Sumpter Township celebrates Rob Young’s 35 years as township attorney

The Sumpter Township Board of Trustees celebrated Rob Young’s 35 years of sitting at the township board table as its township attorney.
This was at the regular meeting on Aug. 8 when board members surprised him with a plaque, a crystal award, a cake with his likeness from 1988 on it, and many accolades. The first 25 minutes of the one-hour-18-minute combined workshop and regular meeting was spent praising Young.
Speakers were township manager Anthony Burdick, Treasurer Bart Patterson, Public Safety Director/Police Chief Eric Luke, Trustees Matthew Oddy and Tim Rush, Supervisor Tim Bowman, and Deputy Clerk Karen Armatis who said he exemplified a long list of positive character traits, which she listed.
Attorney Young said his wife Audrey was present in the front row with their daughter Hillary, who lives in California and was visiting for two weeks. He said they have encouraged him it’s time to move on, but he stopped short of saying he would retire.
“I understand why Peggy’s not here tonight,” he said, referring to Trustee Peggy Morgan who has had differences with Young. Trustee Morgan was absent and excused from that night’s meeting.
The workshop stopped long enough for everyone to get a piece of cake to eat and then moved on.
In other business at the meeting the board:
• Heard Burdick report the plan for mowing and grading in the township by Wayne County, that the AFSCME union employee issue was moving into arbitration, a water main emergency at Rawsonville Road having to do with the Rawsonville Road project now under way where 600 to 700 feet is now covered only by 12 inches, that policy manual updates have been given to the Human Resource Committee for review, a proposal to select a company to handle utility billing for the township at a cost of $8,000 (3,200 bills each quarter), and a proposal to select another real estate firm to list 18 parcels of property owned by the township. Several of these issues are proposed for the Aug. 22 meeting agenda.