Last Saturday’s Dexter Forum was especially informative on some big concerns. Here are moderator John Hansen’s notes:
The Care Bear provided cornbread with sausage gravy along with valentine cookies this morning. I thought bears, care or otherwise, hibernated in the winter but these items just keep showing up.
We congratulated our own Al Ruhlig on the great article about him in We Love Dexter.com and also Doug Marrin, the author of the article.
Dale Leslie from the Kiwanis club of Ann Arbor dropped in to promote the new location of the Kiwanis thrift store on Jackson Road near Staebler (across from Menards). Top quality used goods at rock bottom prices with all profits reinvested in community projects.
And speaking of community service…..we reviewed the status of the taxability of our very own wellness center. Apparently we are still waiting for the Michigan Supreme Court to decide whether it wants to hear the appeal.
The City of Dexter facilities committee has morphed into a council committee of the whole and has taken on the added responsibility of finding a good home for the new leaf snorking machine. Those of you who are still worried about nuclear war with North Korea should take the time to learn more about the care of leaf snorking machines. All government is local.
One of our new attendees brought up the subject of parking in downtown Dexter. We really have not talked about this very much but we did find out that the city commissioned a parking study recently. It found that a lack of enforcement of current parking limits was a part of the problem along with either a lack of knowledge of or a lack of willingness to walk a little distance from available spots off of Main Street.
This led to a discussion about the high cost of housing in the Dexter area. It was mentioned that real estate listings recently showed only 26 houses for sale in the Dexter school district that were under $600,000 with several over $1,000,000. Another report showed Dexter to be the 9th wealthiest school district (out of over 500) by income in Michigan. This gave Julie Stone from E4DS (Excellence 4 Dexter Students) a chance to promote that group’s effort to “preserve, support and expand critical programs for our kids”.
Karl Fink encouraged attendance at the next meeting of the Dexter United Methodist Men’s (men being loosely defined as all persons) breakfast on Saturday, February 10 at 8:00 AM where the speaker will be Joe Evans talking about the Dexter Rotary Club’s STRIVE program which supports students in our alternative high school program.
Michael Champ encouraged attendance at the next Coffee and Conversation at St. James Episcopal Church on Thursday, February 15 at 6:30 PM where the topic will be human trafficking also known as sex slavery.
Jason Maciejewski promoted the Change Makers Boot Camp sponsored by the Huron River Watershed Council. Info at www.hrwc.org
The next meeting of the Dexter Forum will on Saturday, February 17 at 8:30 AM at the Dexter Wellness Center.
For those of you who plan ahead (way ahead) we may have to relocate our meeting on May 19 because the Wellness Center staff has a training meeting. Stay tuned.
The Dexter Forum is supported by the Dexter Wellness Coalition as part of the 5 Healthy Towns initiative to “help connect with others in healthy ways”. The purpose of the Forum is to create an opportunity for interested women and men to gather to discuss important issues facing our community. All are welcome on a drop-in basis. The group meets on the first and third Saturdays of the month.
The Forum is co-moderated by Karl Fink and John Hansen.
If you wish to be added to the Forum mailing list just send a request to RepHansen@aol.com. You will get meeting reminders, meeting notes and nothing else.
