Vision

My vision  remains to provide all township residents with timely, accurate information that enables and encourages participation in the business of your township. What does that mean? It means that you have a door open for you to assist the township to  determine priorities for spending your tax dollars. It also means that your  public officials will be held accountable for the decisions they make for you.
Information power - When you are interested in participating in your community, then I want to help you to do just that. After all, you are busy working, raising a family and living a very busy life, and I personally want you to know that I am here to serve the best interests of our township residents. I am asking you to vote for  me so I can work for you.

I have served as your Township Clerk since elected in 2004, and with my 24 years of strong accounting work experience, I promise to continue to be a strong, determined voice for responsible spending.

In 2004 I ran a very successful campaign, winning the election with 68% of the votes from the incumbent. In 2006 we defeated a recall election with 77% of the votes

We have a strong base of support from everyday people like you and me. Everyday people that want to be involved in their community. They  are committed to staying the course, sticking to the high road and doing the very best for our township.

I was raised by my Dad to understand the value of saving up for what I wanted to buy, and to do it meant keeping to the budget, and I did it.  I promise to do my best to save money by working efficiently and stopping wasteful spending. We can then put our money to work to serve the community, not the developers and not special interests.

Education

While working full time I earned my Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting from Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, in five years from 1979 to 1984. Currently I am enrolled in the Michigan Townships Governance Academy to continue learning about new ideas on township money management. These are workshops on how to work together as a team and how to apply these ideas to the problems we face here at home in Augusta Township.

Accomplishments

• Beginning in 2007, I reduced the Accounting Budget by $50,000 per year by bringing the accounting and bookkeeping work back into the Clerk’s office instead of sending the work to an outside company. I will continue to search for areas in which we can cut the wasteful spending. By doing so wewill hold down local tax rate levels and put the savings to work where you need it most. Roads! Budget management!

• While I campaigned for Township Clerk in 2004, I saw first hand the long lines that our “Precinct 2” voters had to wait in to cast their vote in the last presidential election. Voters stood in the lines for 45 minutes, and up to one hour fifteen minutes, while “Precinct 1” voters seemingly had no lines at all. Something had to be done to reduce the wait.

  Shortly after being elected I led the Election Commission composed of the Clerk and two Board Trustees to establish our townships’ third voting precinct. The new ”Precinct 3” reduced the long voting lines and significantly reduced the time spent standing in line to have your voice heard. Together, the Election Commission, our Township’s Election Inspectors and the Clerk’s office have successfully managed 8 township elections.

• As Clerk I organized and implemented the first annual Strategic Planning Meeting with our professional land zoning consultants in February 2007. This effort documents the status of board actions regarding applications submitted by all developers so that there would be no doubt that developers are required to follow our zoning application rules and pay for the review fees.  You want to elect people that will defend our zoning laws, and who will preserve and protect the rural character of our community.

  The second annual Strategic meeting was held in March 2008 and focused on the status of each developer’s application. It documented the number of homes they had built, the number of homes authorized and which applications that had expired. This review exposed a significant number of past due application fees that had not been paid by developers.  In 2007, Trustee William Tobler and I sought and received Board approval to form the Accounts Receivable Committee to start collecting the past due developer fees amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars neglected by current management since the prior administration.

  In my professional career as an accountant I have come to realize that teamwork is essential to the financial success of an organization..  The same can be said for Augusta Township government. After taking office in November 2004, I asked the Supervisor and Treasurer to meet weekly to coordinate the township business workload. In the spring of 2005, Supervisor Jackson cancelled the weekly meetings saying “there seemed no reason to continue them”.  In late July 2007 Trustee Dew was appointed to fill the vacancy of Treasurer. Once  again realizing the importance of teamwork, I sent a personal invitation to meet for the purpose of finding a way to work together to produce the township board’s financial reports. As a result of those meetings I had successfully Initiated Officers Meetings to Promote Cooperation.  By October 2007, the Supervisor, Treasurer and I were meeting every Wednesday to address Township business. Recently both Treasurer Dew and Supervisor Jackson announced that they would no longer attend the Officers meetings. As a result, there is a long list of the work directed by the board that the Officers have not yet completed. This work would support the Supervisor and the Treasurer as they perform their financial reporting duties.

• In 2003, I founded the Augusta News newsletter.  In my opinion, a newsletter brings a community of people together to share our different interests and concerns about where we live. A newsletter promotes a sense of community and offers us an opportunity to share information. The newsletter’s motto is “Enhancing Public Understanding and Community Involvement”.  I wrote the newsletter policy to fund the newsletter with advertising dollars so as not to burden the taxpayers. I so strongly believe in this project that I contributed over $850.00 of my personal money to get the newsletter off the ground.  I have not, nor will I, ask to be reimbursed by the township until the sale of advertising space can fund that reimbursement.

