VBT Board meeting cut short by strong natural gas odor

By Rosemary K. Otzman
Independent Editor
The last regular meeting of the year of the Van Buren Township Board of Trustees Tuesday evening was cut short by a strong odor of natural gas in the board meeting room.
When board members started arriving for the 7 p.m. meeting, the strong gas smell was evident. Supervisor Linda Combs tried to call DTE, but said she couldn’t get through, so she called VBT Dispatch, who sent a police officer and a fire crew.
While the fire fighters were testing the air, the township meeting started with the pledge to the flag and a moment of silence in memory of the late Ralph Nodwell.
Then, after conferring with Fire Battalion Chief David McInally, Police Lt. Charles Bazzy ordered the room evacuated.
There were about ten members of the audience who joined board members out in the hallway while fire fighters used a generator and a big fan to air out the main meeting room.
There still was a reading of 30 in the main room and a fluctuating zero to 11 in the smaller meeting room across the hallway. Fire fighters said it was safe to meet for about a half hour and so the meeting reconvened in the smaller room at 7:22 p.m. and all the business was done in 16 minutes.
The main item on the agenda was approving the amended 2013 and the proposed 2014 budgets, which they did with Trustee Reggie Miller voting no.
The new fee schedule was approved, with Miller voting no, and amendments to the Industrial Facility Tax Exemption Guidelines were approved unanimously.