1970-09-16; Clare Sentinel

              CITY   LIBRARY
4TH  &  fcCgy/AN
43617
GPfje Clare Sentinel
FIFTEEN CENTS
16 PAGES
WEDNESDAY. SEPTEMBER 16, 1970
OUR 93rd YEAR NEW SERIES
VOL. 93 NO. 2
Clare School Board Sets Bond Issue
Members of the Clare
Board of Education voted
to seek a $2.2 million
bond issue in a special
election December 9 after
receiving a similar re-
commendation from a citizen's group on school
facilities.
The citizen's group recommended to the board
that it seek a bond issue
of $2.2 million to finance
the construction of a new
elementary school building and to remodel the
existing elementary
school facility.
The motion to seek the
bond levy was made by
board member J. D.
Gershon and passed by the
other six board members
after more than an hour
discussion with the citizen's group on the proposal.
The propo_~ed~ bond
The proposed bond
The proposed bond
issue is more than the
$2 million originally
asked for in a June election. However, the additional funds>areneeded to
compensate for increases
in construction costs
from June to December,
if the issue is approved by
voters. Also, added costs
are derived from a new
state requirement for
school systems to pay
sales tax on construction material used in
building schools.
A similar bonding proposal was reiected by voters in a light voter turnout last June which saw
slightly more than 1,000
persons cast ballots. The
issue   lost   642   to  403.
Many of the members of
the citizen's committee
felt the previous proposal was lost because too
few people were contacted
and not enough people
voted.
Although the turnout for
the bond election was a
record for recent school
elections, the number of
votes cast represented
only 30.8 per cent segment of the registered
voters. The 1,075 who
voted in the last school
election were part of the
Worldtronic,
Union Agree
Tentative agreement
has been reached between
representatives of Worldtronic manufacturing
plant of Clare and members of Local 494 of the
Allied Industrial Workers.
The tentative agreement was reached last
Thursday between the union and company, according to Robert Ward, union
local president.
Ward and members of
the union are scheduled
to meet again this Thursday to voice final approval of a two-year contract
between approximately 60
employees and the company.
Final formal agreement and the actual signing of .the contract is expected to take place this
Friday , according to
Ward. Plant operations
are scheduled to resume
either Monday or Tuesday, according to Don
Collum,   plant manager.
The agreement reached
ended- a 13-week strike
that lasted 91 days and
began at midnight June
15. Throughout the strike
both sides reported there
was no trouble and that
the feelings between both
sides were generally
good.
Not all the details have
been' released, however,
The Sentinel learned the
union and company agreed
to a two-year contract
that calls for a 32 cent
increase on the hourly
base pay for the first
year and two separate
raises in the second year.
During the second year
of the contract the hourly
base rate would be increased 18 cents the first
six months and 12 cents
the second six months,
according to Collum.
Included in the pay
package is a holiday vacation plan for 10 paid
holidays which include a
Christmas vacation from
December   24 through
January 3. Additional
paid holidays would include Memorial, Independence and Labor Day
and Thanksgiving.
Negotiations in the 13-
week strike were stalemated several times. On
two occasions federal
mediators were called,
into the negotiations to aid
in the bargaining process.
Throughout the strike
salaried and clerical as
well as supervisory help
continued to work at the
plant.
3,485   voters  registered ■
in the school district as
of July 14.
Citizen' s committee
members felt they needed
at least a 50 to 50 per
cent voter turnout.
If voters approve the
bond proposal in December the debt retirement millage levy would
be increased from the
current two mills to
slightly over eight mills.
Each mill produces one
dollar of income for each
$1,000 of equalized property valuation.
The citizen's committee also said an additional factor to consider
in the up-coming election
would be the role played
by the non-p r o p e r t y
voter.
A recent United States
Supreme Court ruling
permits non-property
owners the right to vote
in school millage elections. However, only 35
non-property owners
voted in the last bond
election and members of
the citizen's group felt
the low turn-out in this
category was due to lack
of understanding that non-
property owners could
vote in the election.
As a result of the
board's action, School
Superintendent Richard
J... Snyder will file within
10 days an application for
preliminary qualification
of bonds with the Michigan Department of Education.
All the members of the
citizen's group present at
the meeting felt the proposal was sound, but indicated besides low voter
turn out they felt the earlier proposallost because
of the general economic
situation. Citizen's group
members also felt there
was some negative voting as a protest against
increasing property taxation.
FALL COLORS—It's getting that time again when the lazy,
hazy days of summer disappear rapidly to be replaced with
cool, crisp autumn days. Although fall doesn't officially start
nor more than a week, the leaves on trees throughout the
area are already starting to sport colors of red, orange and
yellow. This week's cool temperatures and. rainy days have
caused some residents to wonder how far around the corner
is winter. But take heart, the weatherman Has promised
warmer temperatures by the weekend to usher Michigan into
a traditional Indian summer.     (Sentinel Photo)
County Humane Society To Be Formei
Health Program
At Harrison
The first meeting
of Clare County's "On
Target Health Committee" will take place
Thursday at 8 p.m. at
the VFW Hall in Harrison.