  After Trustee Kidder and I survived a recall election in February of 2006, I continued to support the creation of a township newsletter. During the April 11th, 2006 Board meeting a  Motion by Giszczak, 2nd by Kidder to Approve the Spring/Summer 2006 Augusta Newsletter for acceptable advertising and acceptable content for publication and delivery by May 1st, 2006 failed because Manty, Jackson and Dew voted no. Since the yes and no votes tied at 3 votes each, the motion failed.

• As a resident, in 2003, I Introduced the Purchase of Development Rights Ordinance. The purpose was to protect farms & to keep our rural character. The prior Board which held office through November 2004 took no action to move this important legislation. That Board failed to hold a public hearing. In early 2005 as an elected official, I reintroduced the Ordinance and we held public hearings to protect our farmlands, establishing a five member Farmland Preservation Board. In my capacity as a Board Member I was appointed as the Board’s Liaison to the Farmland Preservation Board.

  In 2007 the Farmland Preservation Board membership was expanded to a seven member board. The expanded membership was necessary to accommodate the interest of our community members to serve on the Farmland Preservation Board.In 2006 the Farmland Preservation Board held a community forum. We invited actively farmed agricultural land owners to ask what interest they held in this Farmland Preservation program and to help guide us in setting our boards goals. In May 2008 the Township Board accepted the Farmland Preservation Board’s recommendation to partner with the Preserve Washtenaw Charter.  

• As Founder of HOT Works, a series of free workshops whose focus was to educate residents  on How Our Township Works demonstrates that my commitment  to provide information to township residents is stronger than ever. I have  voluntarily worked to provide short, one hour workshops on various township topics. Topics have included township financial reports, elections and land use. These workshops are called “HOT Works” which stands for How Our Township Works.

The most significant personal interest I have is the one that led me to be interested in running for township office back in 2004. Aside from my enjoyment of fly fishing & wilderness camping with my husband, growing and canning vegetables from our own vegetable garden, I most enjoy my volunteer work as a Washtenaw County MSU Advanced Master Gardener.

In 2000, I successfully completed the Master Gardener Program and became very interested in the Soil Science course. Soil Science is basically about identifying just the right kind and amounts of fertilizers to grow healthy plants. Soil Science requries  less money and in the long run helps to protect our water quality in ponds, streams and lakes. Every year, I earn my Master Gardener recertification through my volunteer work with the Soil Testing Program.

During this time I found my interests expand into attending the Huron River Watershed Council’s (HRWC) monthly Sunday evening workshops on a large variety of topics related to keeping our water-ways healthy to support fishing and recreation. I was introduced to these workshops by Augusta’s strongest voice; you could say he was an activist. He came to every Township meeting; he rallied people to run for office; he spoke of the insurmountable apathy of our citizenry, about democratic rights to vote for our leaders and shook the roof when he spoke of the wasteful spending of our Utility Fund. He was right; the losses in the Utility Fund under the Supervisor’s statutory management were, and still are, significant losses. 

At the HRWC workshops I learned how our use of the land affects the cleanliness of our waters and how we can prevent damaging flooding events. I learned that it is at the local township government level that decisions affecting land use are made. Later there was an opening to represent the Township on the Stony Creek Watershed Steering Committee through Eastern Michigan University. The Board appointed me to be our liaison. This steering committee was created by a grant from the Federal EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and managed by the MDEQ (Michigan Department of Environmental Quality) to study the Stony Creek Watershed.

The Study was to identify solutions to the problems faced by the Stony Creek Watershed that starts as Paint Creek runs from Ypsilanti near the Meijer Store on Carpenter Road down through Augusta Township linking up with Stony Creek just south of our township border on its way to Lake Erie.

Paint Creek is still listed as a designated trout stream even though it is in serious danger of becoming too warm to support trout because of the intense land development. It is important to note that I am also a licensed builder. I believe in responsible development that does no harm to our current and future taxpayers or our trout streams.  Development should pay for Development, including the cost of better land development practices that will prevent flooding and save future generations from having to pay for the drainage problems that could be prevented.

I hope that if you have any questions that you will feel completely at ease to email or call because My Vision is to provide you with vital township information, encourage your participation in local government, identify resident needs and priorities, and to hold your  township officials accountable.