McNamara: VBT buys house north of Lakeside Park property

At the end of a 45-minute meeting of the Van Buren Township Board of Trustees on June 2, resident Reg Ion was the only person to make public comments.
After several complaints about the township, he changed the subject and asked if what he saw on Facebook was true: that the township bought the “Skelly” property just north of the former DNR property on the lake. The township currently is transforming the DNR property it now owns into a Lakeside Park.
The property Ion referred to has been nicknamed the “Skelly” or “Scully” house because of the huge skeleton in the yard, along with other Halloween-inspired decorations on the property all year around. There had been complaints about the traffic and parking considerations in that area of Belleville Road because of the Halloween events there.
Supervisor Kevin McNamara said since it was on Facebook, he might as well talk about it. He said the purchase agreement had been signed but they had not officially closed on the sale so he meant to ask the attorney if it was OK to discuss it.
He said the township is buying the property for $1.35 million, but made no other comments.
In his public comments, Ion also asked the township to close the road in front of his home during the upcoming airshow at Willow Run Airport. He said VBT police used to do that and stopped a few years ago, allowing those wishing to watch the airshow without tickets to park up and down the South Service Drive of Ecorse Road in front of his house. Last year a man set up his barbecue in Ion’s driveway, he said.
Ion said his dogs bark for three days during the air show. He said when he tried to talk to police about this, the officer was rude to him.
Supervisor McNamara said he will bring it to the police’s attention and he doesn’t know the law on that.
Ion said police don’t let people park along Ecorse Road on the North Service Drive and police told him a few years ago that it was because the owner of the property didn’t want parking. The ownership of that property has changed.
Ion also said there is a big dust problem at the Willow Run Airport and he thinks there should be an air quality report done on the airport. He said they have been playing with a big dirt pile for seven years and the dust blows into his yard.
Then, he started complaining about clerk Leon Wright not providing the proper American flags for the voting precincts. He said when he complained in the past, they came up with a “dinky” flag, the size of those on the township board table. He said after many tries to get flags at the precincts he has given up.
Ion said he was told by the state that if there is an American flag flying on a pole outside the building that is good enough.
Clerk Wright protested his innocence and said the schools didn’t have flags for the precincts. Ion, who retired as head of custodial service at the school district, claimed all the schools had flags.
In other business at the June 2 meeting, the board:
• Heard supervisor McNamara discuss the permanent injunction by Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Kevin Cox against bringing certain radioactive waste to the Wayne Disposal landfill on the North I-94 Service Drive. McNamara said the fight against the waste was “a battle” and if you put 10 lawyers in a room together they would all agree that the township would lose the case. He said a coalition of governments was put together by volunteers and the testimony from McNamara and Belleville mayor Ken Voigt was called “compelling” by the judge. He said the win was a “minor miracle” since the opposition was bringing in their lawyers by minibus from Chicago. “We hope we will win in their appeal. I think we will,” he said;
• Heard McNamara announce that while he was out of town, work in his office totaled up a sum of $52 million in grants for the township since 2018 and another $24 million is coming in by the end of summer;
• Approved a fireworks display permit for the Belleville Yacht Club for Saturday, July 4, with a rain date of Sunday, July 5;
• Approved an updated contract with The Mannik & Smith Group, Inc. for the 2027-31 Parks and Recreation Master Plan Update;
• Approved a budget amendment, making a special line item for the $1,449,600 already approved for Fishbeck design, engineering, and administrative contracts for Lakeside Park. This will make expenses on the park easier to track, McNamara said;
• Heard a presentation on the HomeServe program for water and sewer coverage for VBT residents in the event of an emergency. It’s an insurance program that costs $5.99 a month for internal water lines and $8.49 a month for external sewer lines. If the township approves, the company will send out letters to residents to alert them to the offer and interview local contractors to participate;
• Approved a special land use application of DeBucks Family Farm for a pre-existing agrotourism use located at 40240 Martz Rd. McNamara said he hopes more people take part in agrotourism in the township’s rural community south of the lake;
• Approved the sub-recipient agreement for a Community Development Block Grant award for senior services salary in the amount of $20,000;
• Approved a two-year contract for preventative maintenance and on-call services for the township’s HVAC equipment to W.J. O’Neil in the amount of $42,870. There were nine bids for the contract, costing from $17,000 to $205,000. Any work will be reported to Cityworks, a computer program keeping track of everything being repaired or getting old in the township; and
• Approved the purchase of a 2027 Freightline M2 Tandem Axle Dump Truck for a not-to-exceed amount of $127,228 to replace the 2003 truck that is rusted out and has other problems. The new truck is expected to be delivered in two months.