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"It's been a good month," said St. Mary baseball coach Steve Plamondon while adding up the wins.
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The Leelanau County Construction Code office may issue a permanent certificate of occupancy for the new Government Center in Suttons Bay Township sometime this summer.
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All Leelanau County residents are invited to attend a dedication ceremony and open house at the new Leelanau County Government Center in Suttons Bay Township on Sunday, May 18, from 1 to 4:30 p.m.
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A company that failed to win a contract to install voice and data cabling in the new Leelanau County Government Center is suing the county - again.
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Mark Walter of Elmwood Township this week officially filed paperwork to put his name on the Aug. 5 Primary ballot to seek the Republican nomination for Leelanau County Sheriff.
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Three county women excelled recently at a regional taekwondo event.
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Leelanau Democrats are definitely up and running.
For the first time in memory, the race for seats on the Leelanau County Board of Commissioner may not be won in the August Primary Election when voters decide which Republican will serve on the county board.
Normally, Republicans run unopposed in the November General Election.
However, with nearly a week left before a deadline to submit nominating petitions for the Aug. 5 primary, an unprecedented number of Democrats – three so far – have filed to run for county commissioner’s seats.
One of those Democrats, David G. Marshall of Glen Arbor, is currently running unopposed for the seat held by Republican Robert Hawley, the county board chairman and District No. 6 commissioner.
“I’ve been agonizing for quite a while over whether to run for another term on the county board,” Hawley said Tuesday – the very day his wife, Joan Hawley, lost her bid for re-election to the Glen Lake Community Schools Board of Education.
“I’ve been on the county board for eight years now,” Hawley said. “I’ve done my time, so to speak, and it would be nice to take off for Hawaii or some place for a couple of months during the winter without being criticized for it. I’m hoping another Republican will file to run so I don’t have to. I’ve filled in all the paperwork; but I may wait until the final deadline before I decide what to do.”
The chairman of the Leelanau Democrats, Jon Boulton of Elmwood Township, said it’s no coincidence that more Democrats will appear on the August Primary ballot this year to run for county commissioners’ seats.
“We’ve been working hard to make it happen, and there may be a fourth candidate stepping forward very soon,” Boulton said. Seven seats on the county board will be decided in November.
Boulton added that the county party organization’s Campaign and Candidate Committee had been working steadily all year with precinct delegates to recruit candidates, and he credited party member Fred Cepela of Solon Township with playing a key role.
“We haven’t had to do much convincing in most cases to get people to run,” Cepela said. “The last couple of elections have shown us that more Leelanau County residents than ever are willing to vote for Democrats.”
Cepela noted that, nationally, dissatisfaction with the Republican administration in the White House may be responsible for a record number of Democrats showing up at the polls to vote in the primaries.
“A lot of people are fed up with the Republican Party,” Cepela said. “And on the local level, the fact that a Democrat running for state Representative earned a majority of the votes in Leelanau County has definitely convinced a lot of people that Democrats can win in this county.”
Dan Scripps of Northport ran for the 101st District house seat in November 2006 and lost narrowly to the Republican incumbent, David Palsrok. In Leelanau County, however, Scripps won 5,932 to 5,885 against Palsrok.
Scripps is now the presumptive Democratic nomineee for the state House position in this year’s election. Palsrok is term-limited; and the race is under way for the Republican nomination.
Meanwhile, the longest-serving member of the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners, District No. 7 commissioner Melinda Lautner, a Republican from Solon Township, is being challenged by Traci Cruz of Kasson Township.
And District No. 3 commissioner Will Bunek, a Republican from Suttons Bay, is being challenged for his seat on the county board by Jackie Freeman, a Suttons Bay Democrat.
“This will be a great year for Democrats” Freeman predicted, “and I’m certainly encouraging more Democrats to run for office.”
Cruz noted that the party organization’s efforts to recruit more candidates for county office has been in the works for some time.
“And there’s still time to recruit more Democrats to run for township positions,” Cruz added.
Other Republican county commissioners running for reelection remain unchallenged so far, including District No. 1 commissioner Jean Watkoski, and District No. 4 commissioner Mary Tonneberger.
District No. 5 commissioner David “Chauncey” Shiflett, also a Republican, said he plans to run for reelection and expected to file a petition before next week’s deadline.
Currently, no one is running for the District No. 2 county commissioner’s seat held by Mark Walter, a Republican. Walter last week officially declared his candidacy for the Republican nomination for Sheriff, challenging incumbent Mike Oltersdorf, also a Republican.
Walter said he’d spoken with potential candidates to fill his county commissioner’s seat – both Republicans and Democrats – and said that party affiliation mattered less to him than whether his replacement is competent to serve on the county board.
Two Suttons Bay middle school students received punishment this week for their role in a prank.
Superintendent Mike Murray held expulsion hearings Monday for two eighth grade male students. He expelled one for the remainder of the school year, while the second student will be barred from attending school for a month. The last day of classes for students is June 6 at Suttons Bay.
The disciplinary action followed an April 22 incident in which the two male students pulled down the pants of a female student returning to the school at the conclusion of track practice. None of the students involved in the incident was identified by Murray.
“They thought it was a harmless prank — I didn’t,” the superintendent said. “By all accounts, these are good kids with good grades and are well behaved. They just got away with spring frivolity.”
Murray said that the parents of the students being disciplined argued that it was a harmless prank and that the students involved have known one another since kindergarten.
The first male pulled the shorts down and the girl’s pants were ripped when she tried to keep them up as the second boy pulled them down.
“I don’t have a sense of humor when it comes to this — an act which shows disrespect,” he said.
Murray said board bylaws authorize him to hold expulsion hearings and take action without coming to the Board of Education.
Firefighters with Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, in coordination with crews with the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, will conduct a controlled burn on 66 acres in the Port Oneida Rural Historic District sometime this month.
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