Houghton has officially annexed the future site of the Houghton County Jail. Houghton’s city council officially approved a resolution to annex 19741 Sharon Avenue. Portage Township will need to pass a corresponding resolution to allow the annexation to take place at the state level.
Essentially when it gets down to annexation, it comes down to taxation, right? That’s what it boils down to. Certain government operations, which would be presumably other possible court or administrative functions of the county may be located there. I know you’re talking about a contingency, but I don’t see any issue with that.– Eric Waara, City Manager, City of Houghton
Houghton County will soon begin work on the jail’s plans with a committee.
In additional action, the city council approved the Downtown Development Authority’s mini-facade grant recommendations. The program awards grants to local businesses for projects that liven up the downtown, encouraging residents and visitors to spend time and money in the city. One business withdrew from the program.
I would inform the DDA that they did withdraw. The DDA could choose to treat this as if someone was made an award but didn’t do their project. That money would just roll into next year. Or they could reconsider reallocating that if the DDA desires. Reallocating it to one of the other projects within the requests, would then probably put us right back in here discussing something at some point. But we have had it on occasion where someone was made an award for a facade mini-grant and just never got around to doing the project. Those funds just remain within the DDA budget and they roll over as fund balance to the following year. – Eric Waara, City Manager, City of Houghton
City Manager Eric Waara shared that those funds will return to the DDA mini façade budget for future awards. In total the city awarded 38,500 dollars to ten projects. Final action by the city included appointing a new fire chief and member of the council to the planning commission. Councilor Craig Waddell will join to planning commission. Eric James will take over as the Fire Chief of the City of Houghton Fire Department. Current Fire Chief Mike Reynolds plans to step down after many years of service. Chief of Police John Donnelly shared that Houghton has enjoyed many years of stability in public service leaders.
coming to the end of obviously a tremendous wonderful career by Fire Chief Mike Reynolds and this is unofficially but I always say this that since 1976 we’ve had three city managers, three city clerks, three city treasurers, three police chiefs, and three fire chiefs which I am confident is a Guinness World Record. But it does speak, that’s a lot of longevity for city employees. So we certainly will be sorry to see Chief Reynolds step down, but we’re looking forward to working with whoever the next Chief is. – John Donnelly, Chief of Police, City of Houghton Police Department
Before the city council meeting a Zoning Board of Appeals hearing was held for three properties. All three zoning appeals were granted to property owners. 106 South Avenue and 109 West Edwards both plan to construct a garage on the respective lots. At 1222 Sherwood Drive the property owner plans to build a home.
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