| Safe Routes To School Grant Request |
The City of Grant submitted a $23,250 request to The Fremont Area Community Foundation for assistance with the engineering costs necessary to secure a Safe Routes To School Grant. On April 26, 2011 the grant request was approved, and we have been working with Grant Public Schools since then to plan for the installation of nearly one mile of new sidewalks within the City limits leading to each of the schools. The new sidewalks will be installed in the summer of 2012, and will provide students and other pedestrians safer options when traveling between the schools and around the east side of M-37 in the City of Grant.
The preliminary plans for the Safe Routes to School project are available for inspection, and comments should be directed to the Grant City Manager.
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City Commission Reviewing Solid Waste Ordinance (Trash Removal)
The Grant City Commission has reviewed the bids for solid waste haulers as the current ordinance is set to expire at the end of the calendar year. The decision was made at the November 21, 2011 City Commission meeting to extend the current contract with A-Waste for another five years.
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Budgeting 101 for Taxes
Are you or someone you know struggling to catch up and pay your property taxes on time? The Newaygo County Treasurer's Office is offering Budgeting 101 for Taxes page 1 page 2 to assist families in holding onto their homes and avoiding tax foreclosure. Questions should be directed to the phone number provided on their flyer.
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Recycling Center Drop-Off Site ~ Location Change
The Recycling for Newaygo County trailers are no longer behind the old Learning Center building that was demolished. Instead, the trailers were moved directly across the street from the Elementary School on Park Dr. Your assistance is greatly appreciated in ensuring that no dumping takes place at the recycling trailers. Questions about the recycling program? Contact Recycling for Newaygo County at (231) 924-5822.
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Winter Sidewalks Reminder
Grant City Charter Section 3.2 (3)e Requires "all persons to keep sidewalks which are in the area of streets immediately adjacent to the premises owned, controlled, or occupied by them, free from anything which obstructs such sidewalks, or which makes the same offensive or hazardous to the public health or safety, and upon failure to do so, to remove and assess the cost thereof against such property as a special assessment".
In a nutshell, please shovel your sidewalks and keep them free of hazardous conditions! In heavy snowfall events with accumulations of ten (10) or more inches of snow, the City will bring in equipment necessary to clear the sidewalks for you. This equipment is costly to operate, and annual budgets that shrink more every year make it difficult to justify the expense. Please be patient as it can take two or three days to get to every sidewalk.
Snowplowing Educational Video
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If you have not yet visited Blanche Lake Park in 2011, there is still time to check it out this fall! During the annual City Volunteer Clean-Up Day held in May, a large group of mainly student volunteers (Lead Out Team consists of 7th and 11th grade students) spent over 3 hours cleaning both sets of stairs, raking the upper trails and hauling out downed limbs, re-painting picnic tables, raking, picking up branches from the grounds, and even blazing the beginning of a trail loop through the existing lower trail. A large amount of limbs were hauled out and removed, and everyone did a fantastic job. A special thanks to Tricia Schuitema of Grant Public Schools and the Lead Out Team sponsored by Hope College. There is no way we would have made so much progress without the help of the Lead Out Team. We are already making plans to continue with the lower trail in May 2012, and we hope to have even more volunteers.
The City is working with PLM Lake and Land Management to treat invasive species in Blanche Lake, and the first round of treatment went well. We were unfortunately not able to obtain the large Ice Mountain grant needed to help fund a long-term multi-year series of treatments. To learn more about Eurasian watermilfoil and other aquatic vegetation found in Blanche Lake, please refer to the Blanche Lake Survey Results and Recommendations May 2011.
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| Congratulations City Manager of The Year Award Recipient! |
The Michigan Rural Water Association awarded Grant City Manager Doug La Fave the prestigious honor on Thursday, March 17, 2011 at their annual awards banquet in Traverse City. Although Doug knew he would be traveling to accept an award on behalf of the city, he was not aware it was a personal award for his innovative ideas, accomplishments, and commitment to the City of Grant. When you see Doug, please join us in congratulating him on this deserving award!
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| New City of Grant Orthophotography |
http://www.countyofnewaygo.com/GIS/GISHomepage.htm provides a direct link to the official Newaygo County GIS Online Mapping section of their website. The first time you click on the link, you will need to download a free viewer called Microsoft Silverlight. Once you download the software, the link will open properly. Look for the "New GIS Map Viewer", then click on "Go to the map viewer", then once it opens, look to the far right for an arrow button with "Layers" and select down near the bottom the "2010 Ortho-Grant/Newaygo". Once you select that, the high resolution orthophotography for Grant/Newaygo will be displayed. To enlarge the map, look for the gray circle with the plus and minus sign and click on plus. You can move the image easily and continue clicking on the plus sign until the parcel(s) you are looking for is enlarged enough to display the information you need. Please be advised the scale will always be off a little, and usually within about twenty feet. The only definitive way to determine accurate property lines is to have the property surveyed.
