afterleaving the Detroit
Behavioral Institute. She
was reportedly seen Dec.
27 in a red SUV at a stop
sign next to Hall Street
Party Store on the southeast
side of Grand Rapids.
“We’ve gotten several
tips that she’s been panhan-
dling with an older black
male, around 40 years old,”
Saladino said. “That was
literally seven minutes from
my work, so I booked it at
lunch to see if I could rec-
ognize if it was her or not
... I did not see anybody
with that description in that
area.”
Kiara has a history ofmental health issues, her
mother said.
“She’s a normal teenager
when she’s on her meds,”
she said. “When she’s off of
them, it’s out of control.”
In October 2021,
Saladino requested a depen-
dency hearing with the
Department of Human
Services. Kiara was made a
temporary ward of the court
and was sent to the Detroit
Behavioral Institute. Since
then, Kiara has gone absent
without leave at least three
times from that facility,
Saladino said.
Kiara is apparently using
the the social media mes-saging app Snapchat under
an alias to communicate
with people, Saladino said.
“I believe she is in Grand
Rapids,” she said. “We are
trying to get a warrant for
that Snapchat [account].
She messaged my sister the
other day on Snapchat and
said, ‘I don’t know where
they have me. You’re not
going to find me.’ ”
Kiara is described as
5-foot-4, 176 pounds, with
dark brown or red-
dish-brown hair.
Any tips that may lead to
her whereabouts may be
sent to Grand Rapids Police
at (616) 456-3400 or Detroit
Police at (313) 569-5900.
Information may also be
sent to the National Center
for Missing and Exploited
Children at (800)-THE-
LOST (843-5678).Intersections in Irving, Hastings townships get upgrade
Greg Chandler
Staff Writer
The Barry County Road
Commission has upgraded
two intersections to four-
way stops, including one
intersection where rumble
strips had been installed
more than two years ago
after two fatal crashes
occurred there within sev-
eral months of one another.
New stop signs were
installed Tuesday on Eckert
Road at Wood School Road
in Irving Township, and,
on Monday, stop signs
were installed on Center
Road at Charlton Park
Road in Hastings Charter
Township, Road
Commission Engineering
and Operations Director
Jake Welch said.
The decision to add the
signage followed a review
of traffic volumes and acci-
dent history at both inter-
sections, Welch said.
At the Eckert and Wood
School intersection, thedecision to make the inter-
section a four-way stop
came more than two years
after rumble strips were
installed on the Wood
School approach to Eckert
to warn people of the
approaching stop sign. The
rumble strips, along with
“stop ahead” signage, were
installed following two
fatal crashes – one in July
2019 that killed a 53-year-
old Freeport woman and
one in September 2019 thattook the life of a 3-month-
old.
Seven accidents were
reported at the Eckert/
Wood School intersection
between 2008 and 2019,
with four of the crashes
resulting from drivers fail-
ing to stop for the stop sign
on Wood School, Welch
said in a September 2019
interview.
Since then, Welch said
that, while there had been
no new accidents since therumble strips were
installed, there had been
numerous complaints
among nearby residents of
vehicles still failing to stop
for the stop sign on Wood
School.
At Center Road and
Charlton Park Road, six
accidents have been report-
ed since 2014, with the
most common cause being a
vehicle stopping on
Charlton Park Road, then
pulling out into the path ofa vehicle on Center Road
that had the through move-
ment, Welch said.
Previous preventative
measures at that intersec-
tion were installation of a
“cross traffic does not stop”
signage under the stop signs
on Charlton Park and the
painting of a wide white
stripe at the intersection
pavement to encourage
vehicles to not encroach too
far into the intersection,
Welch said.Gaines expecting $24K from national opioid settlement
James Gemmell
Contributing WriterGaines Charter Township
will receive about $24,
as its share of a $26 billion
national settlement with an
opioid manufacturer and
three distribution compa-
nies. The funds will be dis-
tributed over several years.
More than 4,000 state
and local governments filed
lawsuits last year against
Johnson & Johnson and
drug distributors Ameri-
sourceBergen, Cardinal
Health and McKessen.
Under the settlement, the
four firms will pay up to
$21 billion over 18 years
for their alleged roles in the
opioid epidemic.