The meeting of the
committee members and
interested persons is designed to take an overall view at the total
health care program offered in the county in all
phases.
Members will study
how the health care program affects individual
residents in the county on
several levels, such as
industrial health problems, health services
for the senior citizen and
health care for children
and students.
An intensive study of
health care services in
Clare County is currently being compiled by the
East Central Michigan
Health Service, an organization sponsored by the
U.SJ)epartmentof Health,
Education   and   Welfare.
The Thursday evening
meeting will be the second step  in a program
aimed at defining required needs and available services in a county-
wide health care program,
according to Dr. Charles
White.
Clare County may soon
have a humane society
to care for abandoned and
stray dogs through the
work of an interested citizen's group and assistance from governmental
agencies.
Activities aimed at
forming a humane society
for Clare County have
largely been directed by
Mrs. Diane Atwell of Harrison. She started a
drive to organize a humane society and animal
shelter and has received
offers of assistance from
several civic groups, the
state humane society and
the Clare County Board
of Commissioners.
Presently no county animal shelter exists. The
Cities of Clare and Harrison have dog wardens,
but they only patrol within the limits of the two
cities. The nearest animal shelter is at Mt. Pleasant, according to Mrs.
Atwell, who said an increasingly large number
of dogs are appearing
abandoned   in   the   area.
"The only place to re
port stray animals in the
sheriff s department or
police department, and
their only alternative is
to destroy the animal after a few days," Mrs.
Atwell said.
Clare County Sheriff
Ray Lippold said from
eight to 10 per cent of
the complaints received
by the sheriffs department regard dogs. He
said without hiring extra
deputies it is almost impossible to enforce a state
law that requires all dogs
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News       Inside
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3
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Farwell News... ....Page
Clare News........................u...Page
Editorials............ ....Page
Harrison News Page  5
Sports............. i Page 11
Farm News........*.........;...._i.....Page 15
to be registered and cared
for.
Last week Mrs. Atwell and Donald Love,
chairman of the Michigan
Federation of Humane
Societies, appeared before the Clare County
Board of Commissioners
and told of plans for forming a humane society.
The county board has
established a committee
to investigate the problem, headed by Commissioner Tom Bradley of
Clare, who has gathered
information on how surrounding counties care
for   abandoned   animals.
Related to the attempts
to form an animal shelter is the problem of
finding space for the animal shelter, funds to
construct the facilities
and money to pay the supervisory personnel.
Also last week Mark
McKenna, chairman of the
county board, requested
assistance from the Harrison City Commission in
attempts to form a county
humane society.
McKenna said the
county was interested in
exchanging county property for approximately
10   acres  of city  owned
property near the Harrison land fill. He indicated the county plans
to have an animal control
officer deputized by the
sheriff and allow the humane society to operate
an animal shelter.
Earlier McKenna told
The Sentinel that the
county board budgeted
$4,000 in the 1971 budget
to establish a county-wide
dog control program. He
said currently it is the responsibility of each township supervisor to take
a dog census each year
and to collect a registration fee for each dog.
The county pays each supervisor 50 cents for each
registered dog, but
McKenna said most
supervisors are too busy
with other duties to deal
with the dog problem.
Only the City of Clare
and four of the county's
16 townships have complied with the state dog
census law in recent
years according to McKenna.
"We don't want the job,
but if the townships don't
take care of it then the
county must," McKenna
said.
Two Agencies Cite '
Farwell Pollution
FERRIS  CAMPUS—While  most   students  in Clare
County   have  already   started   attending   classes,
studies will not start for nearly 200 Clare County
students until September 28 on the campus of Ferris
State College at Big Rapids.   Several new buildings
are shown in the aerial photograph in addition to
dormitories and the classroom buildings for the
six schools at the college.' Approximately 9,000
students  are  expected for this year's enrollment.
Farwell-The Village of
Farwell has been ordered
by two state agencies to
correct pollution from
village drains into the
Tobacco River.
The order to correct
the problem came from
the Department of Natural Resources and the
Water Resources Commission. The state agencies issued the order
after results were completed from a survey conducted in Farwell earlier
this summer.
Crews from the DNR
and      WRC investigated
seven drain areas from
drains in Farwell leading into Tobacco River.
The survey revealed that
six of the seven drains
investigated were discharging untreated waste
into the river flowing
through the village.
The purpose of the survey was to determine
whether raw or semi-
treated or domestic waste
was being discharged into
state waters.
In a report issued by
the    Water   Resources
Commission it was re-
Continued on Page 16
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