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| Dogs Found In The City of Grant |
We have had an almost regular stream of dogs turned in to the City of Grant over the past few months. While almost all of them do have a collar, none of them had tags! During the week staff make every attempt to reunite dogs with their owners, often including a trip to a local veterinarian to ask for a complimentary microchip scan check. Since the Police Department does not own a microchip scanner, our options are limited by those normal business hours. Because of this, if a dog is turned over to us in the evening or during a weekend, this option is not available. As a last resort, our Police Department Officers take the dog to the Newaygo County Animal Shelter. We do try to create a simple flyer to distribute in prominent businesses for these dogs, and keep our fingers crossed they are eventually reunited with their owner. While we hope to one day have a microchip scanner available to scan these dogs at any time of the day for anyone who finds a lost dog, it is simply not available to us at this time.
We are hoping next fiscal year to be able to purchase some blank dog tags and a small hand-held engraver to help identify dogs that have temporarily in our possession. Once we have identified the animal's name and an owner's phone number, we would like to be able to engrave a simple tag and provide it to the owner of the dog at cost in an effort to prevent this common problem from recurring. We are tackling the problem one dog at a time!
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| Cats, cats, and more cats! |
The City of Grant is in the process of determining whether the City has one or more colonies of feral cats. Before anything can be done to solve a problem, we need to first identify what the actual problem is. Some residents seem to think there is a problem with feral cats and some do not. If you see feral cats in the City of Grant, please help us by gathering as much information as possible. We need to know information such as where they are coming from and going back to? Are they approachable and friendly or do they run from people? This will help us better determine if we have owned cats that are allowed outdoors, abandoned pets, or feral cats. We have purchased two live traps for City residents to check out to live trap cats, with a required deposit. Please call ahead to (231) 834-7904 to ensure the traps are available on not currently checked out.
Resources Available:
Lake Haven Animal rescue, contact: Cheryl McCloud; 551 Pickerel Lake Drive, Newaygo, Michigan (on the south shore of Pickerel Lake). Phone: 231-652-7507. Email: info@lakehavenrescue.org. They take strays cats and dogs and places them with adoptive families, just call ahead to make arrangements as limited space is available. http://www.lakehavenrescue.org/pdf-files/CatsandDogsMagazineArticle.pdf
http://www.lakehavenrescue.org/about.htm
http://www.lakehavenrescue.org/stories.htm.
Newaygo County Animal Shelter, 78 N. Webster St., White Cloud, Michigan Tel (231) 689-1867 or (231) 689-7020 (voicemail). The animal shelter is open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday between the hours of 11:00am and 1:00pm. We recommend that you call ahead so that they know you are coming. The animal shelter does work with lake Haven Rescue to place some animals from turned over to them.
Looking for a low cost spay and neuter program available for low income households? Call (231) 652-1333 and leave a voice message. They will have a volunteer call you back. Through this program, arrangements are made with a veterinarian for low cost spaying/neutering of cats and dogs. Only qualifying, low-income households are elgible, and this program is sponsored through Lake Haven Animal Rescue
Live Traps available: Lake Haven Rescue, Newaygo County Animal Shelter, and City of Grant all have live traps that can be checked out by Grant City residents to catch strays and feral cats. There is a deposit required, which you get back once the trap has been returned with any animals and in proper condition. The trapped cats should be taken to the Newaygo County Animal Shelter or to Lake Haven Rescue. The City of Grant does not accept live traps with animals inside.
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| Grant Area Chamber of Commerce |
Chamber of Commerce News
The Chamber of Commerce sponsored a Holiday Decorating Contest among its members. Essentially, guests were encouraged to vote for their favorite decorated member business by casting their "vote" with spare change. The contest ran from December 1 - January 7, and the business collecting the most spare change won the contest, with $322 raised during the contest! Congratulations Sharla Schipper - State Farm Insurance for winning the first annual Holiday Decorating Contest! The proceeds will be used by the Chamber to purchase new holiday decorations for the new streetlight poles in downtown Grant.
