Mills Township looking for new ordinance enforcement officer
Township also receives bids for fire department project
By Greg Buckner
Staff Writer | reporter@ogemawherald.com
MILLS TWP. — Mills Township will begin to search for a new ordinance enforcement officer after current officer Steve Pennington informed the township he plans to leave the position.
According to Township Supervisor Lloyd Saunders, Pennington informed him Oct. 9, prior to the township board’s regular monthly meeting, of his plans to leave once a replacement is found.
“Steve has done an excellent job here,” Saunders said. “But he has other commitments and he will leave his current position once we find a replacement.”
Until a replacement is found, Saunders said Pennington will continue his current duties as normal.
Saunders said the township will advertise the position and Pennington will be very involved in finding a new ordinance enforcement officer.
“He has already done some checking with people he knows who might be interested in the position,” Saunders said. “He obviously knows that position very well, so he will be very involved in the process and will help make the decision on his replacement.”
As far as what the township is looking for in his replacement, Saunders said the township prefers to hire someone with some experience in law enforcement.
“With this position, the officer has to do things like write tickets, go to court and other aspects that people with backgrounds in law enforcement already have experience with,” Saunders said.
Also on Oct. 9, the township board opened the three bids it received for a building improvement project for the township’s fire department building.
The board voted 5-0 to table a decision on the bids until a later date.
“We set specific specifications for the project and one of the bids wasn’t to the exact specifications we set,” Saunders said. “In hindsight, I personally think we should have tabled the discussion until we had the chance to fully research each bid and then bring it to the meeting.”
He said the three bids range from $4,750 to $7,849.
“I just think it wouldn’t be fair to the contractors to make a decision on this without having all of the info we can on the bids, making sure they all meet our specifications from the bid we sent out,” Saunders said.
The project includes installing a 30-by-30 cement approach pad in the rear of the building, adding 150 yards of heavy fill to extend the drive out 50 feet beyond the new pad and installing 1 inch of road mix limestone to complete the final grade of the circle driveway around the rear of the building.