City Council approves Chamber’s Winter Fest Tree Contest

Victory Park will have a bright display of Christmas trees from Thanksgiving through mid-December under a new contest approved by the Belleville City Council on Monday.
Paul Henning of the Belleville Area Chamber of Commerce presented the Winter Fest contest to the council, but it is Randy Brown’s project and he answered most of the questions the council had.
The rules call for all the live trees entered in the contest to be purchased from Brown’s business, Gardener’s Choice in Van Buren Township, at a contest entrance fee of $25 each. Then those live trees should be decorated in weather-resistant decorations and battery-operated LED lights and delivered to Victory Park no later than Nov. 30 for display placement.
Brown said he will stake them into the ground at the park and the trees will be displayed and judged on Dec. 1. Winners will be announced from the bandstand during the Parade of Lights and certificates/ribbon awards presented at a January city council meeting.
There are two categories: 1. Families/Individuals/Youth Groups and 2. Businesses.
Henning said, if possible, the decorated trees will be donated to needy families. Otherwise, the rules say they must be picked up between Dec. 15 and Dec. 22, or the Chamber will discard them.
Fire Chief Brian Loranger said that the live trees will need to be watered and Brown assured him they will be watered.
Councilman Tom Fielder said the tree contest was brought to the Parks and Recreation Commission’s last meeting and engendered lots of discussion. He said the commission thought it was a great idea.
City Manager Diana Kollmeyer said DPW Director Rick Rutherford will walk Victory Park with Brown and Henning to determine where the trees can be placed.
In other business at Monday’s 38-minute meeting, the council:
• Approved other parts of the Chamber of Commerce’s Winter Fest, including two performances of Animal Magic (one on Friday, Nov. 30, and one on Saturday, Dec. 1), a soup contest, parade of lights at 6 p.m. Saturday, and fire works at 9 p.m. Henning announced the three fire chiefs for the tri-community would be grand marshals of the parade. Parade theme is “Songs of the Season”;
• Approved the city’s participation in data collection for the Iron Belle Trail that will cost the city nothing but time. Downtown Development Authority Coordinator Carol Thompson reported she attended a meeting of the Huron Waterloo Pathways Initiative, a private non-profit with money available to conduct an engineering study for a trail connection through Van Buren Township and Belleville. Thompson said 60% of the Iron Belle Trail is established with existing trails and they are working to add the rest of the links. She said VBT recommended PEA, Inc. for the study, since it had done preliminary work for the township on possible trail locations last year. PEA’s work is expected to be completed in June 2019 and proposed cost of the study by PEA is $103,000;
• Approved a five-year contract with the Huron River Watershed Council to continue its pollution reduction efforts for the Huron River and its tributaries. Cost of the Middle Huron Partnership is $562.50 in 2019, $656.25 in 2020, $750 in 2021, $843.75 in 2022, and $937.50 in 2023. The council agreed that with the recent pollution problems in Belleville Lake this is a good investment;
• Announced winners of the 2018 Scarecrow Contest: Business Category, Cedar Woods Assisted Living & Memory Care; Families/Individuals, The Harper Family; Youth Groups/Organizations, Wayne County Fairgrounds; and Adult Groups/Organizations, Belleville Area Garden Club. Photos of the winners will be in next week’s Independent;
• Approved accounts payable of $140,554.74 and the following purchases in excess of $500: to Mueller Systems, $1,904.60 for meters/remote readers, Water Department; to Door Doctor, $1,863 for door repairs; to Superior Auto & Truck, $1,555.64 for brake repair on the dump truck; to Moore & Boundtree Medical, $1,563.39 for fire truck supplies; to Wise Technologies, $798.75 for computer/phone support; and to Osborne Concrete, $765 for road repair;
• Heard Nathaniel Oregon promote an “Are You OK?” program aimed at preventing suicides. He said there were three suicides in the community and “Three’s too many.” He said local supporters will invite the police chiefs and fire chiefs from the tri-communities and others to a luncheon at Wayne County Community College at the beginning of next year to brainstorm “what we can do better.” He also promoted his church’s “From Babylon to America” Bible prophecy conference, starting Nov. 14, with Oregon being a featured speaker. It is being held at Seventh Day Adventist Church, 89 S. Edgemont St. He also is taking donations for a PTSD program for fire, police, and other emergency workers;
• Heard Chief Loranger ask when the broken stop sign at W. Columbia and Church streets will be fixed. Kollmeyer said the county is taking its time in fixing it; and
• Went into closed-door session to discuss the status and strategy of pending union negotiations and came back into regular session only to adjourn.