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| Other Helpful Information |
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Brush & Yard Waste Pick-Up Policy Change Effective Spring 2009 Please be advised the brush and leaf bag pickup is in full swing between April 1 and November 1, 2011
Brush and bagged leaves are picked up by the DPW from April 1 until November 1 each year. As of May 1, 2009, only leaves bagged in biodegradable paper bags are be picked up by the Department of Public Works crew. There has been a little confusion surrounding the biodegradable bags, as a few residents have purchased and attempted to use recycled bags. The bags we will pick up are brown paper bags much like those your groceries are placed in at the local store, but significantly larger. Please check with our local merchants if you are unsure which bags are needed. Regular brush pick-up resumed on April 1, 2011 and will continue on the 1st and the 15th of each month. Please do not place your brush and leaves at the curb after they do pick-up on your street, because it will still be there until the next scheduled pick-up, and you could receive a ticket. However, if the DPW crew drives by during collection and misses your yard waste, please contact them as soon as possible at 834-7462 or by e-mail so it gets picked up right away. Size and weight restrictions (not more than 50 pounds, no longer than 4' lengths) are strictly enforced, so please contact the DPW at (231) 834-7462 if you have any questions. As a reminder, please do not place any brush or yard waste at the curb for pick-up more than 1 or 2 days before the next scheduled pick-up. If the regular pick-up day falls on a Saturday or Sunday, it will be moved to Monday. If you have missed the scheduled pick-up, please be patient as the yard waste will be removed at the next scheduled pick-up day.
Taxpayer Assistance
Are you a taxpayer in need of assistance? Information about taxpayer assistance available has been provided by the Newaygo County Treasurer's office.
City Surveillance Camera
Check out a state-of-the-art surveillance camera located at the newly rebuilt Ryan Benson Memorial Skatepark. Using a compatible internet browser (not Mozilla Firefox), the username is 'public' and the password is 'public', and we recommend that you hold down the "Ctrl" button at the same time you click on the link. Although you will not be able to maneuver the camera, you can see what City officials and the Grant Police Department are always keeping an eye on. Residents and visitors who observe inappropriate activity are encouraged to contact the Grant Police Department with the day and exact time of any incident, so that the recordings can be reviewed. We are regularly monitoring park activity, but do appreciate your assistance.
Zoning Ordinance #27-2 (As Amended on January 18, 2010) is available on the Living in Grant page.
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$130,000 Grant received to renovate the Community Center
The Fremont Area Community Foundation looked favorably on our $35,000 grant request to replace the leaky roof and enclose the front of the building near the restrooms. Then they kicked in an additional $95,000 to help us renovate the outdated kitchen, upgrade the heating/cooling system, install and handicap-accessible ramp, and remediate the start of a mold problem in the basement. The new roof is finished, the exterior trim is re-painted, and the construction bids were opened on September 2, 2009. The low bid was from K-Van, and with the blessing of The Fremont Area Community Foundation, the work is now complete. The new windows are incredible, and the renovated kitchen and basement are much brighter and cleaner. The old steps were removed and replacement, and a handicap-accessible ramp was installed in April. The bathrooms have also been completely renovated! It's nice that this community treasure can be saved for enjoyment by generations to come.
Streetscape Enhancement Project Fall 2009
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The Historic Wooden Water Tower is now home at Water Tower Park. This wonderful project would not be possible without the generous grant funding from The Fremont Area Community Foundation and many generous donations.
The roof was restored and both donor plaques were placed. The caboose was repainted, and the Chessie System logo was hand-painted separately. City of Grant taxpayer dollars spent on this project was $132.00.
The Michigan Registry of Historic Places has approved the plaque in December 2010, and once it is finished, it will be placed in the park to celebrate this historic community treasure.
More details available about the Historic Wooden Water Tower Move
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| City of Grant Water Tower Park in June 2009 |
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Reporting Street Light Outages
Have you ever noticed a street light that has burned out or seems to flicker on and off? You can help fix the problem by notifying Consumers Energy through their website and easy to use form. It only takes a few minutes and within three days the light should be fixed. From any computer with internet go to: www.consumersenergy.com
Click on the button “For Home”
Click on the button “Report Power Out”
Click on the “Report a Streetlight Problem” option
Complete and submit the form and you are done!
City staff have always reported streetlights out when a problem is brought to our attention, and we do have several located along M-37 and Front Street that are awaiting major repairs by Consumers Energy. We appreciate your assistance and welcome your calls and e-mails.
Useful Information about our Community:
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