From the notes of moderator John Hansen:
There were 46 persons in attendance today – the exact rated capacity of the room. Any other number is fake news.
We talked about a lot of serious issues today beginning with a discussion about affordable housing in the Dexter area. Affordable is a vague term – sort of average earners should be able to afford an average home in an average community – none of which seems to apply to Dexter. As usual we had experts in the room representing developers, realtors, charities and government officials. It was noted that such a combination of folks has had some preliminary discussions about a project in Dexter.
Jessica Singer, the Realtor in charge of marketing for the new Grandview Commons project, invited us to an open house on their site on Sunday, December 9 from 2:00 to 4:00 PM. The first families will be moving in early in January.
Proposal 1 allowing recreational use of marijuana is now law but there are lots of options for local governments to regulate the production and sale of the product. The electeds in the room were all aware of the challenges and are poised to take action as soon as state guidelines are finalized. Kevin Dombkowski noted that the proposal passed by a clear majority in all of the areas around us with the exception of Grass Lake. (Humor is a tolerated component of Forum discussions.)
Michael Champ was curious as to why one governmental unit would charge another governmental unit almost $200,000 to hook a new school up to sewer and water services. Our developer friend noted that it costs about $8,000 to hook up one new house to the system. We did not get into the details of the waste generating capacity of 4-500 little kids but suffice it to say that the schools and the city worked out a deal and the toilets will flush when the (yet to be named) new school opens in January.
Our next topic concerned fowl play as in lame duck. There are lots of rumors of proposals and lots of real proposals for what might happen in the next three weeks in the Michigan Legislature since we will be moving away from one party control in January. Stay tuned. Some of these proposals require super majorities which are hard to come by.
Karl and I have recorded an interview about the Forum for the local component of All Things Considered on WEMU 89.1 radio that will be broadcast on Monday, December 3 during both the 4:00 and 6:00 versions of the show. Many of the questions were about why you keep coming and why you don’t yell and argue. You can also hear the segment by getting on the WEMU website and clicking on the podcast after Monday.
The next meeting of the Dexter Forum will be on Saturday, December 15 at 8:30 AM at the Dexter Wellness Center.
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 group is moderated by Karl Fink and John Hansen.