The Gaines Township
Board received late notice
from the state and quickly
called for a special board
meeting Dec. 29. Township
Manager Jonathan
Seyferth said the meeting
was mainly to authorize
the township’s acceptance
of about $24,000 in settle-
ment funds. No members
of the public were present
at the meeting. Seven
township board members
attended, as well as
Seyferth and two township
staff members.
“The state reached out to
me (Dec. 15), letting me
know we were eligible to
participate,” Seyferth said.
“Until that point, we were
not aware we were one of
the municipalities in
Michigan eligible to receive
funds.”
Evidently there was
some state or federal gov-
ernment communication
mix-up that delayed the
township from finding out
about its eligibility until
mid-December. The eligi-
bility and allocation
determinations are based
on a municipality’s popu-lation size. “It looks like
when they originally sent
out the communications,
they had the Gaines
Township in Genesee
County listed, not us,”
Seyferth said. “So, we
didn’t get any of the orig-
inal communications.
“The township had a lot
of info to process in a short
period of time and the state
let us know we needed to
have all the documents pro-
cessed by Sunday, Jan. 2.
The township’s attorney
(Clifford Bloom) recom-
mended that the board give
approval prior to finishing
the paperwork – so that
necessitated the special
meeting.”
Seyferth said the approx-
imate $24,000 the township
will receive will be distrib-
uted in payments over 15
years. “The first year, we’ll
receive two payments. And
then after that it will be onepayment per year. There is a
possibility it could be a lit-
tle bit more.”
The state told the town-
ship its first payment will
be sent sometime in the
spring.
Kent County provides
Narcan – an emergency
treatment to reverse symp-
toms of opioid overdose –
to local police and fire
departments. Gaines
Township incurs no cost for
that.
The opioid settlement
includes a list of approved
uses for the funding. For
example, dollars can be
applied to training the per-
sonnel who respond to
overdose cases. “We could
also use it for educational
purposes, but it would
have to be somewhat relat-
ed to opioids or drug treat-
ments, things like that,”
Seyferth said in a phone
interview.As for the special town-
ship board meeting,
Township Trustee Laurie
Lemke said in an email
reply to the Sun and News
that the meeting notice
was publicly posted.
Under Michigan’s Open
Meetings Act, notices of
special meetings must be
posted within 18 hours of
the meeting time.
However, at the time this
article went to press, there
had been no response to an
email from the newspaper
requesting what day and
time the meeting notice
was posted.
Seyferth said in a phone
interview there “wasn’t
any intention to not fill
anybody in.” He said the
year-end meeting was
necessitated by the time
constraint caused by the
late notification from the
state about the settlement.
He said township officialswere left scrambling the
week leading up to
Christmas trying to obtain
the necessary information
to process the settlement
application.
“So, then we were look-
ing at, ‘Do we actually
need to have board approv-
al?’ We were hoping that
we didn’t. But then when
the attorney came back
and said, ‘You should
probably do it,’ that (Dec.
29) was the only available
date (for the board meet-
ing).”
He said the township
board meeting lasted about
20 minutes.
“We ended up putting
two additional housekeep-
ing items on the agenda:
an additional budget
amendment to cover the
third pay period for
December, and the renew-
al of the township’s insur-
ance.”Caledonia, MI
“Your Safety is Important to Us”
— State of the Art Systems —
3 Complete Collision Service
3 Frame Repairs
3 State & I-CAR Certified Technicians
3 Direct Repair Facility * Most insurance companiesOpen Monday thru Friday 7:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
616.891.
Ed Pawloski Jr., Owner
110 Johnson St., Caledonia • http://www.edsbody.comWater Bourne SystemQUESTIONS:
ASK US...
Sisters Fabrics
218 E. State St., Hastings • 945-
OPEN: Monday-Friday 8 am-5:30 pm;
Saturday 9 am-3 pm
Pray For Our Country >
QUESTIONS:
ASK US...
Sisters Fabrics
218 E. State St., Hastings • 945-
OPEN: Monday-Thursday 8 am-5:30 pm;
Friday 8 am-7 pm; Saturday 9 am-5:30 pm- 108" Cotton - many colors^
- Beautiful Prints for Quilters
- Zippers, Thread, Buttons, Trim
- Hulst Dry Cleaners Pick-Up
Station
Kiara Baker